Q&A🔗

Q. Whenever I try to unclutch, my whole system feels a slight tension. How to relax from it?

A. Understand, trying to be unclutched is not causing the tension, it is only making you aware of the tension that is already there inside. Whenever you start witnessing your thoughts, whatever is there in-side starts getting highlighted!

Normally, you are always carrying a subtle tension in your body and mind. Your entire system and way of functioning has become com-bative. You feel you need to protect yourself from the whole world. All your outer worries are nothing but excuses to bring out the ten-sion which is already inside. You feel stupid accepting that you are tense without any reason, so you find some reason, that's all!

So if you are now becoming aware of your tension, that is good. Now just unclutch from the tension also!

A. Yes!

How you experience time depends entirely on your state of con-sciousness.

In fact, time differs even from person to person living in the same dimension. Or even the same person experiences time differently when he is in different states of consciousness. That is why, in the Vedic system, time is considered a psychological phenomenon, not a chronological phenomenon.

Just like a ten-year dream happens in ten hours, there may be a different calendar where your 70 years of life may be just seven hours for somebody who is in a different space! If the number of thoughts per second (TPS) is more, you will feel as if you have lived through a longer time. If the TPS is low, you will feel that the time is flying!

For example, if you are sitting with someone with whom you are completely in tune, you will feel that time is moving very fast, be-cause your TPS at that time will be very low. But if you are sitting with somebody with whom you don't feel connected, what will you do? Every five minutes, you will keep looking at your watch! You will be restless. Your TPS will be high. So you will feel as though a lot of time has passed.

That is why, in the vedic tradition, the unit of time is called kshana. It is not measured as a chronological second. According to Western understanding, chronological time is calculated in seconds. One unit of time is equal to one second. In the vedic tradition, the unit of time is kshana. Kshana is the gap between one thought and the next. According to the Western calendar, your one second and my one second are the same. But according to the vedic calendar, your one kshana and my one kshana will be different! This is because the gap between one thought and the next will be different for me and you. Here, time is not chronological, it is psychological.

In the dream state, you have too many thoughts or a high TPS. That is why you feel as if you have lived for a long time. In the waking state, there is a medium number of TPS. That is why it seems like time is moving at a normal speed. For someone in the supercon-scious state, e.g. for the celestial beings, the TPS is very less, and that is why their one day will be one year for us! You can see this differ-ence in the vedic calendars.

A. Understand, your ego is not as big as you think! Your ego itself is an illusion.

Just like we want to be at the top in everything, we want to be at the top even in our suffering!

All seekers love to think that nobody can have an ego more powerful than theirs.

Then they struggle to conquer the ego.

When you create a powerful enemy for yourself, you feel very powerful.

You feel solid.

Be very clear, this whole thing is the clever game of the ego itself! You are creating an imaginary enemy and fighting with it, that's all. The ego itself is a pure illusion.

Ego is nothing separate from your thoughts! It is just a name we give to the process of creating the shaft.

Ego is the shaft you use to connect all your thoughts. When we create a shaft and connect our thoughts, it gives us a false sense of personal continuity. This gives us the illusion of the ego.

Are you able to understand?

Your thoughts themselves are random and disconnected.

The shaft that connects them is imaginary.

The joy and suffering arising from it are also imaginary

So how can the ego that is built on this base be real?

If you really look deeply, you will suddenly see that what you think of as your ego does not exist.

By your very nature, you are free, unclutched and already enlightened.

Your ego is too small to take away your enlightenment!

Stop giving so much importance to it, that is enough.

A. First of all, there are no two separate worlds called material world and spiritual world. Wherever you are living, if you are carrying an identity, you are in the material world. If you are not carrying an identity, you are spiritual, that's all. If you are carrying an identity, you are in hell, if you are not carrying an identity, you are in heaven! The moment you drop your identity, you enter into bliss. There is no need to renounce anything externally. If you can renounce your identity, it is enough. The identity you are holding on to is the only reason for all your fear, all your suffering. When you live in an unclutched manner, every incident is new. Every experience is fresh. You stop taking people and things for granted. When you are unclutched, nothing can make you suffer.

