Yoga Nidra: Sleeping Into Divine🔗

One man a Zen master woke up from bed and started weeping. His disciples were perplexed. Zen masters are unpredictable. Their ways of teaching are mysterious, untraditional. One disciple, a chief disciple, asked the master: why are you weeping? Master said last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly and flying in the garden. Disciple asked: it was just a dream, why are you crying. Master said: I do not know whether I dreamt that I became a butterfly or whether the butterfly is dreaming now that it is a master with so many disciples.

Both thoughts were transient, not permanent. But do we understand? We always think that whatever we are is permanent. We try to possess it, identify with it.

We have 4 states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep and one more. If we understand these states we can live more joyfully. There are two states of mind and two states of consciousness overlapping to create 4 states in all. In waking state we are with thoughts and I consciousness. In Sanskrit this is called jagrat. In deep sleep we have no thought; we have no I consciousness. We do not have any identification or thoughts. This is shusupti in Sanskrit. In the dream state, swapna, we have only thoughts but no I consciousness. We may think of ourselves in very many different forms. Once we think of I, we come out of the dream. As soon as you feel you are dreaming you will wake up. There is a fourth state where there are no thoughts but we know who we are. In Sanskrit this state is called turiya or samadhi. This state is unknown to Western philosophers and psychologists and they have no name for it.

Every student of spirituality needs to understand these states. These are different layers of our Being. In jagrat you use the physical body, the sthula sarira. In dream state swapna, you see your subtle body, sukshma sarira. You may be sleeping in LA, but see yourself in India with your parents. You are using your subtle body. The third body is karana sarira that is used in deep sleep. It is conscious, sub conscious and unconscious states in these three states. Whatever is unfulfilled in conscious state, anything you suppress is brought back in your dream or sub conscious state. If you fast while waking, you dream of feasting at night. If you are afraid of snakes, and suppress thoughts of them in the conscious state, you will dream of snakes. If your boss mistreats you and you can not deal with him consciously you will seek revenge in your dreams. Your suppressed anger, hidden fears, violence or sexual desires will come out in dreams. In the unconscious deep sleep or karana sarira state your mind is processing all information you have collected. If you see hundred things you look at only two things, you observe and take in only 2 things consciously. The rest goes into your unconscious.

My driver had been driving me for 6 months between our ashram outside Bangalore to the City Centre and back. I told him one day to go to a place near a mosque. He said he had not seen any mosque where I wanted to go. I explained to him where it was. Still he didn't agree. Finally I took him through each point. He remembered a Hanuman temple, but the mosque which was opposite the temple was at least 5 times bigger. He sees this every day, remembers the small temple but not the much bigger mosque. His Hindu conditioning does not let him consciously record the mosque. His eyes see the mosque but mind does not record it.

All that you see but not record or what your mind thinks is not useful to you goes into the unconscious. What is recorded is based on your mental conditioning. In a house we all live in one place but not together; after honeymoon husband and wife do not live together. They live only with the idea that each one has of the other. Each looks at the other through the mental conditioning one forms of the other and judges through that conditioning. You remember the coffee your wife dropped on you, not all the wonderful meals she cooked for you. It is like reading a 100 page novel you are left with only 2 pages, from which you are made to reconstruct the original novel. Out of 100 observations you record only 2 and judge the other person. How many times do you look into each other's eyes? It is only through the eyes that you see the real person, identify the real person. We are afraid to look into another person's eyes because we want to hide things; we do not want people to know who we are. We prefer to live with the conditioning, the template, the image and not the real person.

Only one state, one body is under your control, the other two are not. That's why you can not enjoy life. I went to the Universal Studio in LA. Some one asked me: what can you, a Swami, enjoy there? I said, fool, sanyas is the ultimate luxury a man can have. When you see a rose, whatever you enjoy, I enjoy many times more; because I live with three bodies, while you live with only one. If I ask you to raise your right hand, you all will, because you can control the physical body. If I ask you to focus on your third eye, can you? You can not because your subtle body is not under your control. You can not sleep whenever you want because that body is not under your control. When I come out in the morning I come out with a lot of written papers. Because the third body is under my control I do not need much time to rest; quantity of sleep can be less but quality will be high. God gave you 100 acres but you use only 33 acres; rest is desert. An enlightened man lives all 100 acres.

