Chapter - 6: First Spiritual Awakening🔗

Even incarnations need to be provided with the right ambience as they grow in their earthly bodies.

Saradananda says in Ramakrishna’s biography:

Does the unbroken memory of previous enlightened births exist in an incarnation from his very childhood?

The Puranas say: Although it is always latent within the incarnation, these memories do not always manifest themselves in childhood. However, as the avatar’s mind-body organism becomes mature, his memory awakens with little or no effort.

The ambience of upbringing needs to be supportive and conducive for the effectiveness of their mission. The Divine Existence, the Parashakti, plans their process of settling down on planet Earth in line with the mission it has determined for them. Events appear to happen at random, but are never really random. There is a correlation between one event and another, and the sequence, the path, is almost preordained.

Ironically, we ordinary mortals have definitive free will in choosing our paths. We all encounter many forks as we traverse the path of life, and it is for us to choose the fork we wish to travel by. Depending on what and how we choose, events unfold accordingly.

In the case of enlightened beings, there is an element of choicelessness that is part of the divine package. They just move with the will of the universe in a total spirit of no-mind and surrender. Because of this, all their desires, even as they spring from their Causal energy layer, are immediately fulfilled. We see that every word they utter is true and becomes true.

Those who have been with Nithyananda, know very well that when He says after listening to someone's problem, 'I will take care', that issue is immediately resolved. All the Master does, He says, is to hand over the problem to Parashakti, the universal Mother, to take care of, and she does.

When incarnations such as Nithyananda reach planet Earth, they are without samskaras and are at the doorstep of enlightenment. All they need to do is let go the tiny element of satvic guna (the highest state of calmness and detachment denoting a state of spiritual evolution) that they are born with, to reach enlightenment.

Enlightenment happens; it cannot be made to happen. Enlightenment is like the water in a flowing river. It stays in your hands as long as your hands are open; once you close your hands to possess it, there is nothing to hold.

Nithyananda says we are all enlightened; we are all born with divinity within ourselves. It is the awareness of this divinity within us that is missing in most of us. 'The only difference between you and I,' He says, 'is that I know I am divine, and you do not know as yet.' Since that truth already exists in us, we cannot achieve it; we just need to become aware of it, that's all.

Bliss, the outcome of enlightenment, arises out of this state of choicelessness. If we try to make bliss a choice, it will be absent. If we can understand the purposelessness of life as a part of the grand plan of Existence, we can and will reach enlightenment and experience bliss.

Our ego believes that there is purpose to life - material, relational and spiritual. The more the purposes to work towards, the stronger our ego feels. If we drop all other purposes and still hold on to the purpose of enlightenment, it is futile. Only when we realize that life is totally purposeless and drop our ego, will enlightenment happen to us.

Even logically, what is the purpose of existence? How do we define 'material' and 'spiritual'? God creates everything, including jungles. Could He not have created concrete jungles and cities as well? The only purpose of existence is bliss, that's all.

How can we enjoy without possessing, without making something our own? We are like bubbles on a wave in the ocean. But what happens is that each bubble catches hold of a few more bubbles calling them wife, husband, father and son. It collects pieces of sand, thinking they are jewels. The bubble does not understand that it can burst any moment. Suddenly one big bubble says that it is going to be enlightened. This is what happens in us.

When we are ready to digest the truth that everything is purposeless, whether material, relational or spiritual, only then does life acquire meaning. When we have a goal we miss the path. The mind waits for something to happen. It waits for salary, weekly, monthly, yearly, and 5 yearly payments. If someone offers us 100 years of salary and asks us to die tomorrow, will we be ready to die? When we measure life by the paycheck, we reduce our spirit to matter.

Our ego is stuck with what we see as our purpose in life. We say, 'After I settle my social responsibilities, I will come to you, Master, and take up the spiritual path.'

By the time we finish one responsibility, we have ten more waiting for us. Running becomes our conditioning; we don't know how to relax. When we are young, we tell ourselves that we will relax after we graduate from university; then we shift the goal to marriage; then to children; then to educating children; then their marriage. By the time we are 60, we have missed the path itself! Where is the question of enjoying?