Understand, I am not saying that if you live in an unclutched manner, you will never have any problems in your life. No! Every single person experiences both pain and pleasure in life. We don't have a choice in that. But we have the choice of not connecting these experiences and creating imaginary shafts. Understand, nothing or nobody can disturb without your silent permission. You are attached to a person or thing only because you have already created a shaft about them in your mind. Because of the shaft, you have expectations about what you can get from that situation, from that person or from that relationship. And if the reality turns out to be different from what you imagined, you suffer, and blame the other person for your suffering! Especially in your close relationships, you will see this happening all the time.

I always say, when you meet a new person, you experience them as they are only for the first few weeks or months. During that time, you form your own idea of what the person is like.

After that, you will be relating only with your idea of the person, not with that person himself!

For the next twenty years, you will be relating to an idea, not to a person. In the same way, the other person would have formed an idea about you, and will be relating to his idea of you, not to the real you.

Can you imagine the confusion?!

You don't realize, the relationship which you shared with someone three years ago, the relationship which you shared one year ago and the relationship which you are experiencing now are independent events. At each instant, you are experiencing a new relationship! Be-cause we are unclutched by our very nature, at each instant, two new people are relating with each other, experiencing each other.

The real problem is not caused by pleasure or pain. It is caused by our creating shafts and trying to break or extend them.

In the life of an enlightened person also, there is both pleasure and pain. But the big difference is, he does not carry them inside. If there is pleasure, he will enjoy the pleasure and forget it. If there is pain, he will suffer the pain and forget it, that's all. So he is always open to the future as it unfolds.

When you create a shaft, it means you already have an unconscious expectation of what the future will be, with a particular person or re-lationship or thing. You are not open to the experience as it unfolds. You only experience it through the filter of your own ideas.

Opening yourself continuously to the present moment is what I call living enlightenment!

A. Not just you ma, this is the problem that every single seeker faces! No matter how many times we hear it, how many times we read about it, we can never believe that we are enlightened. Not only that, we never even feel that we are qualified for enlighten-ment! I tell you, the most difficult task for the master is to convince the disci-ple that he is qualified for enlightenment! The idea of being a limited individual is so deep-rooted in us, it takes lifetimes to be free of it. Actually, the only thing you need to liberate yourself from, is the idea that you are in bondage! You need to liberate yourself only from the idea of bondage you are carrying. Both bondage and liberation are just ideas created by your mind. But as long as you think you are bound, the masters will have to create techniques for your liberation! Whether you know it or not, whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, you are always enlightened. You have never been in bondage. When the individual wave rises from the cosmic ocean, when it reaches its peak, when it starts to subside, and when it falls and merges with the ocean – at all times, it is nothing but the ocean! It is nothing but water. When you rise as an individual consciousness, when you live as a separate being, when you seek and struggle to return to your source, and when you finally merge in it – at all times, you are nothing but enlightened consciousness.

A Zen story: A disciple once went to his master and asked him, 'Master, when will I become a Buddha? How long will it take me to become enlightened?' In reply, the master gave him a hard slap on his face! In that moment, the disciple awakened to his true nature.

How long can it take you to become something which you already are? What practice can you do to become what you already are? Whether you try to move inward or outward, as long as you are go-ing somewhere, you are missing the truth. The very process of traveling takes us away from the truth. Truth is here and now! There is no need to go anywhere, to travel anywhere. The very idea of traveling shows that you have created a shaft. You are seeing some progress. How can there be progress, when there is no individual who is progressing? The individual is dying at every instant. Then who will progress? When you are unclutched, naturally the question of bondage and liberation will not arise. Actually, your true self can never be improved by any practice. It is perfect and untouchable. Your true self needs no improvement, and your imaginary self can never be improved! Some people work on self-development. What self will you devel-op, when all you think of as 'you' is a sequence of unconnected thoughts? If you try to develop this false self, you will be creating one more shaft, that's all! You will have the idea that your self is developed. It will be one more thought, one more shaft. Maybe it will give you a good feeling, but it will be just one more joy shaft! Really speaking, the self cannot be developed. The imaginary self can only be eliminated. When you unclutch, your false identity has no-where to stand. It just disappears for that moment. In those moments, your true self is revealed. You get a glimpse of your own enlighten-ment. Be very clear, you are not missing anything. Nothing needs to be added to you. So relax from your frame, your idea of what enlightenment should be like. You are already enlightened - just express it, that's all!