Unless you are joyful how can you enjoy, whether Universal Studio or anything else? Anything can depress you, since you have mastered the art of worrying. If everything goes well today you will think that tomorrow something bad will happen. The subtle body creates depression if it's not under your control. You do not live and enjoy the present. You worry now about the past and future. You enjoy only from photos, instead of enjoying the scenery. Quality of life becomes so much more when you bring these two bodies under control.

In Zen tea ceremony a cup of tea brings you great joy, when you focus on it. The master brings all 3 bodies under control as you meditate on the pouring of the tea. You do not even have to drink the tea. When you normally eat or drink do you feel

the satisfaction? You only feel hunger and thirst. You eat and drink for energy. Do you feel energetic after eating? You feel lazy instead. If you feel darkness when the sun rises there is something wrong. If you understand this you will live life well.

Tantra says: Only a person who has all these three bodies under control can enjoy a relationship, otherwise you can only procreate.

In our ASP we have one session on sex, there is one on muladhara chakra. People ask, you are a sanyasin, how can you talk about sex? If you are sixty and married you can, how can you; you do not even have that experience? I say, you all can only reproduce, not enjoy sex. An ordinary man can switch a light on and off. Only an electrician knows the circuit. Without switching on each light on and off he can diagnose any problems and rectify. It is not necessary for me to go and see; I know the circuit. Before a man enters grihasta

in the olden days, he was trained in spiritual ways. Westerner philosophers say that this is reverse; you should first experience and then you turn spiritual. Eastern mystics say that unless you control all these 3 bodies you can not enjoy life fully. Understand your Being before you enter life. Nectar is not something special you will be given; whatever you are given will taste as nectar. Getting these 3 bodies under control allows you lead life fully, you will see what life is.

Tantra says: Only once a man really enters into a relationship; when he goes beyond the relationship.

What is the fourth state where there is no thought but only I consciousness, the awakened state. Each religion has its own different concepts about how to lead one’s life; but they all agree on one thing. Man is asleep, all masters agree. What does this mean, what all masters agree upon? It is very difficult to make all masters agree.

Vedas say: if two sages agree on something, be careful, one is a fake. In my birthplace Tiruvannamalai there is a promise from God Shiva that he will appear in 3 forms: as the deity in the temple; as the hill Arunachala; as an enlightened Master from that place. Many enlightened masters have come from there. People say: Ramana was silent but you are going around the world talking. I say that enlightenment possesses me, and expresses the way it wants. Enlightened masters are unique, they blossom in different ways; but they all agree on this.

Buddha says: you dream when you are awake. You don't have to fall asleep to dream. You will day dream even when you are awake. In the night you see stars. In the day they are still there but you can not see, because of the sun. If you get into a deep well without water, you can see stars even in the day. When you are not active you dream. Because of continuous activity you do not notice your dreams, but you dream on. You need to understand. All this is not a ritual. People ask me: please tell me how I can worship and love a 18 handed Kali? I say first start loving your 2 handed wife. First understand your life and then you can go into religion. All your love for God is just a fantasy. That's truth. You dream even when you are awake. That's why master say that we are all asleep.

The great Russian Master Gurdjeef had a disciple who asked him how to be enlightened. He taught him a technique and says you must do this for 3 months continuously without leaving this house. The disciple meditates for 3 months. At the end of 3 months his master takes him for a walk into the town. The disciple says I feel everybody here is asleep even though they are doing something. What has happened? Master says nothing has happened to these people, something has happened to you, you are now awakened.

In olden days a town crier went around waking people beating a drum and shouting. Such a man in the court Janaka, an enlightened monarch said: wake up not only from your sleep and dreams, wake up from your waking state, your desires, and your mind. He cried: jagrat, jagrat, wake up, wake up.

Masters caution you to wake up even from your awakened state. The state where you do not day dream is the awakened state, the enlightened state, the fourth state, where you are in consciousness but without thoughts, dreams and desires. This is like a sky without any clouds or stars, it is pure space. In this state there is pure consciousness. In Sanskrit it is called turiya or Samadhi.

Some people experience this while meditating in our ASP classes as if you have lost all thoughts but still awake. When you reach this state you become Buddha, the awakened one. Ramana says: A man who is not enlightened is like a man in a dream, going in and out of dreams. Till you are enlightened you do not know what really life is. You see till then what you want to see, not what is. You just pick a few things from reality and claim to see reality. This is what Sankara means when he says the whole world is maya. Maya is that which is not there; that which is not real. You are seeing what is not, that's maya.

