Pranic Body🔗

The pranic layer is filled with all our desires. Desire is energy. How to handle desire energy?

Mahavira says: when we are born in Earth we bring with us all we need. Why do we feel we do not have enough? For instance we take 10000 dollars to buy a car. You meet someone who tells you to buy a television. Then you do not have money to buy the car.

What you bring to fulfill in this life is prarapta karma. After you are born society imposes its desires on you which you try to fulfill. You are fulfilling someone else's desires. You are caught in a trap. You do not have energy, money or time to fulfill all these desires. Do not waste life in fulfilling someone else's desires.

When you infuse energy into the pranic layer only your real desire will stay. Like in a tree, you shake and all old dry leaves will fall. Only young leaves of energy will stay. Other people's desires will all fall away. Your dreams, your desires, this world are all made of same stuff. When you work on energizing the pranic layer all the desires imposed on you by others will drop.

You design your desires when you are born. When other desires are imposed on you, your breathing changes, it becomes shallow. Kids breathe with their whole body. When social conditioning happens, your breathing becomes shallow.

Prarapta karma is your own samskara that you brought with you. Other samskaras society adds and your prana changes. When you readjust your prana all the false desires fall off. The purpose is to strengthen your own desires, not to drop all desires.

If you do not work out desires that you brought with you, your prarapta, you become suicidal, you develop cancer. We bring with us right from birth the plan for major events such as what we want to be in terms of career, marriage, children etc.

The idea that the nature of desire is never to be fulfilled is wrong. Prarapta karma that you bring with you brings its own energy for fulfillment.

Vali in Ramayana has a boon. When someone stands in front of him half that person's strength goes to Vali. Similarly when you face a desire half your power goes to that desire and you always lose.

Now open the Pandora's box ands see what is inside. Do not condemn your desires, do not suppress them, do not judge. Whatever is there let it out. There are four types of desires: sensual pleasures, name and fame, material possessions, spiritual experiences.

Write down all your desires. Do not edit when you write. Write in the language you think. It is for you. Write in a separate paper. When you have finished writing, edit and update. Wherever you have a self contradicting thought or desire, change that to a positive thought. For example, instead of saying ‘I should not be poor’, you can say, ‘I should be wealthy.’

Let go of the negative thoughts. When people you trust and love make limiting, negative thoughts you are harmed. You may talk to yourself especially in the mornings and before going to bed. Do not have any negativity in these thoughts.

A man with an advanced mental age is one who learns through intelligence; he is the one who clearly understands from his first desire, that no desire when fulfilled will give him true happiness. There lies the difference. He will be able to see through the whole and analyze the whole thing. He will know that real fulfillment comes from inside and not from outer world things.

For example, when you are on your own at home, you will think that it is enough if you have a home and car for yourself. You will feel relaxed at this thought. You will feel moments of gratitude and fulfillment. After some time, when you step out of your house in your car, and stop by at a traffic light, what happens? A Mercedes Benz pulls up beside your car and your mind simply switches its thinking. You start thinking that your car is just no good. You start thinking that it is high time that you bought a new car, if not a Mercedes Benz.

Just a few minutes earlier you were happy with your own things, but now what has happened? You are starting to work out a new desire, a borrowed desire. Be very clear that this is not your own desire. It is a borrowed desire belonging to someone else. It is the desire of the owner of the Benz car. This is how you start working out others’ desires in your mind.

Of course, you will never own up to borrowed desires. It happens so subtly in your mind, that the exact source of the borrowed desire goes unsaid. It is a cunning and subtle game of the mind. And we will always say that we are not bothered about others.

With clarity, you will be able to clearly identify what your own desires are, what others have imposed on you and what desires you have borrowed from others. The first set of desires alone need to be fulfilled without any harm to any person or property. The other two need to be dropped with the help of clarity.

If you live this way, you will no more be fulfilling others’ desires and you will be no more living others’ lives. You will live your own life, and experience fulfillment.

If you are able to live out only your desires, you will die a peaceful death, full of satisfaction even if it is on the platform. If you live your whole life with borrowed desires, you will never see real fulfillment and even if you are living in a marble house, you will have a prolonged death, pulling and pushing, unable to get liberated from your unfulfilled borrowed desires.

In Jainism, there is a belief that when you are born, the entire quantity of food and energy that you will need during your lifetime is sent along with you. This is a way of saying that whatever your true requirements in this birth are, Existence equips you with the energy to fulfill them before sending you to planet Earth.