The primal sin that we can commit is to miss the path of life by following goals. When we live, let our being be blissful. When we start hurrying, let us think about what we are hurrying for; let us not allow restlessness in us, hoping that it will settle down once we achieve our goals; that will never happen. If we are not able to relax into the present moment, even after fulfilling our responsibilities, we will still feel unfulfilled. Whenever we run, whenever we hurry, let us ask, 'why', 'what for'?

We may have big houses, drive big cars, and have people around us always praising us. Can we carry any of these things with us? Can we carry with us even one single checkbook when we die? It is all purposeless.

When we understand this purposelessness, healing happens. Even if we have been abused, we will heal; if we allow this understanding to happen, the understanding itself will guide us.

'What kind of teaching is this,' one may ask. 'All my life I have had a purpose, and my life has been fine. Now you say that life is without purpose.' Whether we like it or not, that is the truth.

Our seeing an enlightened Master is a dream. Scriptures say, 'The moment one sees an enlightened Master, one becomes enlightened.

Seeing the Master is not the same as looking at him, which is what we do. Looking is with our eyes, seeing is with the Being. The closer we come to the Master, the more our understanding of him changes. Our maturity allows us to see him differently.

Purposelessness does not mean saying, 'Now I know life is purposeless. I don't want to go to work. I want to take a vacation.' This is a wrong understanding. Once you have the understanding of purposelessness, you can never be lazy. Tamas (laziness) will never come out of intelligence. Perhaps for two days you will just lie in bed and not get up. On the third day, you will wake up as a different person, without restlessness. Restlessness is a monster that one conquers when one understands the real purposelessness of life.

Restlessness hides purposelessness from us; it hides the path with the goal. If this is understood, we will be healed. All our dreams about the future, all our guilt about the past will disappear; all ephemeral joys and suffering will vanish.

We referred earlier to the saint in Tiruvannamalai, Visiri Swamigal or Yogi Ram Surat Kumar. He was innocent as a child. Whenever people came to him, whatever their problem was, he would say, 'Alright'. If someone said, 'My father died Swami,' he would say 'alright'; If someone said, 'My son is getting married Swami,' he would say, 'Alright'.

One day, nithyananda asked him, 'Swami, why do you say alright to everything?' He replied, 'Everything is just purposeless. Whatever you think has a purpose has no meaning; so it is alright.'

Whenever we remember the truth of purposelessness, healing will happen, suffering will disappear; whether we have or do not have, we realize that neither has purpose. We need courage to pursue the Truth and be enlightened. Life will then take a different path. We will live as liberated souls. We will never drop our jobs, our relationships or our wealth. We will drop only what we do not have. We will drop the mental associations and emotions attached to objects and events. We will drop the fantasy of a throne and start enjoying the seat. Status will no longer have meaning; one's own inner state will be all that matters.

When purpose is dropped, the real meaning will happen.

nithyananda's path to enlightenment had its own challenges. As is narrated later, his first spiritual experience occurred when he was barely twelve. However, it took another 10 years before enlightenment happened to him. Nithyananda says now that had he let go, it would possibly have happened earlier. His own struggles and rigorous practices perhaps delayed what might have happened sooner.

When nithyananda was around seven and was at the Devi sannidhi (altar of Goddess Parvati) of the Arunachaleshwara temple one day, he suddenly had a vision of a golden colored diagram. The figure made such an impression on him that he felt impelled to draw it immediately. He got himself a copper sheet and a nail and started carving this diagram out of memory.

When nithyananda's grandmother saw him engaged in this work, she became curious and wanted to know what he was doing and what this figure was. nithyananda told her that he was drawing something he saw in his mind. She was not satisfied with this explanation. Unsure of what her grandson was up to, she asked her friend Kuppammal for advice.

Kuppammal, who was known as Brahmayogini Vibhudhananda Devi Mataji Kuppammal, was a sincere spiritual seeker. Kuppammal's mother was without a child for a long time. The mother's guru was Seshadri Swamigal, an enlightened Master of great reputation in Tiruvannamalai, and a contemporary of Ramana Maharishi. Seshadri Swamigal blessed the lady and gave her a handful of mud to eat. With complete faith and no hesitation, the lady ate all of it. Later that year, Kuppammal was born, as if by divine providence.