When I was 10 I was taken to an enlightened Master called Annamalai Swamigal in my home town. He used to give out candies at the end of his discourses and all the children used to go for the candy. He was saying: every thing is maya. You are the self. You are not affected by pain. You are beyond pain and suffering.

I was excited; went home took a knife and cut myself on my thigh to see if I felt pain. Naturally I felt pain, blood came out, I was taken to the Doctor for stitches, and my mother beat me. After 2 days I went to this Swamigal and complained. I was bothered because I did not understand what he meant.

Krishna says to Arjuna: Atman can not be killed by weapons, not burned by fire, not wetted by water and so on. Arjuna was cleverer than me. He tested it by killing other people. I tested it on myself.

Annamalai Swamigal said lovingly: son, now you will not understand what I said. I will teach you a meditation technique. Practice it and you will understand. When I said I will find it difficult, he said just try, that's enough. Whenever you have time, sit down and see where your thoughts are coming from, who you are; focus on Who Am I? He asked me who I was. I said I was Rajasekaran and my grand father was a big landlord. He said: ask yourself who is Rajasekaran? Who says that name? I tried. I did not even know it was meditation.

When I was twelve, one day in the evening when I was sitting on a rock in the Arunachala hillock, I felt something opening within me, something burst within me and I started seeing in all directions even though my eyes were closed, all 360 degrees. I could also feel that everything around me was me. The rock I was sitting on, the sky above. The temple behind me, the hillock before me, all these I could see all at once and then feel that was me.

When Annamalai Swamigal said there would be no pain I did not understand; but after that experience never again I felt any pain or suffering.

If you take up this one technique you too can realize this. Meditation should be done playfully, not seriously with a long face. We find it difficult to laugh. Kids find it difficult to be serious; they can laugh all the time. You tell them to stop, make them like you, idiots. You want to be comfortable. Have you ever see an ugly kid? You never can.

Have you seen a single grown up man who is beautiful or graceful? Seriousness makes you ugly. You disrespect your life when you carry a long face. Don't try to be enlightened in half an hour, like you want to earn a million dollars in one year. You postpone your enlightenment through seriousness. Seriousness is not sincerity. Be sincere but relax. When I say relax, people ask what to do. Doing is natural, but relaxing is unnatural. Don't ask for another technique to relax. Whatever you understand by relaxation you do. Relax from the idea that you should relax.

The water on the lotus-leaf is very unsteady; so also is life extremely unstable. Know that the entire world is devoured by disease and conceit, and smitten with sorrow.

Bhaja Govindam 4

I always want to talk about this subject, but people do not want to listen.

Somehow the word Nirvana has acquired a wrong connotation. It just means extinction, extinction of vasanas and karmas. Only when vasanas and karmas die will you start living. As long as they are alive in you they live through you and never let you enjoy life.

Vasana is the hangover of desires or desires not fully lived; samskaras are desires that are lived but those which leave a thread for continued enjoyment of those desires. Karma is fulfillment. Vasana is the seed, samskara is the nourishment and karma is the tree. Nirvana also means moksha, liberation. When all vasanas, samskaras and karmas are finished you reach liberation through their extinction. You see a new kind of space in you, new kind of understanding in you, new kind of living in you.

When you drink or smoke once in a while you enjoy them. As long as you have the freedom to drop them you enjoy them. When you get addicted to them they enjoy you. Addiction is when you do not enjoy the habit but can not do without it. You can get addicted to food, TV, newspaper, gossiping. When you are addicted, food eats you, cigarettes smoke you, and liquor drinks you. When you do not have the freedom you are used.

At a subtler level greed and fear are addictions. Greed, at least you may be able to control, but not fear. Greed or fear work on you, pull you further, pull you down, and overcome you.

You are in a mall and see a shoe. The thought, the vasana takes hold of you to acquire it. You move on. After a week or later you see the shoe again. This time the feeling is stronger. Samskara has logic. It tells you that if you get the shoe you can jog and you will be healthy and so on. Vasana is any seed that falls on ground. Samskara connects the vasana to you with logic. If you are spiritually inclined the samskara will tell you that with healthy jogging you can meditate better. Vasana is blown through samskara into an imprint, deep desires. Then you buy the shoe. This is karma. For a week you will wear the shoe all the time, perhaps even to bed; after a week, perhaps once a while; after a month rarely. After a few months it will be relegated to your unused cupboard.

