Interest Vs Intensity🔗

What qualifies to be called as intensity? What is the difference between intensity and interest?

After a while, maybe short or long, you get fed up with your own interest. With intensity, it is a thirst of your being. It transcends the rationale of your logic. Intensity is a call from deep within. The more you have to wait for it, the more the thirst grows, the more the fire flares up.

See the difference between light and laser. Both are made up of the same light rays but the single-pointed intense focus of the laser comes from the coherence and the common frequency of the light rays.

The power of this intensity is what gives the laser the tremendous power to even burn a hole through metal. At the same time it is a controlled focus. This is what gives it the power to do even a delicate task like removing a cataract in the eye.

If in a desert your thirst for water becomes really intense, you are ready to pay with your life for a glass of water. When your thirst for realization becomes that intense, you are ready to pay with your life for the Truth.

A beautiful Zen story:

A student approached a Zen teacher to learn Zen. The teacher told him, ‘Hear the sound of one hand clapping.’

The student tried for three years and did not succeed. He was depressed that he could not do what his teacher had told him. He came in tears to the teacher saying he had to leave because he could not do what he had been told.

The teacher said, ‘Wait for one more week. Meditate constantly.’ The student stayed for one more week and meditated. Nothing happened. The teacher said, ‘Try for five more days.’

The student stayed further, yet nothing happened. The student came in despair begging to be released. Then the teacher said, ‘Meditate for three more days. If you don’t get enlightened, you had better kill yourself.’

The second day, the student was enlightened.

When your whole being is burning with the single intense desire to realize the Ultimate, you will simply absorb the master’s instructions. The magic of transformation is bound to happen. Only then will you be open to receive him. Till then it is just an interest.

When you eat, intensely eat. Let your whole attention and energy be on food.

Tantra^Tantra, the mystical science of meditation techniques, says that to know the truth one needs only one condition – intensity. Be total in what you are, what you do.

Live intensely in the moment and taste the real life. Otherwise, you are not living. You are just waiting for death.

When you eat, intensely eat. Let your whole attention and energy be on the food. Do not divert your attention and thoughts to what you need to get done at work tomorrow or where you want to go for your next vacation.

Enjoy the food with all your senses. Taste the food in your mouth, enjoy the feast in front of your eyes, touch the food with love, and smell the aroma of the food. When you eat this way totally, you will enjoy every morsel and you will actually feed into your system the living energy the food is meant to give.

If you are drinking water, drink it intensely. Become the thirst. Feel the coolness of the water going into your mouth, throat and down your food pipe. Let each drop of water that goes into your mouth give you the feeling of fulfillment.

The Tamil classic, Periya Puranam^{Periya Puranam}, describes the stories of the Nayanmars^Nayanmars, the ardent devotees of Lord Shiva^Shiva. There are so many instances of the devotees realizing the Ultimate by simple activities like making garlands for the Lord. An example is Gananaatha Nayanaar, a devotee of the Lord, engaged in simple services like plucking flowers for worship, making garlands for the Lord, sweeping and washing the floor of the temple and keeping the lamps in the temple burning. Just this simple life led him to reaching the Ultimate and brought him his name ‘Gananaatha’ meaning the chief of the ganas (attendants) of Lord Shiva.

When you pray, be real and spontaneous. Whatever you feel, feel totally and offer it to the Divine. Don’t cheat yourself and be hypocritical by not admitting what you feel. You cannot hide anything from the Divine. He knows you better than you know yourself.

Your intensity is the only thing that decides when your object of seeking will happen. If the intensity is total, it will happen that moment. If the intensity is not integrated and total, it will take more time because the intensity has to gain strength in that time.

If you are intense enough, it does not need time to reach the Ultimate. Where you are, who are you is irrelevant. You can reach here and now.

A beautiful story:

There was a dreaded bandit who was a terror in the kingdom. After looting a large number of people, he started feeling restless and uncomfortable with his actions. He approached a master and asked him, ‘Master, I am a sinner. Is there any way out for me? Can I be liberated?’

The master looked at the bandit and asked him what he was good at. The bandit replied, ‘Nothing.’ The master asked, ‘Nothing? You must be good at something!’ The bandit thought for a long time and then said, ‘Master, I only know stealing, that is what I have done all my life.’