Kuppammal had mastered the art of Kundalini tantra by the age of

12. She never menstruated till she was 21. Against her will, she was married off by the time she was nineteen and was stopped from doing her spiritual practices. Only after her marriage, about two years after she stopped her practices, she started menstruating.

She was deeply involved with the Tiruppugazh Maadar Sangam – a small movement to spread great Tamil literary works like Tiruppugazh, etc. Kuppammal was adept in tantric practices and could materialize anything she wanted. She had the vision of Goddess Parvati as Raja Rajeshwari. She became a great inspiration and a compassionate guide to young nithyananda. She added much into molding his personality.

Kuppammal asked nithyananda how he came to draw this figure and he told her what happened. She explained to him that what he had drawn was the very powerful Sri Chakra, a highly complex and metaphorical representation of the universal energy, which even very highly trained artists found difficult to draw. She was astounded that the young boy had so casually drawn the figure from memory. (Years later, our Master Nithyananda drew the Sri Chakra on a blackboard in order to explain its meaning). Kuppammal asked nithyananda whether he would like to learn the science of tantra, which used the Sri Chakra as a base for meditation practices, and the boy eagerly accepted this offer.

Kuppammal was the first person who made nithyananda realize that he was different from other children of his age; that there was something extraordinary in his life. Till then nithyananda had not realized that what was happening to him was unlike anything that anyone else around him was experiencing.

Kuppammal spent hours talking to the young boy and led him from devotion into meditation, from bhakti (devotion) into jnana (wisdom) and dhyana (meditation), with the help of her own Master, Isakki Swamigal. She regretted her marriage, and single-mindedly focused on her spiritual pursuit. Isakki Swamigal contributed to nithyananda's growing years by presenting him a book Atma Purana - a collection of material from the Upanishad which created a deep conviction of the all pervading existential energy. This book, as well as a protective verse, a kaappu in Tamil, and a conch given by Isakki Swamigal through Kuppammal are in the archives of the Bidadi ashram today.

Isakki Swamigal was an avadhuta, who never wore any clothes. Kuppammal gave the boy many books and predicted that he would keep these books till he himself started providing commentaries on them based on his wisdom. Nithyananda recalls that he used to spend hours reading from Atma Purana, which was written in Tamil as a collection of scriptural material from various Upanishads, sitting in front of Isakki Swamigal and Kuppammal. Kuppammal would explain what he read and from time to time Isakki Swamigal would comment and correct as needed. Atma Purana was the first book on Vedanta that nithyananda was exposed to.

nithyananda used to circumambulate the Arunachala mountain every day around this period of his childhood, when he was not yet ten. He would start very early in the morning, at around 4 am, and complete the four-hour pradakshina around the hill, chanting and singing keertans. During this time, nithyananda would be totally in the present moment, unconcerned about what was going to happen next - like an innocent child playing in the lap of his mother; delighting in the ambience of his beloved Arunachala.

One morning he started very early, soon after midnight. In those days there were no roads, nor lights on the path around the hill. It was just a jungle, a dense forest all the way. At a spot near Sona Nadi, a rivulet, a pack of hyenas approached him.

nithyananda had been walking with his eyes cast downwards singing devotional songs. He was totally immersed in singing and did not notice the hyenas till he was very close to them. When he lifted his head and saw them, the animals were ready to pounce on him.

From the depths of his hara, the Swadishthana chakra or spleen energy center point, the boy let out a scream in desperate fear. It was a scream of pure fear that he had experienced neither before nor after. Along with the scream he felt a total surrender to Arunachala and a deep trust that Arunachala would take care of him. Suddenly, an elderly sannyasi appeared in front of him from nowhere, with a big stick, and chased away the hyenas. As soon as the animals ran away, the old man disappeared. nithyananda did not know where this man came from, or where he went.

With that primal scream, nithyananda found that his body had suddenly turned much lighter. He started walking, almost floating, as if the frequency of his being had increased. (Primal theory is applied in modern psychiatric treatment, where patients scream from the depth of their hara, to relieve fear and other suppressed negative emotions in catharsis).