In the outside world whatever you thought you would achieve you do not achieve; you do not enjoy. In the inner world you create room for more vasanas, samskaras and karmas. You have created the habit. While losing the capacity to enjoy you have created the habit to desire more. More you have less your sensitivity to enjoy. When you have too many things you can not enjoy these acquisitions. One who has ten clocks will never keep time. Your energies are spent in vasanas, samskaras, and karmas instead of in enjoyment. You have no energy left to enjoy. You take things for granted. You lose the sensitivity to enjoy.

‘Mine’ is possessiveness. ‘I’ is capacity to enjoy.

If 'mine' is too much greater than 'I', power to enjoy will be low. Rich people do not enjoy life. Those who have less have far greater capacity to enjoy. A blind man has more sensitivity in his hands. A poor man enjoys his food far more than any one richer. More the quantity of your possessions less is the quality of your life. More of possessions lead to a mental set up that asks for more.

Ramana says: The world has enough for every one's needs but not to fulfill even one person's greed. This world is in two groups: one that wants to have, the other that wants to enjoy. You can not do both.

Ramakrishna never blessed any one for material possessions. Once one devotee asked him when he was in deep ecstasy for wealth and Ramakrishna said, yes, you will have wealth, but you will realize what a mistake you have made in asking me for this wealth. The man who asked for wealth was a scrap collector. In ten years after this incident he made enough money to start the first Bengali newspaper, Ananda bazaar Patrika. He however had no children. On his deathbed he said now he understood what Ramakrishna said about his regretting his plea for wealth, which he never enjoyed. He gave away all his wealth to Ramakrishna Ashram.

A young man asked me to give him peace of mind. When I asked him why, he said he wanted a gold medal in his exams and wanted peace of mind to do well. I said: the very idea you want a gold medal is to prove something to society. This it self will never let you have peace. So if you want the gold medal forget about peace of mind. When I asked him when he lost his peace of mind, he said it was when he got obsessed with the idea of the gold medal. I told him: drop the idea of the medal and you will get it.

Someone asked me: you are so young and you do not read. How do you get all this information and how do you remember? If you have the capacity to withdraw from your memory and mind, they work a thousand times more. Unconsciously you know that one day you will disconnect from your mind. Yet you have the urge to connect with your mind. You will live in a dilemma. That’s why your memory and mind work on an on off basis. As long as you play a middle game, half and half, you can never enjoy life. You are afraid to engage because you do not know if you can withdraw. Once you realize you can withdraw and relax from you mind, it will become active.

Now your mind is locked into one space, as an engineer, as a Doctor, whatever; you can not touch any other part. All of you are endowed with memory of past life, yet you do not recollect, why; because you are so caught up in this life’s memories. If

To log out is Nirvana. To log out of vasanas, samskaras and karmas. Is it possible to log out, walk out? Says Buddha: when you have the capacity to create, don't you have the capacity to walk out?

Mind is the constant inner chatter. It starts as soon as you wake up. If you record all of it you need a tape to record all your waking hours, say 15 hours. All this chatter creates problems unconsciously. You are comparing yourself unfavorably with others. Of these 15 hours tape, all spoken by you, why don't you convert the chatter to give you positivism and freedom? No man is so poor that he can not create words that create bliss. We are not poor in capacity, only in consciousness. This 15 hour tapes are of our karmic system. 10 hours say I can not, only 5 say I can. Reverse it; let at least 10 hours of tape, chatter create freedom in you to start with. When all 15 hours give you freedom you have reached the dead end of Nirvana.

Unconsciously you invite suffering. When everything is right you look for trouble. A guy living by a train track so used to living by the noise wakes up if he can not hear the sound. You are so habituated to the incessant inner chatter of worry that if it stops you miss it. If your worries are reduced you lose your importance. This world runs not because of us, but in spite of us.

Let us be a little more intelligent and use words that liberate us instead of addicting us. Napoleon on his deathbed told his subordinates: place my hands out in the coffin so that people know that even the great Emperor napoleon carried nothing with him when he left this world.