But when you start using this energy to realize borrowed desires, you start feeling that nothing has been given to you; that nothing is enough. You feel tired, exhausted and frustrated that nothing is happening. This is how the problem starts.

There is a difference between needs and wants. Your needs are already taken care of in some way. It is possible to satisfy your needs, but it becomes impossible to satisfy your wants because they are changing and unclear all the time. Every time one want or desire is fulfilled, a hundred more come up.

It is our nature to desire endlessly, because continuously we are seeing what others are having and wanting all that for ourselves. You may not own up to this fact at the outset, but if you deeply analyze yourself, you will see that this is true. Your mind plays so cunningly and passively that you will not own up to this at the first instance.

For example: you go to the shop to buy a fan for your house. But on the way you meet some friends on the road, who tell you that they are going to buy some other things in other shops. Immediately, you are tempted to buy them and so you change your track and go and buy along with them. Then you find that you don't have enough money to buy your fan!

If you start comparing and living out others' desires, you will land yourself in deep trouble because you will not know where you stand. Always measure yourself with your own meter, never with others' meters. It is the most foolish and dangerous thing to do.

Desires are energy for our body, for our being. The word 'desire' itself is associated with suffering and we therefore fear our desires. It is the fuel without which we will not even get up from bed. The moment you wake up, you have the desire to do something, see somebody. To move out of bed you need energy. We have always thought desires are wrong.

Desire itself has no problem. Only when we have self-contradicting desires, we have problems. We want all comforts; we want to take no responsibility. We want to take vacation all the time. We also want to fly to Hawaii and stay in a resort. We need money; for money we have to work; these two desires contradictory. You lie in Hawaii beach thinking about work. When you are doing one thing you are thinking about something else.

For example, if we want to get rid of headache we keep saying, 'Let me not have headache.' But, the word 'headache' gets impressed in your inner space. It is contradictory.

There is a beautiful technique in the Shiva Sutras where Lord Shiva gives a technique to handle one's desires.

Do you see how simple this sutra is? But by its very simplicity it is complicated. To begin with, all simple things need you to be first simple. This is the basic requirement, the pre-requisite to understand or internalize the sutra.

When some desire comes, consider it; then suddenly quit from it, unclutch from it. This is a very strong truth, a very profound statement. He says directly, 'Whenever desire arises in you, consider it'. He means, 'Just see, don't judge'. Simply be an unbiased witness, an observer and not to judge whether something is right or wrong.

If you judge something as wrong you will not be able to drop the idea or desire. The moment you say that something is wrong, you have unconsciously begun to enjoy it because right from a young age you have been trained to derive a certain pleasure in enjoying that which society labels as wrong.

See it and the moment you see it, unclutch from it. He is teaching renunciation, simple and pure. People may have their doubts and ask, 'How can this be possible? How can we renounce?' I tell them, 'Then suffer; nothing wrong; that's all, simple!'

You either learn from an enlightened Master or life will teach you. Life is going to teach you. If you learn from the Master, it will be a lot easier for you because he will talk to you in the same language which you can understand directly. You may not directly understand the language that life speaks; it will give you strong punches. By the time you start realizing them, by the time you start interpreting and understanding the message conveyed by the incidents in your life, it will be too late.

Please understand, you can learn from the Master directly who is talking to you in the same English language that you understand, the language that you communicate in, relate with. If you learn from him, it will be a lot easier for you as you do not have to go through all the painful experiences.

Suddenly unclutch. Even before the mind starts arguing with you, asking, 'Should I unclutch or not?' suddenly unclutch. If you keep arguing with the mind, you will never unclutch.

I always tell people, 'Don't think before you jump. If you think, you will never jump'. Just see in your life: if you keep thinking, you will never jump. You will jump only the moment you stop thinking. So don't think before you jump. There is a saying, 'Think twice before you jump' or 'Look before you leap'. I say 'No! If you think, you will never jump.' Even before your mind becomes aware, unclutch; you are enlightened.

There is a beautiful story: A lady goes to Ramakrishna, the great master and says, 'Master, my husband threatens me that he will become a swami, that he will leave me and go away; that he will renounce life and go away'. Ramakrishna says, 'Don't bother, it will never happen'. She is surprised to hear this and says, ‘No, no master. He is not joking and is very serious about what he is talking’. Ramakrishna then tells her an incident.