In later days, Nithyananda often told us about the need to surrender completely to Existence, without any trace of ego, with the absolute confidence that Existence will take care of us in any eventuality. This incident is another of his own experiences even before his enlightenment, when sheer trust in Existence took care of what needed to be done.

nithyananda had heard of a sage whom people called Rudraksha Muni, who used to come to the Arunachaleshwara temple at night and occupy a place near the Rudraksha Mandapam. For many days, nithyananda waited for him at this spot without success. One night, a man wearing many chains of rudraksha beads appeared in the temple. Taking him to be Rudraksha Muni, nithyananda ran after him. nithyananda followed this man's schedule everyday and waited to serve him and talk to him.

One day he followed the man as he left the temple and found him walking into a house not far from the temple. He had a family and children! nithyananda was angry and felt cheated. He accosted the man and asked him why he didn't tell him that he was not Rudraksha Muni.

This man was a kind man. He explained to nithyananda that seeing how keen he was to meet Rudraksha Muni, and how disappointed he would be at not meeting him, he decided to play along so as not to disappoint him! He said, 'You were so happy that you had met Rudraksha Muni. I could not take away that joy from you. I too felt so much joy with you around.'

Over time this man became a good friend. He was a depressed man seeking spiritual solace. He gave nithyananda a whole bagful of rudraksha mala (rudraksha strung into chains) that feature in some of the early photographs of nithyananda.

At this age, nithyananda was already quite knowledgeable about Hindu scriptures and epics, not only in terms of the mere storyline, but the inner meaning as well. He used to frequent all spiritual discourses in Tiruvannamalai and ask penetrating questions. On many occasions the speakers had problems in answering this young lad, and one speaker in fact told the organizers that if the young lad asked any more questions, he would be forced to stop his speech and leave. The same way as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to do in childhood, nithyananda too stood up to question those scholars who possessed intellectual knowledge but no experience, and offered more clarity to those who were truly seeking.

On one occasion, Kripananda Variar, a very learned and famous spiritual guru who used to deliver lectures, came to Tiruvannamalai. During the discourse, he said in Tamil, ‘angam veru lingam veru aagakoodaadu’, meaning that those who wear a Shiva linga as a necklace on their body should never remove it, or rather should never be separate from it at any time.

Young nithyananda asked him, even the most intelligent man is bound to separate it, when he removes it to change the string. What you are implying is, when you become one with God, when you have realized God within, you and the linga within you cannot be separated, you and the God within you can never be separated. That is what you mean. You are talking about enlightenment; you are actually referring to the inherent state of an enlightened person, how he has become one with God, because of which he can never be separate from Him at any moment. How then can you offer this statement as a technique to ordinary men?’

Kripananda Variyar could have given any intellectual reply to nithyananda and silenced him but he did not do that. He immediately accepted what the boy said with graciousness, and told him he was absolutely correct.

At the end of the discourse, when the boy went to pay his respects to him, Kripananda Variyar told him, 'Appa, Aavvaykku Murugan madiri nee enakku vandu vazhi kattinai. It means, 'Dear one, like Murugan did for Avvaiyar, you came to show me the way.' He went on to say that just as Lord Murugan, in the form of a child, had stunned Avvaiyar (a woman saint) with a certain question of his, and made Her surrender Her ego instantaneously, the young boy had asked him a question and shaken him. In that respect, Variyar stood out for his humility.

Nithyananda still remembers this incident with deep affection for this wonderful person, who despite his scholarship and age, had no qualms about publicly accepting that the young boy was right. He later told us that life was continuously teaching him through someone, through something, at every phase. People simply came and went, touching him at the appropriate times in his quest.

Whenever he could, nithyananda would spend time cleaning the idols of the various deities in the Arunachala temple. By now, he had a group of young followers who would do what he told them to. They would go around cleaning and decorating the idols and organizing small events. A lady doctor, who used to be a family friend, recalls that when nithyananda came across a deity uncared for and a temple unattended, he used to shed tears and immediately get to work on cleaning up the place.

Around the age of 10, nithyananda started going to Sri Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai. A relative initially took him there.