The master smiled and said, ‘Good! Then you will use exactly that now. Go to a quiet place and rob all your perceptions and ideas and opinions. Steal all the trees and rocks and rivers on planet earth. Steal all the planets and stars in the sky. And dissolve them in the vast emptiness inside you.’

The bandit sincerely followed exactly the instructions of the master. Within 21 days, the bandit realized his true nature – he became enlightened.

master Shiva.

Periya Puranam.

There are four states of consciousness.

When you have ‘I’ Consciousness and thoughts, you are in the waking state, the state in which you are right now. In this state, ‘I’ has more frequency than your thoughts. So you can control your thoughts.

When you are without ‘I’ consciousness but having thoughts, you are in the dream state. In the dream state, your thoughts are at a higher frequency than your ‘I’ consciousness. That is why you have thoughts in your dreams but you are not able to control them.

When you are without ‘I’ Consciousness and not having any thoughts, you are in the deep sleep state. Normally, we are aware of only these three states – waking, dream and deep sleep. The fourth state is where you have I consciousness but no thoughts - turiya.

Intensity means being intense every moment in whatever you do. So first you need to be aware of yourself in all the states. Then only you can be intense throughout.

Now you experience who you are with awareness only during the waking state. You feel, ‘I am a doctor’, ‘I am a lawyer’, ‘I am an engineer’ and so on. Only if we are aware of the identities that we carry and enjoy in all the three states, we have caught the thread, the center line of all the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. When we catch the thread of all these three states, suddenly we realize our identity in all the three states.

Somebody asked me, ‘I don’t think that in the deep sleep state I am aware.’ Then who is the person who comes back and says it was deep peace during my deep sleep? Who is the person who is reminiscing about it saying, ‘It was filled with darkness. It was as if I was not there at all’? Who is coming back and remembering even this idea, ‘I was not there at all’?

If the person is not there in that state, then who is coming back to connect all these three states? No, we cannot say we were not there in the deep sleep state. We were there, but we were not aware of the identity that we had in that state.

Understand, a person who is aware of all these three states is conscious. If we are aware of the identity in all these three states, then we are conscious enough, our seeking is

If we are not already aware of all these three states, if we have not experienced all these three states with the same identity, then naturally we need to now intensify our seeking.

An intense seeker will carry the identity about himself throughout all these three states. If even once or twice you have experienced your waking identity in the dream state then you are intense.

In the dream state suddenly sometimes you remember that you are beyond the identity which you think as you in the dream state. I have seen seekers going through this experience in the dream state. They will be dreaming and suddenly they will identify themselves with their identity of the waking state. Then they will think about the dream state, 'Hey, this is too small. This is nothing.'

If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, understand, then you have the intensity. Your seeking is intense.

Understand: Question is a word. Quest is a feeling.

Man is born as a quest. The rest of Existence cannot reflect the Divine like man can. Man is like a mirror. He has the choice to face and reflect the Divine or to turn away. Man can make a conscious choice, which is why he can grow. Man can choose to realize the Divine through his human form. No other being in Existence has this choice.

If these words, 'How do I get enlightenment? I want to... real bad and urgently,' have come out, if this question has come out as a deep quest, then you don't need anything.

Just boil, let the whole being burn with this quest. That is enough. Nothing else needs to be done. Let this boiling be intense.

Allow this boiling. Allow this burning. Allow this intensity. Allow this urgency.

Let the urge become urgent. Let the question become your quest. Let it just eat your ego, eat your inner space.

People ask me, 'Have you been enlightened by the divine grace or by your effort or by your quest?'

I tell them, your having the quest is the first sign that you are having the divine grace. Unless you have the divine grace, you will not have the quest.

Understand, this quest or seeking is like a seed. It is like a seed feeling suffocated inside the shell. See, the life that is inside the seed, unless it feels suffocated inside the shell, it won't open up and become a tree.

The moment the seed starts feeling that it should open up, the moment it starts feeling the seeking, the urgency and the quest to open up to become a tree, it means that already the tree inside the seed has started expressing itself.