MEDITATIONS FOR EMOTIONS & MIND

DURATION: 21 minutes

AWAKEN LOVE

Overflow with love

The best way to experience love is to become love! The more we give of an emotion, the more we allow it to circulate though us. When you give love, you create the space to receive love as well. But when you become love, there is no longer the idea of giving and receiving. You just flow in love, you radiate love. You love because you cannot help it!

Sit down comfortably by yourself and close your eyes.

Focus on your heart region. Exclude everything else. Focus only on the heart. Visualize your heart as an endless reservoir from where blessings can flow. Feel every heartbeat deeply. Let every beat resound throughout you. Between the heartbeats, feel the energy of love happening. In the deepest parts of your body, mind and soul, the love energy is waiting to be acknowledged. Invite the love energy of the heart to flow and fill these deepest parts of your body, mind and soul.

When you are feeling completely fulfilled within, allow this love to overflow from you. Don't try to decide to whom it will flow. It will go wherever it is need-ed! Don't be afraid to love! You have enough love inside to embrace all of Existence. Allow yourself to become a river of love. Let the love flow from you and embrace everyone, everywhere. When you are completely soaked in the sweetness of this love, slowly open your eyes. Carry this expanded mood inside you wherever you go. HEAD TO HEART

This meditation is one of the ways to open your heart center. The heart is the portal through which you can enter reality. This med-itation is especially useful if you are a head-oriented person, if you are more based in the intellect than in the emotions. Actually, almost all of us are head-oriented. Heart-oriented people can't survive very long in today's world! So we have all made our minds strong. Our heart center is weak, because we don't give it enough exercise! We don't operate from the heart, we don't act from the heart. Try looking at the world from your heart, and you will discover a unity in the world. The mind sets up barriers, the heart dissolves barriers. Activating the heart center naturally creates a gush of love in your life.

Simple, though strange! The only thing you have to do is: imagine yourself as headless! It is not funny; this is a tough technique. Just visualize that our head has been pushed down into your heart region! Walk, sit down, feel as if you are headless. Feel that your head has disappeared. All your focus is now on your heart. In the beginning it will be just a pretence; you will feel weird and dis-oriented. What happens to all my sense-organs? How will I see, hear, speak?, you will ask. Your sense-organs have not disappeared – they have sim-ply slipped into your heart region! Just like how blind men use their hands to 'see', you will be using your heart. You will be seeing with your heart, from your heart. Try it. You can do it. Stand before a mirror and look deeply into your eyes. Feel as if you are looking from your heart. Feel that you are smelling through your heart. Feel very clearly that you are breathing through the heart. Listen through the heart, see through the heart and feel through the heart. When you move, remember that you are moving from the heart. Your center is the heart, not the head. Again and again, forget the head. Allow every act to be controlled by the heart.

By and by, you will feel the heart center flowering, actually flowering. You will feel a blossoming inside. And then you will feel the onrush of love. You will find your every act becoming more loving. When you are flowing with love, when your heart center is overflow-ing, you actually lose your head. Your actions are no longer con-trolled by the head. There is no specific duration for this meditation. Just do it whenever you feel compelled to. And you will keep feeling compelled. As you keep practising this meditation, you will find yourself growing more and more loving. Your relationships will improve dramatically. You start perceiving the harmony in the world. You move a step closer to God.