He then started visiting the ashram by himself. He would spend hours in the ashram meditating and reading books from the ashram library. On one of these occasions, a family member took him to meet Annamalai Swamigal, an elderly man who was an enlightened disciple of Ramana Maharishi. nithyananda took to sitting with Annamalai Swamigal's disciples regularly.

nithyananda says that one of the attractions of going to Annamalai Swamigal was that he used to distribute candies after his discourses, which young nithyananda loved! Annamalai Swamigal was a master of the advaita philosophy of non-duality. In advaita philosophy, there is no separation between individual and divinity; both are one. It is our ignorance in the form of illusion or maya that prevents us from realizing that we too are divine, that we too are in God's form.

One day, during the discourse, Annamalai Swamigal was explaining the concept of maya or illusion, when he said, 'We are not the body; this body is not real; what is real is the spirit; there is no pain that can affect this spirit; we are beyond pain and suffering.'

The concept of maya is fundamental to the advaita philosophy of Sankara and the principles of vedanta philosophy propounded by him. Vedanta literally means 'the end of knowledge' and in that sense seeks to explain all that there is to know about the truth of life. Sages like Ramana and his followers such as Annamalai Swamigal explained the ultimate truth about the divinity of the individual through an elaboration of the concept of maya or illusion.

Ya ma, iti maya, say the scriptures. It means, 'that which is not is maya'. Maya is loosely translated in English as 'illusion'. We all see what we wish to see, not what exists as reality around us. We are all driven by our mind, our thoughts, or desires. We live in a fantasy world that we create around ourselves.

The Upanishads say:

As our thoughts are, so are our desires; as our desires are, so is our will; as our will is, so are our actions; as our actions are, so is our destiny.

We are driven by our desires. These desires create thoughts that form the connection between the past and the future. We constantly seek to relive our past as it was, if it was enjoyable, or as it should have been, if it was not enjoyable. The past cannot be recreated. Neither the past nor the future is real. One is dead and gone, never to return, and the other yet to come, open to speculation. Neither really matters, if you think about it deeply. There is nothing one can do about either, that would make any real difference. We cannot change the past, and we cannot influence the future, however much we believe we can.

Our confidence that we can shape our future is shaken when we realize that we cannot even be sure of taking our next breath. Even this simple action is not under our control. Yet we believe that we control and can control our future. The fact that we have free will and can decide what action we can take next has no bearing whatsoever on our ability to shape our future. We can define our present and we should; that is all we can and should do. The future takes care of itself.

Yet, our mind is constantly focused on the past and the future, caught in the web of dilemma between these two. Our mind would like to interpret everything based on what has happened in the past and what it would like to happen in the future. We love to live with dilemmas.

If for a moment, we could suspend desires and thoughts, if only we could disengage our minds, we would be in the present. We would be where reality is, where life is, where Bliss is. Being in the present, being in the here and now guarantees that we are grounded in reality, free from maya. In this state, we see life as it is, not as we want it to be.

In this state of the present, there are no expectations, we take things as they are, as they come; there are no attachments as there are no expectations; there are no emotional attachments and we delight in just being; there are no unfulfilled desires, no samskaras anymore, and we are close to the awareness of enlightenment.

Because there are no attachments, there is no suffering too. This is what the Buddha referred to, when he said that desires cause suffering. He meant that the attachment to what we want, the hangover of our desires, causes suffering. Mindfulness, the ability to be in the present, eliminates suffering.

When Annamalai Swamigal said that as divine souls, we cannot experience pain, he referred to the emotional suffering attached to the physical pain. Pain in purely physical terms is bearable; it is the emotional suffering that is attached to the pain that causes us great discomfort.

Normally you may be fascinated by a concept that seems very attractive, especially if it is something very different from what you normally experience. However, you are still stuck with the reality of your experience and your mind points out that the concept is unrealistic. Unless you question both the concept and your mind's response, you will not realize the truth.

This attitude of questioning without pre-knowledge and without ego is the attitude of the true seeker. Only a true seeker is not content with reality as it is presented to him. A true seeker is also not ready to accept a concept however beguiling it may be; he is impelled to question both. He would question and continue questioning the logic of the conclusion till he is satisfied. He will doubt reality and will keep doubting this reality till he goes beyond the superficiality of his perceptions and till he understands the truth by his own experience.