When you drop the cravings they may get fulfilled. When you keep craving even if they get fulfilled you are not content. Choose between filling and fulfillment.

When a boy, one is attached to sport; when a youth, one is attached to a young woman; when old, one is attached to anxiety; no one, alas, is attached to the supreme Brahman!

Bhaja Govindam 7

A housewife has sent all her children to school and is cleaning her house. She hears the door bell and opens the door. Two preachers are at the door and asked her whether they can have a few minutes with her to teach her how to live her life eternally. She says no, I don’t think I can stand any more of this life, forget about living it eternally, and slams the door shut.

We all feel life is a curse and is a result of our past karma. Again and again people ask why our life is like this; please teach us a way not to have another birth. You feel life is suffering, punishment, an effect of past karma. There are only two groups in this world, wise and otherwise. The wise ones feel that life is ananda, bliss, that their being is bliss, their consciousness is ananda. Thousands of enlightened masters have said this time and again. When you ask them how, each one offers his own method. One says you be a vegetarian, another says you fast, another says you practice this meditation or that, another says you marry; another says do not marry and so on. If two rishis say the same thing, it is said, one is a fake. Each expresses in his own way the path to enlightenment and bliss. But they all concur that consciousness is bliss. If all agree it means that this fact is essential.

In daily life we find that it is misery, it’s a punishment. There is a gap between our experience and that of masters, between the wise and otherwise. Somewhere we have lost the essence of life. We have misunderstood the basic principle of how to live.

In science conclusions change, in spirituality conclusions can not change, only expressions can change. One can not rewrite the Upanishads, only add commentaries. In science with a small torch of intellect man searches in nature finding newer and newer things. In spirituality you see things all at once in a flash of lightning. First science said matter and energy exist in each atom. Later they said these two exist in the same space but at different times. A third group proved later that energy and matter exist at the same time and in the same space. Now every one agrees that energy and matter are the same, there are no boundaries in between. Whatever exists is energy. This is what Isavasya Upanishad said 5000 years ago. Isavasyam idam sarvam.

Said Einstein, the last word of science is the first word of spirituality. The latest findings of science were the first verses of the first Upanishad. He said where science ends spirituality starts. Like there is no gap between matter and energy outside, inside us there is no gap between your body and mind. When you see a difference, body is roga mayam (diseased) and mind is soka mayam (suffering). Spiritual seekers suffer more than ordinary people. Ordinary people identify with their body and mind. Spiritual seekers lose this clarity. They know that they suffer through identification with body and mind, and this increases their suffering. There is one more suffering, how to disconnect, how to reach liberation etc.

What is quantum bliss? Not only are you not body and mind, but there is no need to disconnect from body and mind. There is nothing you need to do. Bliss is continuously happening with in you without gap of time and space. As long as you associate your bliss with a particular time or a particular space you will lose the bliss. The gap between sufferings becomes bliss for you. As if the gap between two wars becomes peace. In life we seem to experience happiness only in gaps between sufferings; this is just suka, periodic bursts of joy, not eternal bliss.

If you associate pleasure with a particular space, say a fantasy home, you feel happy. Or you associate happiness with an object such as a car or a person who you feel you love, and you feel you are happy. You crave to be around that space, object or person. The moment your unconsciousness feels that association with some one brings you happiness, it takes revenge and initiates a feeling of dislike and hatred. Possession starts, and possession is revenge by owning the object or living being as another object. You reduce energy to matter. Whenever you try to keep someone around you and therefore under

Associating bliss with time leads to suffering. When you try to bring back that time you felt happiness to experience the same happiness, you find somehow that happiness is no longer the same. The joy is lacking. After a few attempts and being unsuccessful you feel depressed and sick. You don't feel the energy of happiness.

You have a great desire to eat a sweet. When you eat that sweet you feel joy. If you associate that feeling of joy you wish to eat more of that sweet. If you keep eating more and more of it, at one point in time after some sweets you feel revulsion not joy, you can not eat any more. Your joy is not associated with the sweet. What is it that gave you joy?

When you feel that you are enjoying an object, the moment that object is near you, number of thoughts in your mind reduces, and a feeling of peace and joy expresses itself. You associate this feeling due to the reduced thoughts in your mind, the subject, instead to the object, the sweet. Whenever frequency of thoughts comes down you experience bliss.