Love and expand

Nobody needs to be taught how to love! Love is the most intimate experience of your being. We always feel that we are not loving enough, that we don't have enough love inside us. No! You have enough love inside to shower upon the whole world. Your very being is Love. But we have channeled our love into very narrow channels. We choose the people we should love. We never allow our love to flow towards the whole world. When you choose, it means that you are loving for a reason. As long as you are running on greed or fear, you cannot experience the joy of causeless love. If you can enter into even one relationship of causeless love, you can expand your love to the world. That one relationship can become your doorway to experiencing universal love.

This technique helps in overcoming sexual disorders. It is also an aid in healing hysteria.

DURATION: 21 minutes minimum

Step 1: Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Bring to your mind the deepest love you have experienced. Remember any relationship of causeless love. Everyone must have had this experience at least once, at least with your mother, your child, a friend or beloved, or your master. Remember that person or that experience intensely. Bring the same memory, that same feeling into your inner space. Just feel yourself flowing in love towards that person.

Step 2: Now, put aside the person, the particular memory. Just enter into the experience of love itself. Enter into the same space you experienced when you were in love, when you were deeply connected. Enter deeply into the emotion of love. Let your inner space be completely filled with love. Let you become a pool of love!

Step 3: Now, release this love from your heart. Turn your love upon the whole world. Let the pool of love become an ocean. Just experience the love flowing endlessly from you – to your friends, to your enemies, to strangers. Let it flow out to nature, to the earth, to the stars. Let the world be enveloped in your love. You will see, your love can expand infinitely – because it flows from you, and you are infinite. When your love is based on the object, the person, it is narrow. It cannot be shared. When you shift your attention from the person to the experience of love itself, your love becomes vast and deep. When your love is turned towards every being, naturally, it will turn you towards your own self.

RELAX FROM STRESS

BE BLISSFUL!

ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE

Whenever anyone asks for upadesha (spiritual instruction) in a nut-shell, I always tell them: be blissful! Immediately they ask, 'Swamiji, is it really possible to be blissful al-ways? Doesn't our bliss depend on external circumstances also?' We never realize that being blissful is not an accident, it is a clear choice! Your happiness is always in your hands. Your happiness is 100% your own choice. Every day, life gives you a chance to be happy or miserable. What you choose is up to you. Just decide to be blissful, and be blissful, that's all! There can't be a simpler meditation technique than this. But don't be deceived by its simplicity; it is the most simple, basic techniques that really work.

Then reply, Then be blissful, that's all! It's as simple as that! When you are faced every day with the truth that your happiness and your misery are entirely in your hands, you will stop blaming the external circumstances. You will develop an attitude of being blissful - not because of external circumstances, not despite them – but irrespective of them. You are blissful because you are blissful, that's all.

DURATION: Not applicable

INSTRUCTIONS

Every morning, as soon as you get up, even before you open your eyes, sit up in bed. Call yourself by name. Ask yourself, What are you going to choose today? Do you want to be blissful, or do you want to be miserable? Naturally, first thing in the morning, you are not going to choose misery! So your mind will say, I choose to be blissful.

When we are stressed, we experience a sense of tightness inside. We feel as if we are physically shrinking, as if our body has become somehow tight and drawn. Actually, this is true. When you are stressed, it means your energy level is low. Your pranic layer shrinks and withdraws. This is what you experience as a phys-ical contraction. When you are in bliss, you experience a sense of expansion and lightness. This is your energy expanding and spread-ing out from you. This technique uses energy to influence emotion. When your energy level is increased, naturally you are relieved from stress.

If possible, do this meditation in a large airy room, where you can be alone. If this is not possible, just make yourself as comfortable as you can. Stand in a relaxed way and close your eyes. Make sure that no person or object is touching your body. Now, visualize yourself continuously inhaling and exhaling bliss and light.

As you inhale, feel the soft, blissful light entering your body. Feel it entering and washing every part of your body. It is filling your body, making you feel light and spongy. Breathe slowly and deeply. Every time you inhale, feel each pore of your skin blissfully breathing in this light. As you exhale, the light is radiating from you. With your eyes closed, hold out your arms and spread your fingers. Feel the bliss pouring out of you in rays of soft light. Feel your feet resting softly on a cloud of light. Experience the blissful light energy entering you, filling you, radiating from you. Feel that your whole body is nothing but a bag of bliss! Within a few minutes, you will see that the stress and tightness inside you begin to dissolve.