However, we mostly tend to question based on the intellectual knowledge that we have picked up from books or elsewhere. Questions are asked to show that we know. These types of questions are violent; the only intent being to prove another's knowledge as inferior when compared to one's own. Such questions breed more questions even when they are answered, because they do not arise out of true seeking, but only out of the reluctance to accept another's knowledge.

nithyananda's questions were more in the nature of doubts that arose from an attitude of establishing truth, from the curiosity of a child, and not from the arrogance of an adult.

Nithyananda says:

When your ego drops, you will no longer have questions, only doubts. Doubts reflect the faith you have in the person you question. Questions reflect your own internal arrogance.

Despite his age and lack of experience, at a very deep level nithyananda understood what Annamalai Swamigal said. He knew it was true, at his Being level. However, he needed to experience that truth as he understood it. Then and only then would it have been his truth, his reality. 'If I am the spirit and not the body alone, then pain should not affect me; let me test this out,' determined the young lad.

nithyananda could not sleep that night. Annamalai Swamigal's words haunted him. The vibration of his presence and the piercing gaze of this enlightened Master stayed with him. He needed to prove for himself the correctness of what this Master had said in passing.

He thought to himself, ‘Even though the conclusion that pain and suffering do not exist is fascinating, reality is different. I do and others do feel pain when we are hurt. It is indeed a fascinating conclusion that my body will not have pain and suffering, but this is different from my experience of reality. Therefore, I would need to test this.’

When he woke up the next morning, nithyananda took a knife from his mother’s kitchen and cut himself on his thigh, just below the pair of shorts he was wearing. It was a deep cut and started bleeding profusely. nithyananda was in deep pain but stopped short of crying out for fear of attracting too much attention. He was also confused when the wound caused him pain, as he expected that there would be no pain. Unable to bear the pain after a few minutes, he went to his mother, who immediately rushed him to a doctor who lived nearby. The doctor stitched his cut, his mother spanked him and the pain stayed for a while. The scar still remains on his thigh.

Later that day, nithyananda went to Annamalai Swamigal and told him what happened. He demanded, ‘You said this body is not real; pain is not real; there will be no pain and suffering. But there was pain when I cut myself. Not only was there physical pain, but I also had the suffering of being spanked by my mother. Why?’

Annamalai Swamigal laughed and said, ‘But I did not ask you to cut yourself to test my words! Why did you do that?’

Annamalai Swamigal understood the seriousness of the boy’s seeking. nithyananda was willing to undergo tremendous pain and suffering to test a concept that he had understood as an intellectual truth. Swamigal decided to help the boy in his search and asked him whether he would be prepared to follow a simple technique that would help him in his spiritual quest. nithyananda immediately accepted the offer. Annamalai Swamigal explained to nithyananda in greater detail about body, mind and spirit, and taught him a simple meditation technique to follow his thoughts back to the source where they originated.

nithyananda asked him, ‘Swami, why did you not teach me this earlier? I need not have cut myself to learn this. I need not have experienced pain and suffering.’

Annamalai Swamigal said, ‘Son, do not worry about this pain. It will pass. You had the courage to test the truth and find out for yourself. That’s the sign of a true seeker. Your courage will liberate you. It is far more valuable than the pain.’

These words stayed forever in nithyananda’s mind. They initiated a transformation in him. These words remained a source of strength whenever he was assailed by doubts as to whether the path he was following was the right one. It was an inspiration to seek further.

This experience of the self-inflicted wound and the meditation that he was initiated into, started yet another new chapter in nithyananda’s life. This experience helped him go beyond the illusion of thoughts directly into the source of thoughts.

The attributes of what is seen as the object, the process of seeing and the seer as the subject are all thoughts at different levels of frequencies. First person is the subject or seer, third person is the object that is seen, and what is in between is the process of seeing. When nithyananda started going to the source of thoughts, he realized that all these three were same, only different levels of illusion created by his own thoughts. Going back to the source of thoughts was to go right into the present moment. At the ‘present’ moment, there is only the reality of ‘being’, nothing else. The experience of ‘being’ includes the experiencer as well as the experienced.