Yoga Sutra says that you never experience joy because of something outside; your prana reaches a rhythm that gives you joy. When you get to reproduce this state of prana, energy within, to this rhythm you feel joy. This is pranayama.

Yoga Sutra says that when a person learns how to produce a prana flow to a particular rhythm he is in continuous bliss; he is liberated from the five senses; he needs no particular space to be happy. This is Pratyahara.

Yoga Sutra says that if a person can maintain this flow continuously he is liberated from time and he is liberated from all outwardly objects. This is Dharana.

You no longer are restricted by time and space to experience bliss.

Scientists are very practical, mystics are poetic. Patanjali is more practical than modern day scientists even though he is a mystic.

Q & A:

Q: Is bliss the same as the movement of prana?

A: Bliss is not movement of prana, but bliss is caused by movement of prana. It's like tuning your TV to receive signals. Same way you need to tune your prana to receive the bliss that is always there. Prana does not create bliss. Proper alignment of prana helps to experience bliss.

A: wonderful question. Some one asked me: to achieve bliss do I need to give up every thing. I said: just give up what you do not have; there is no need to give up whatever you have.

Suffering is created by desiring what we do not have, through fantasies. You have a hundred problems, how can I be blissful, you ask? Let me ask you, can you solve these problems by suffering. We think that by worrying we can solve problems. Actually more you think, more you worry, you create more problems. 99% of you worries never come true. The 1% that does is good for you.

I asked people to write down all their perceived problems. After 6 months I called them again and asked them to say which of them came true. Less than 30% come true.

If you look around there is continuous intelligence and energy that is there to solve your problems. If you have lived for 50 years and still have problems, in spite of the experience you have, you are just disturbing yourself. You can live another 50 years based on your experience without worrying.

Prana, when regulated, creates bliss, and makes your intelligence work much more powerfully. Research shows that chemicals such as dopamines are released while you are in bliss, with or without reason and you come out of depression and rejuvenate yourself. Bliss provides energy to face and solve problems.

First when you are not blissful your energy is used to create more problems. When you are blissful you disconnect from worries and also use the energy to solve problems. When dopamine is released, the frontal lobe which is responsible for decisions, mind body wisdom starts working far more efficiently.

Boss has a meeting. Staff is preparing a farewell. He says this is an employee who does not know the meaning of disloyalty and tiredness. What should we give him? Someone said give him a dictionary.

If you want to solve problems you can try with logic. If you wish to dissolve problems for all times you need intuition. If you associate bliss with time and space you are in pravritti (bound). When you are outside of it, you are in nivritti (unbound). For 48 hours get out of pravritti. Don't think of your problems. Relax. I have worked with two hundred thousand people over the last two years and seen this to be so. You will see a new understanding come up within you. You have never given a chance for bliss to enter your life.

Bliss attracts fortune says Tantra. When you are really blissful you work in intuition, with higher intelligence. Decide you are not going to think about any problems, and not work on solving any problems, and you will see that a higher intelligence comes into play. Just do this for the next 48 hours. One lesson you will learn: without your awareness existence comes in to take over and help you. You will take a quantum leap in your awareness that you do not need to work on your problems to dissolve your problems.

Your question arises from the assumption that you do not have enough intelligence to solve your problems spontaneously, that you do not have the capacity to produce that spontaneity. However much you try with your intellect instead of intuition you will still struggle. Drop your intellect.

People come to me for support and consolation, not for solution. I now offer you a permanent solution. I ask: have you felt disturbed that you have lost your toys? Not now, you do not need them anymore. But when you were 4 or 5 years old you would have seriously suffered. Similarly you can drop all other desires as well.

Q: By being blissful can body be healed and how?

A: Ramana was asked when he was suffering from cancer: do you have suffering? Bhagwan said: I have pain, but no suffering.

When you feel bliss, your mind relaxes and allows your energy to fill your body and mind. When the energy fills you, you get recharged. We have seven energy centers accepted by many cultures, Sufis, Chinese, early Christians. These are proved by Kirlian photography. Chakras expand 60 to 70 times more with positive emotions. It can predict disease through diminished aura. There are also seven glands in our body that regulate our health. When chakras are disturbed through negative emotions that abuse our chakras they give rise to disease. Fantasies lock the muladhara. Fears lock Swadishtana. Worries lock Manipuraka. When you get shocking news your stomach gets a blow. Anahata chakra is related to love and so on. Uneasiness between you and your chakra causes dis-easiness and then disease. When you are blissful your chakras are energized and heal you.