Be Afraid!

Fear is a powerful energy in you! It is a survival intelligence built into you. If you have fear, it means that you are alive! You cannot wipe out fear from your life. You can only learn how to handle it, how to transform the emotion. Whenever we experience fear, we usually try to suppress the fear, or escape from it. When you suppress it, the fear only more gets deeply lodged in you. When you try to escape from it, it leaves for a while and then returns in some other form. When you go through the fear unconsciously, without suppressing or escaping from it, it results in a fear stroke. Fear strokes directly attack and damage your nervous system. The only way to overcome fear is to face it consciously. A very effective way of overcoming fear is to visualize going through that fear as clearly as you can. The beauty of this technique is that it can be used when you are not in the situation which causes fear, when you are calm and able to handle yourself. At the time when you are caught in fear, it is impossi-ble to sit down calmly and start meditating! Just be completely aware throughout the process. Face the fear with deep awareness. When you experience something completely, you stop the process. As long as you are alive, there will always be fear - but your fear of your fear will be gone!

Duration: 21 minutes

Sit upright with your eyes closed. Visualize the situation which brings up the maximum fear in you. As you relive the situation, feel clearly the waves of fear coming up in you. Don't try to suppress the fear. Don't allow your mind to escape from it. Just let the fear happen in you. Feel clearly the fear coming up in you, face the fear with deep aware-ness. If you suffer, if your body feels uncomfortable, it is fine. Don't suppress the fear, just allow it to happen. Even if you are suffering, don't resist the process. Go into it fully once, so that you never have to go through it again. If your body begins to express the fear, let it. Let the fear rise to it peak in you. Let it fill you, overwhelm you. Just let it happen. Live through the fear completely. After a while, slowly, you will find that the fear begins to subside. In its place, you will find a deep calm and centeredness happening in you.

Darkness can be a direct way to merge with the all pervading Exis-tence. Darkness is the natural way of life; only light is a distinction. But we associate darkness with fear, we associate it with death and therefore miss the easy way to merge. If we can embrace darkness as that which we experienced in our mother's womb, the darkness that gave birth to us, we will simply drop the fear and start experiencing darkness as the all pervading Existence. Then, wherever we are, we will simply dissolve into it and become one with it.

We are born out of darkness, the darkness that exists in the mother's womb. Darkness is not negative as we usually think. It is intense heal-ing energy. It is a motherly, positive energy.

The darkness that exists in your mother's womb is an intense ener-gy. It is not the empty darkness of the graveyard. It is the Whole, the energy from which you came. The darkness existing in your mother's womb is the energy from which your body was created. It is called the causal body, the karana sharira.

Before entering into this meditation, you need to understand about darkness with more clarity and more positive understanding. If you are afraid of darkness, you can't enter into this meditation.

Darkness is the root cause for your body. Even space is not intense light, but intense darkness. The vedic scriptures say that at the begin-ning of creation, darkness was covered by darkness. Darkness is the source, the infinite base. Darkness is the only thing that is. Anything else that is added only comes and goes.

We are taught that darkness is death, the emptiness that happens after your death. You never realize that the emptiness that existed before your birth is also darkness! Now change the understanding. Darkness is the state of fulfillment, the creative energy from which you took birth. This clarity can make you feel connected to darkness. This technique can heal chronic fatigue, insomnia, oversleeping and depression.

Close your eyes and sit still. Listen! We all know how to close our eyelids, but not our eyes! Closing the eyes means to completely stop seeing inside, behind the eyelids also. Usually when you close your eyes, you start seeing many things inside you. The inner television will never be switched off, it constant-ly goes on! Now close your eyes and completely stop seeing inside. Turn off the inner television! Then you will see the intense darkness from which you were born, the darkness in your mother's womb, the same darkness that you still carry in your inner space. Out of the same space energy in your mother's womb, the whole world has emerged. You came out of one bit of space energy from your mother's womb. When you came out from your mother's womb, you had already imbibed that darkness, that space energy into your own inner space. If you close your eyes and stop seeing things inside, you will see intense darkness. Just be with the intense darkness. If your mind wanders, just come back and get centered. Be with the darkness.