If you have the feeling that you should get enlightened, the Buddha in you has opened his eyes. The Buddha in you has started waking up. All you need to do is open your eyes!

Allow this seeking. From morning till night let it boil, let it create a deep dissatisfaction in you. Let every pore in your skin, every nerve in your body, every cell in you vibrate with that intensity. Let it swallow all your depressions you may have in life. In life you may have so many other depressions and sufferings of not having so many things. Let all those sufferings be swallowed by this one suffering.

A beautiful Zen story:

A Zen student was intensely studying under her master but she was not able to experience true meditation for a very long time.

One full moon night, she was carrying a bucket of water suspended on a bamboo stick. She saw the reflection of the moon in the bucket. Suddenly, the bamboo broke.

The water fell out of the bucket. The reflection of the moon disappeared and so did her ego.

When the seeking is intense, it will remove the juice from your ego. The green grass becomes like a haystack. Just a match is enough to burn the whole haystack down. The Ultimate can happen in a split second through a simple happening.

So understand, let this seeking, let this quest, your saying, 'How to get enlightened? I want to…real bad and urgently', let this seeking burn all your other sufferings, all your other depressions, all your other desires, all your other concerns about life.

Let it happen and suddenly you will see that the seeking suddenly disappears, it is not there. When the seeking disappears, you are enlightened. You have achieved what you are seeking.

The Upanishads, the ancient vedic texts by the sages and mystics that happened as revelations, say that for the person who is initiated the whole world is heaven. Understand the word 'initiation'. It does not mean doing some ceremony or ritual.

Initiation means that ‘click’ happ-ening in you. When a master expresses the truth, if the click, the realization, happens in you and if you suddenly feel, ‘O god! What he says is right. I was always thinking exactly this. He put it in the right way,’ that is what initiation is. If you feel whatever I am speaking is what you always thought about but I am verbalizing it and properly putting it in words, the initiation has happened.

Please understand, only after all the preparation is done and only when you are in the state of high intensity, the truth uttered by the master just clicks.

When the master says there is no need for any seeking any more and just liberate yourself right now, you will be able to do so only if you have done enough of seeking and created the intensity. That is the paradox!

The technique is to get the right attitude of intensity. Actually, if you have high intense energy, you will automatically have the right listening. You will be just waiting to catch one glimpse. You will be just waiting to listen. You will be just waiting to imbibe.

That is why masters speak again and again and again for years over years. I started speaking only a few years ago. Buddha spoke for over forty years. But, the message was the same. His first sermon and the last sermon are almost the same.

You may then think why thousands of disciples sat everyday and heard the same sermon again and again. Because, the click happens only when you are in intense energy. Only with intensity it clicks. You just catch the flame and the awakening happens.

For the spiritual experience to happen, two conditions need to be fulfilled. One is that you must be completely open and available to the surroundings. The other is the intense energy field.

Sometimes even if you are open, if you are not in the intense energy field, the first cracking of the coconut of your ego does not happen. The first spiritual experience is just like breaking open a coconut. Once the first opening happens, it is not difficult to break the rest of the coconut. The first opening needs an intense spiritual energy field.

These two factors are what resulted in my first spiritual experience. I was open and available to the surroundings, and I was in the intense energy field of Arunachala. Fortunately, I was attracted to the beauty of that hill. Normally, if you see a hill or a river or an ocean every day, you will take it for granted. Somehow I never took that hill for granted. I never thought I know about it. I was continuously open, available.

Understand, being open and available every time, seeing it every morning with the eyes of freshness or with the mind of openness is what I am calling 'being open and available'. Many times, we completely close ourselves to the society.

We just come to some conclusion, some understanding and after that we never update our understanding or our effort with the result.

Every day, the Arunachala hill was living for me. Everyday it was never the same old hill that I saw yesterday. I had a very funny routine. In the morning when I got up I would not open my eyes. I would slowly walk from my room to outside the house holding the parapet wall. I would come out and stand in a place from where I knew the hill could be seen. Only then I would open my eyes so that the first thing that I saw in the morning would be that hill.

Somehow my brothers knew that the first thing that I wanted to see was the hill. They would want to have fun teasing me. When they knew that I was out from my bed and slowly walking, they would come and stand in front of me.