Q: I heard an Upanishad explanation linking cosmos with collective thought?

A: That is upassana. Upassana is worshipping something outside; vipassana is worshipping inside. I link bliss with vipassana. When you create an ideal and worship it is upassana. If you consider that ideal as a root within and go inside it is vipassana. The idea that you and God are one and the same is a technique; if you say that you and god are different that's also a technique. Both are techniques, not truths. The truth is beyond your understanding now.

Q: Are happiness and bliss different? How can we differentiate? Can one stay in bliss forever? Have you attained blissful state?

A: yes, I have attained blissful state. If bliss is contained between two sufferings it is only happiness. Happiness is momentary, it is fenced in bliss. It is a difference in time not space. Bliss bound in time is happiness. Not all benefits of bliss happen with happiness. If your headache is cured through happiness it can return tomorrow. In bliss it will not.

Man asks two questions, and when I finish answering his first question, he forgets his second question. Arjuna asks Krishna a series of questions. Krishna says you do not want the answer; without getting the first answer you can not ask the next question.

As long as you do not try to hold bliss it will continue. If you hold it, it will only be momentary happiness. It's like keeping your hand in flowing water. If you close your hand the water runs out. If you try to retain bliss it will disappear. Bliss is choicelessness. The moment you choose it will go. Bliss is a process. It's not a noun it's a verb. It happens. If you try to possess it, it will go.

I have experienced bliss. I have created a formula to reproduce that bliss. A scientist creates a formula to reproduce an external phenomenon. A mystic creates a formula to reproduce an inner world phenomenon. These formulae are meditations. The formula is important not my personality. Drop Nithyananda. Hold onto nithya ananda.

Q: How does the Ananda Spurana Program deliver Bliss?

A: Man stays in the seven chakras. If you are in the lowest level, that is the muladhara chakra, you are caught in lust and desire. You worship a God who can grant all your boons. That is why God is understood as a giver of boons throughout the world and is very popular. People are caught up in fantasy, expectations and desires and whoever fulfils these becomes their God. The moment they miss giving a single boon, the Gods will get dethroned!

Next is the person who is caught in the Swadhisthana chakra (fear). You worship the God who gives confidence, who you believe will take care of you - you go behind the idols that have many weapons and many hands. You experience God as a protector.

The third level person stays in the Manipuraka chakra (worry). You continuously worry and remain confused. You worship the God who gives clarity and peace. You will want idols that radiate peace.

Next is the person who lives in the Anahata chakra (attention need). Here, you are attracted towards the God which showers love on you. You worship the God who gives emotional fulfilment.

Next, if you are raised to the level of the Vishuddhi chakra (the urge to be unique), the God of creativity or Energy appeals to you. You experience God as the creator.

If you are centred in the Ajna chakra (Ego), you are locked in ego. Somebody in the egoless state attracts you – Rishis, Seers, Sages, Prophets and Masters attract you. The egoless man becomes your idol.

That is why I say - Man creates God in his own mould! You simply relate to God or the Masters from these six levels; a relationship doesn't happen - you simply reduce them to mere mortals. You have a concept in your mind and you are demanding from them that concept - it is simply a monologue.

In the Ajna chakra, the dialogue starts. Only in the Sahasrara chakra (gratitude), the communion happens! If you understand that you are actually relating to your Gods and Masters from these chakras and that you need to go beyond this and catch the transcendental expression of the Divine, all your problems will dissolve!

When you are in the Muladhara chakra, the Master drills into you, like a crowbar. At a little higher level, he is like a knife penetrating you. At the level of the Sahasrara chakra, he is like a fragrance! If you are alert and aware, the Master can transform you. Allow me to enter into you like a fragrance when you are established in the Sahasrara chakra. You just need to be passive for the alchemy to happen. I am not going to give you any rules or restrictions. I am going to radiate ecstasy, bliss and fragrance. If you are alert and aware, you can catch the smell and experience it!

Through the company of the good, there arises non-attachment; through non-attachment, there arises freedom from delusion; through absence of delusion, there arises steadfastness; through steadfastness, there arises liberation in life.

Bhaja Govindam 9