There was this man threatening his wife, ‘I will go away and become a swami. I will renounce life and go away’. You know this is actually a technique used by frustrated men in India. They threaten their women because in India women are not economically independent. If the wife nags too much, this is the way the man responds, ‘I will go away, I will become a monk, a swami’.

This lady goes and complains to the man’s elder brother, her brother-in-law, ‘Your brother is threatening me that he will become a swami, please advise him’. The elder brother says, ‘Don’t bother, it will never happen’. The lady asks, ‘How do you say it will never happen? My husband is very serious about what he is saying’. He replies, ‘I shall show you how a person becomes a swami, just watch’; so saying he removes his clothes and throws them away. He simply takes with him a towel and walks away. He left the house just like that and became a swami. The elder brother shows, ‘This is the way to become a swami’ and really became one.

The person who talks will never do; the person who thinks and thinks will never do. The person who is thinking will never jump. Ramakrishna relates this story and consoles her, ‘Don’t bother, the person who threatens will never move’.

When you are filled with some desire and you suddenly disconnect, you will experience a new inner space, an empty space, that inner space which is ready to experience your own reality. However, the big problem is that whenever you are ready to unclutch from some desire, it is for some other desire, that’s all.

You are not ready to unclutch completely. You are ready to unclutch from the one if you have the promise that the other will come to you. If you are greedy for some other desire, you are ready to unclutch from this desire.

I have seen people renounce drinking for heaven. Why do they renounce drinking here? Because in heaven they get a different kind of liquor. This is what the so-called religions promise, ‘In heaven you will have all pretty girls, you will have different kinds of drinks and music; you will always be jumping and dancing’, etc. These people are fantasizing that world and renouncing this world. I always tell them, ‘Renouncing for enlightenment is renunciation; renouncing for some other desire is not renunciation; it is a bargain, a business’.

One guy like this thought, ‘If I practice austerity here and renounce everything I may get all the best things in heaven’. So he was practicing all kinds of austerities, became a big guru, had many disciples, followers. One day he died and reached heaven.

One of his disciples who was always with him thought, ‘How can I live without my guru?’ So he also died and reached heaven. While he searched for his guru in heaven he was thinking, ‘My guru led such an austere life that he must have got the best rewards; he must really be enjoying with all the beautiful heavenly women and girls and all the drinks in heaven. He must be really singing and dancing and enjoying this eternal pleasure’.

This disciple saw the guru sitting with a pretty girl, probably some famous actress! He was sitting with the girl, drinking and enjoying. The disciple approached the guru and said, ‘Master! I am so happy to see your austerity well rewarded. O! What a gift she is for you!’ At this, the girl, the actress, immediately interfered and said, ‘Stop! I am not the gift for your guru; he is the punishment for me!’

So do not expect some heavenly pleasures in renouncing. See, even in day to day life if you meditate with the thought that you will have more power to enjoy the pleasures, that you will have other benefits, you are again using meditation as a utility.

Whenever a desire arises in you, just see it; do not judge it as right or wrong; just see. Give the desire enough inner space. Once you see it, suddenly, before your mind even begins to argue, unclutch from it. Don’t allow any of your mind’s arguments; don’t allow it to enter through the other door, to come up with any argument.

Don’t think your desire is right or wrong. Just see it. Let your eyes be closed. Let them come, let the desires arise, let them happen.

Let all the desires arise in you; don’t suppress them; don’t judge them; don’t say they are right or wrong; just let them happen; consider them and let them happen.

Suddenly, before even your mind recognizes, unclutch from all the desires and relax. Do not argue; do not logically decide; do not decide based on right or wrong. Just unclutch from all the thoughts. Let your eyes be closed, just unclutch from all the thoughts.

We handle desires at three levels. In the first level, we have too many desires that are always self-contradicting. Even if there are only two desires they will contradict. In the second level, there is only one object; you fulfill that but still feel emptiness; it does not fulfill. In the third level, there is no object, just overflowing energy. Desire without any object is bliss. In kids energy is overflowing as desires.

Pure desire is desire without object; overflowing for no reason. When you purify it comes to this stage of satori, a glimpse of samadhi. You are in a state of pure awareness. This you reach not by suppressing but by being aware, by purifying it.

What is the root cause of desire? We think we have to achieve something, some goal in life. We need to fulfill the purpose of life. All desires are to reach towards what we think is the goal of life. That brings us to the important question…