If I opened my eyes and did not see the hill and instead saw their faces, I would go back and lie down again. I would lie down again, sleep for half an hour, then again get up and slowly walk back to see the hill and open my eyes. Only if I saw the hill the first thing in the morning, I would carry on with my routine.

It may look funny and superstitious but I always felt I took birth, I took this body, because of that attraction and pull that hill has got for enlightened beings.

There is a very beautiful verse in Tamil that describes the hill as 'the hill that attracts enlightened beings around it'. The hill is especially respected for attracting enlightened beings not only from this planet earth, but also from other planets and spaces, towards planet earth. I never took the hill for granted. It was an ever-living presence.

One day I was trying to sit and meditate. It was a full moon day (Poornima) and the moon was rising as the sun was setting. I was just sitting on a rock on Arunachala hill, trying the meditation technique that the disciple of Ramana Maharishi and enlightened master, Annamalai Swamigal¹, had initiated me into.

I was sitting on the rock trying to find the source from where the feeling of 'I' was rising. On that day I was sitting for a particularly long time trying to find the source in a deep way.

Suddenly something happened and I felt like I was being sucked inside, pulled inside. I was sitting with closed eyes but I saw very

Nithyananda's deep spiritual experience as a young boy.

clearly that something opened inside. The moment that opened inside, I was able to see whole 360 degrees around me. My eyes were closed but I was able to see complete 360 degrees, whatever was happening in all the directions - front, side, back, up, and down.

Not only was I able to see, but I was also able to feel very clearly with the same intensity how we all feel alive inside our skin, that I was alive in everything I was able to see.

I was able to see whatever was around me – the plants, rocks, trees and everything. I was able to feel that I am alive in everything. In the same way you all feel you are alive inside your body I felt alive with the whole cosmos, with the whole Existence.

Till then I was just a mere body. After that, I realized I am body also. Understand, ‘I am body also’.

It was a very deep experience. If it was just a word or imagination, it won’t have that much impact on the inner space. It was an intense conscious experience.

You see, now you know you are inside your skin. Now you will listen to anything as long as it does not disturb you. Naturally you know how to protect yourself because you are alive inside your body and that is your conscious experience.

No matter however many people teach you that you are not just your body you will only listen but you will not allow them to work on you! Because your conscious experience is your body.

My experience that ‘I am this whole Existence’ became my truth. That is why I started living according to that.

People are surprised that I lived such a strong intense life in such a young age. They feel that it is very difficult and unimaginable. It is unimaginable for you because it is not your conscious experience. It is easy for me because feeling the whole cosmos is me became a very solid experience.

Look at the biography of enlightened master and founder of Buddhism, Gautam Buddha. He searched for six long years. He tried various paths but the beauty is that in every attempt he put in his whole being.

Whatever he decided to follow, he did with complete, unwavering intensity. He tried various techniques such as fasting, continuous penance, chanting and many such methods. He tried all possible techniques but nothing worked.

During his seeking, a teacher told him to eat only one grain of rice per day for three months. Buddha sincerely followed his instructions. He was reduced to skin and bones and became extremely weak.

One day, he stepped into the river to bathe. He had become so weak that he couldn’t even move his legs and was being swept away by the current. He caught hold of a tree branch and while hanging onto it he suddenly realized the fruitlessness of all his efforts. He had been mortifying the body but in the process he had only lost his bodily strength.

He felt a deep depression that he could not achieve anything in the inner world and he had nothing meaningful in the outer world.

He came out of the river and sat under the tree. He was frustrated but the difference between ordinary frustration and Buddha's frustration was he was complete and intense in his frustration as well.

There was not even a grain of hope he had. He completely gave up. There was nothing to achieve, nothing to look forward to.

It is said that on that night as he looked at the sky ready to sleep, he attained nirvana^Nirvana.

The one factor that resulted in Buddha achieving It is intensity. So many of us claim we are doing everything but nothing is happening. Look little deeper and see how integrated you are in your thirst and seeking. Whatever you may seek, integrate your energies completely and go for it. You will then see the universe open up to you completely.