In his Atma Shatakam, Sankara says beautifully:

Aham bhojanam naiva bhojyam na bhokta, chidananda rupah shivoham shivoham

I am not the enjoyment, I am not the enjoyed, nor the enjoyer; I am beyond all three; I am the Truth.

nithyananda realized that the way to reach the ultimate reality was to follow these thoughts right back to their source, the state of no-mind. He developed the habit of sitting by himself and practising the technique that Annamalai Swamigal had taught, more as a play than any serious meditation.

‘Just sitting, just being, had become a habit with me,’ He later told us.

Nithyananda practised the technique that Annamalai Swamigal had taught him with all commitment and discipline. Swamigal had told him, ‘Practise this meditation and you will get your answers’, and he was desperate to get to the answers.

A little over a year later, when nithyananda was about twelve, he was meditating one evening, seated on an isolated rock called Pavazha Kunru (Pearl Rock) facing Arunachala. It was on the Buddha Poornima day (full moon day) in the month of Vaikasi (May-June as per the Tamil calendar), and evening sandhya or sunset period.

He was actually playing with this technique given to him, when a strange experience happened. In the midst of his meditation,

nithyananda felt something opening up within him, something was getting crushed, and something else was getting created. It was like a vessel inside getting broken and a door opening, both together at the same time. It was a feeling of creation and destruction at the same time; and a very pleasurable feeling. A feeling of calmness descended on him.

Suddenly, he realized that even with his eyes closed, he could see all around. Moreover, he had a 360-degree vision with his eyes closed. With equal clarity, nithyananda could see the hill in front of him, the temple behind him, the rock below him, the sky above him, the trees to the left, part of the hill to the right, all these were in his field of vision, without his having to open his eyes!

Fifteen years later, sitting in the Laughing Temple at the Bidadi ashram, Nithyananda attempted once more to convey that inexpressible experience to us:

‘At that moment, I awakened to the realization that I was one with the whole of Existence, and everything was I!’ He said, pointing to the tree in front of him, ‘It was like this tree became my bone and this thatch above became my nerves!’

nithyananda stayed in this state for over an hour and a half. He returned home drunk with joy, and told Kuppammal about what had happened. Kuppammal immediately knew that the boy had had a very powerful spiritual experience, very unusual for a child of his age, and that he needed to be looked after. She took very good care of him. The after-effects of this spiritual experience lasted about three days.

This satori experience was the beginning of a new phase of spiritual development in nithyananda’s life. From this point, nithyananda could see all around him when he wished. He called a close friend of his called Sampath soon after the satori incident, took him inside the temple with him and sat with him with his back to a tree. ‘Look here,’ he told his friend, ‘something strange has happened to me. I can now see all around me.’ His friend looked at him uncomprehendingly.

He told his friend who was seated in front of him, ‘Look at the tree behind me. Can you see the ant which is moving at this point?’ and signaled to the spot behind him where an ant was indeed moving. nithyananda made his friend place coins and objects behind his head and was able to identify them correctly. nithyananda’s friend was frightened at what was happening and ran away on the pretext of wanting to drink some water. This friend later told nithyananda’s parents what nithyananda had shown him.

Nithyananda now refers to this experience as a glimpse of enlightenment and uses the Japanese Zen word satori to describe it. As we have seen happening with some of Nithyananda’s followers, satori is an experience that seems to happen in the presence of the Master, with the grace of the Master. In the case of nithyananda, it happened on its own, partly out of the spiritual practice he was undertaking, and mainly as a result of his own evolved state.

Nithyananda asked one of his disciples once, why he was not doing his meditation as rigorously as required. He further told him, ‘If I had been lazy like you, I would never have become enlightened.’ The disciple’s tongue-in-cheek reply was, ‘That’s because you did not have a Master like we have! We are far more fortunate than you!!’

Nithyananda himself says that had he surrendered to a Master, his own spiritual growth may have been faster. He says that he had to experiment with ten thousand keys before he could find the right key that unlocked the mystery of enlightenment. He says that in the case of his disciples, he has already given them the right key and all that they have to do is to fit the key to the lock for the Truth to dawn.