Open your eyes and bring the same darkness outside. With your eyes open, see the same scenes that you saw in the darkness. See the same thing with intensity. This may take up to a month of practice. But if you can see the same darkness inside and outside, you will see you are able to switch off your mind whenever you wish! Understand, the ability to switch off your mind whenever you wish, liberates you from all problems, all disorders related to the mind, whether it is insomnia, oversleeping, chronic fatigue or depression. All these things are related to the causal body or the fifth energy body in us. All diseases related to the causal body will be completely healed once you enter into the deep darkness inside and outside. Physiologi-cally and psychologically, this meditation will transform your life. This technique is not only for healing, but it can also directly open you to deeper and deeper levels of consciousness, to enlightenment.

Chant as loudly and as long as possible. This will create a vibration effect around your mouth. Allow any fear that comes up to come up. If you are trembling or shaking or feeling disturbed, it is ok. Intensely chant the hookara mantra.

Step 2: Relax in the swadhishthana chakra. Experience the undisturbed peace of the being.

Expel the Fear

ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE

Pure greed is intense bliss or excitement. Pure fear is intense peace. Through bliss, you can achieve. Through peace also, you can achieve. Relax into the peace, and you will see that you are completely free of fear.

DURATION: 21 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1: Take your attention to the swadhishthana chakra, the being center. Be intensely aware of the being center, two inches below the navel. Now chant the hookara by producing the sound hoo through the mouth as you exhale.

UNDERSTANDING ANGER

Catharsis of anger

We are always afraid of our emotions, especially our negative emo-tions. We never give full play to our emotions. Suppressing an emo-tion cannot free you of it. Understand, whatever you suppress will be waiting just below the surface of your consciousness, ready to jump on you at the right moment! When you give an emotion a chance to explode and exhaust itself completely inside you, you will see it will lose its power over you. If you can maintain total awareness at such a moment, witnessing the emotion without getting caught in its play, you will be liberated from your fear of it. This is a powerful cathartic technique that can be used to handle any negative emotion.

Sit upright with your eyes closed. Bring to mind the image of someone who fills you with some nega-tive emotion. The moment you recall the person, naturally you will experience a deep hatred or resentment for him. So many words will bubble up in your mind - words which you wanted to say to him but didn't have a chance to, or which you were never courageous enough to say aloud! Sometimes, even when you have the chance, you have so many words you want to say, but you forget half of them in the heat of the moment. So now, recall the person, and when these words and feelings swell up inside you, just breathe deeply, settle down and relax. Continue to hold the image in your inner space. Let your mind shout whatever it wants to shout. Let all the anger come up silently, let all the violence and vengeance inside come out. As this happens, witness your inner space in silence. Watch the emotion rise to its peak. Let the volcano explode! After a few minutes you will see, slowly the emotion is dying down. It is getting exhausted. Suddenly, you will see there is no longer any violence left inside you! When you recall the person again, or even if you see him directly, that anger or fear stroke will not happen again. Not only that, you will have more clarity to handle a similar emotion in another situation. Whenever anger comes up in you, just witness and relax. Again and again come back to your center. Relax into your center. You will see so many new dimensions open in you, and you will be able to carry a deep silence throughout the day.

Step 1: Sit upright with your eyes closed. Bring to mind the image of someone who fills you with some nega-tive emotion. Intensely remember the person and all the wrong he has done to you. Relive all your pain and anger against that person. Let the emotion become intense in you.

Step2: Now, visualize the same person standing before you. He has lost everything in life – his money, his home, his social status, his relations, everything. He is standing before you, totally defeated by life. He is the same person who had once hurt you.