After this overwhelming experience, nithyananda found that he could not balance himself on a cycle or a two-wheeler. There was no sense of balance in the body. He used to ride pillion on his brother’s bicycle to school and back. Both his brothers used to laughingly complain about having to struggle with his weight everyday. When he was refused a ride, nithyananda would walk. Nithyananda later recalled to us, ‘Children of that age, at least out of peer pressure would have attempted to ride a bicycle, but I held on to my inability so adamantly and allowed things to take their own course, walking for miles if necessary if I wasn’t given a ride.’

He could not also wear any tight fitting clothes after this profound experience. He found that any clothing that separated his lower body from the upper, caused him discomfort. He would wear loose fitting clothes and pull it over his waist string.

Nithyananda recalled to a group of us one day, the hilarious consequences of his not being able to ride a bicycle:

My older brother used to take me by bicycle everyday to school. On my way to school and back , I would stop by at every temple and offer worship. He used to curse me saying that it was bad enough he had to pedal me to school, I also made him stop at every temple on the way as well!

By the time I visited these temples and reached school, it would be almost time to return. I was perpetually late. I used to mark my attendance with all the deities and only then go to school. At every temple, I would prostrate before each and every deity and then only leave the temple. I had a special and long mantra for each deity. If I missed this morning routine due to some urgent work, I would recite the mantras twice the next time, to make up for the lost day, fearing that the deities would be angry with me! I would request them to adjust the previous day’s account appropriately!

I would have camphor pieces in the pocket of my trousers, carefully folded in pieces of paper, with the name of the temple and deity written on each paper. Camphor tablets were expensive, so I used to buy camphor chunks and cut them into small pieces. When cutting the camphor chunks, I was very careful to cut them equally, so that every deity got an equal share! If by mistake a piece turned out bigger than the others, that piece would go to Arunachaleshwara at the main temple. For Arunachaleshwara, I had no problem giving the big piece. There was no scope for comparison where He was concerned!

If I missed lighting the camphor pieces before any deity in the morning, I would light two pieces on my way back, to make up for the loss. On those days, it would take that much longer to reach home! There was an order of temples… First it was Karpaga Vinayagar Temple, then the Police Station Mariyamman Temple, then Arunachaleshwara temple, then Vallabha Vinayagar temple, then the temple in front of Sri V. Thaanmal Sowkar Jain Higher Secondary School, then I would go to school, that’s all!

My brother used to feel very bored and would keep cursing me when he was waiting outside every temple. I would not just bow down to the main deity and come away. I would bow down to the dwarapalakas (the two deities that guard the entrance to the main shrine), enquire after their health, offer worship to Nandi (the bull that adorns the temple entrance) and so on!

My brother would pedal fast whenever a temple approached, hoping I would miss seeing it, but I never missed it! I would scream out, ‘Hey! The Vinayagar temple has come, stop! Stop!’ And he would stop. On the days his patience wore thin, I would walk to school instead of getting a ride, but after two or three days, he would feel sorry for me and offer to take me by bicycle once again!

At least my younger brother was inclined towards temples and worship. My older brother was not very inclined and he used to curse me after kicking in the stand of his cycle to wait for me outside each temple. Sometimes, I would start reciting the appropriate mantras much ahead of reaching the temple, afraid that he would scold me for taking long. When he took the turn to the temple, I would start reciting. So I would finish by the time we reached the temple. Then I would tell him that I would just do the circumambulation, light the camphor and come out.

I never learnt cycling before the age of 12. And after my first experience at the age of 12, I couldn't ride a bicycle anymore. (At this point in time, one of the disciples commented, 'Swamiji, even at that time in Tiruvannamalai, you had a driver!' to which He laughed and concurred.) I never knew that my inability to ride a bicycle was because of my spiritual experience. I was not aware that it had to do with decreased body consciousness that happened after that experience. I used to think I did not have the ability to ride a cycle, that's all. I was also never aware that there was something different about me. I used to think that everyone was like me. I simply took it for granted. Only later on I realized that it is not for all.

After this, nithyananda took to meditating in the cremation grounds on the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai. He would sit in meditation through the night, absorbed in the vibrant silence of Arunachala, ardently feeling the intimacy with Arunachala and deeply yearning to become one with it. At the break of dawn, he would return home. Completely convinced that they were only guardians of their second son, his parents totally accepted nithyananda's strange routines as pure lila (divine play) of Existence.