Pages 101–110🔗

In the last sutra he said, 'When the incoming breath taking turn as an outgoing breath your mind disappears; your mind doesn't exist'. Now he says, 'The universe doesn't exist'. Universal pause. In the last sutra he means 'mind'. In this sutra he means 'universe'. You need to understand one important thing. Your mind is universe. Universe is your mind.

Even though Shiva doesn't give you any intellectual theories or concepts separately he gives all the truth when he gives the techniques. It is an important thing you need to understand. The key and the essence of this sutra is this: mind and the universe are one and the same. What you think as mind and what you perceive as universe, both are one and the same. Please understand, sometimes because of your pain or suffering you may say, 'How can the universe be connected to my mind Swamiji? Universe is independent and my mind is separate'. Whether you understand or not, truth is truth.

A small story.

One Rabbi after his retirement from the service went to a hotel and wanted to fulfill his lifelong fantasy of eating pork. Somehow he couldn't control himself. He went to the hotel and chose a corner. He sat in the corner and ordered for pork. He was waiting. He was waiting and fighting with his conscience. Not only was he waiting, he was also fighting with his conscience.

As things will happen one family from his congregation entered the same hotel. According to Jews, nobody should eat alone. So naturally they straightaway came to the Rabbi's table and sat in his table to share the food. In five minutes the waiter brought the big plate and opened the lid to reveal the roast suckling pig with a big baked apple in the mouth. They were shocked. The Rabbi also showed as if he is shocked and he started shouting, ‘Look at these guys. I ordered a baked apple and look what I got!’

You may use these words to escape from others but you can't escape from yourself. After it comes you may think that you have not ordered or you may act as though you have not ordered. But nothing is served to you unless you order. Your mind and the universe are directly connected. What you enjoy, what you get from this universe is nothing but your mind.

Shiva says in the last sutra that your mind stops. Now he says the universe stops. Your mind and the universe are the same. In Vedanta we have these two beautiful words, 'drishti srishti' and 'srishti drishti'.

'Srishti drishti' means 'What is, you see'. That is what we all believe. We are seeing 'what is'. But 'drishti srishti' means 'you create what you want to see'. It is a little deeper level truth. It is difficult to understand with our ordinary level logic. But the truth is that whenever the mind stops, the universe stops.

Ramana Maharishi explains this concept beautifully.

Whenever your mind is not functioning, the world is not functioning. The world will not function. You can see in your life. When you are in the dream space it looks like reality. When you are in this waking space, this looks as reality. When you are awake and here this looks as reality. When you are in dream space, that dream space looks as a reality. When you are in deep sleep, nothing is reality.

Neither dream world nor this world exists when you are in slumber. Let you be very clear. Whenever you enter into the dream world, this whole world or 'jagrat' or waking state becomes completely faded. It becomes black and white and that becomes multicolor. As of now your dream world, when you remember your dreams, you feel it as black and white. The dreams look vague.

In India if you see the State TV channels, Doordarshan, this is how those channels will appear, all blurred. Against that this world looks like a multicolor vision, strong and clear like private TV channels. This looks like a superior experience, like a 4-D experience. If you go to the Universal Studio, for Shrek-2 they give 4-D experience. They rock the chair. You know 3-D. In 4-D, not only there is a three-dimensional view, along with that they add the movements. The chair also moves. It is overpowering, especially the mummy in that movie. They give you that mummy experience. Literally everybody screams. They give you the 4-D experience.

Same way, now you are experiencing this world in 4-D form. In the dream state whenever you experience the dream consciousness you experience the dream state as 4-D and the waking state becomes 2-D. This waking state completely fades away and that dream becomes reality.

Let you be very clear: then how can you decide or how can you choose which one is real? Or which one is unreal? You have no scale to choose whether this is real or that is unreal. You may put a question. 'No Swamiji. Whenever we come back to this waking state, this world is same. I have same car, same house and same wife! It is not changing. Whenever I enter into the dream state I have a different car, different house and different wife. Dream state things are different and more interesting. How can you say this and that are one and the same?'

You may ask this question. Please be very clear: the question may look logical but it is not logical. You should understand one subtle truth. For example, sometimes you live 10 years of life in one night dream. Am I right? You can live ten years of your life in one night dream. In one night dream, you take birth, go and finish your education and do so many things. Does it mean that in those 10 years you had not slept? Inside the dream you fall asleep and come back to the same dream and play the game and fall asleep and come back and play the same game. Understand. This is a very subtle truth.

If you give your attention you can understand the truth. The very understanding of this truth will totally transform your inner space. See in one night, in just one night's dream you lived one full life. Sometimes you experience 10 years, 20 years or even 30 years. Even in these 30 years you have fallen into unconsciousness or sleep. Then you come back to the same dream and play with the dream, again fall asleep and come back to the same dream to play the game and again fall asleep.

Be very clear: the way you live 30 years in dream spanning a night, in the same way you live your 70 years in another dream of a lifetime. Life is the longest dream. Dream is a short form of life.

Small life is dream. Long dream is life.

Let you be very clear: the very concept of time itself is an illusion. That is why in one night, in just 10 hours you live 30 years of life. Thirty years of life is lived in one ten-hour dream. How is it possible?

This is because the concept of time itself is created by your mind. The concept of time itself is an illusion. It is completely an illusion of your mind. That is why Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'Whatever you see, as long as the seen, seer, and the seeing all three exist, be very clear, you are in illusion'.

Somebody asked him, 'Bhagavan, if that is the case how is seeing an enlightened Master in dream state going to help us?'

I am also one more dream for you now. Be very clear: you really can't be sure you are sitting in a temple and listening to my discourse. It can be dream. Suddenly you may wake up and understand that you are lying in your bed and dreaming that you are sitting in a temple and listening to a discourse.

You may think, 'No. No. No. I can pinch myself'. You can pinch yourself in dream also. In dream also you can pinch yourself. Let you be very clear: there is no scale to measure whether you are in awareness or dream state. You can do whatever you are doing now, whatever you can do now, you can do everything in dream also. In dream also you can be sure that you are not dreaming.

The big problem is that the moment you suspect whether it is dream or reality, you will come out of the dream. You can verify this. Whenever you seriously suspect what you are seeing, your awareness and attention will turn towards the seer. Now, as long as you don't suspect the reality of what you are seeing your awareness will never be turned towards the seer. The moment you suspect the truth or the reality of what is seen, the moment you suspect, immediately your awareness will be turned towards the seer.

You will be awakened as you turn towards the seer. All these techniques again and again turn your awareness to the seer. You are now constantly attracted by what is seen.

So much of colorful dance and so much else is going on in the outer world. You don't have awareness or attention to turn towards the seer.

In all these techniques, Shiva is trying to turn you towards the seer. He is trying to give you the glimpse of the seer. The moment you suspect what is seen, the moment you think what is seen is not as you think, what is seen is not as you understand, immediately your awareness turns towards the seer. The moment you are turned towards the seer, you are awakened.

What happens in the dream state is the same thing. Whenever you come out of the dream state be a little aware of what is happening in that space. First thing you will notice is that either you will have too much of greed or fear. If you have greed or fear beyond limit both will awaken you out of your dream. Sometimes it is a nightmare and at other times it is a beautifully pleasant dream. Both nightmare and a beautiful dream will bring you out of the dream state. Both will kick you out of dream space.

First thing, you will start suspecting whether it is dream or reality. Next moment, your whole attention will turn towards the inner space. Then you will be awakened. Same thing will happen in this space also if you want to get awakened. First thing, you need to see, you need to be aware, and you need to understand. By understanding, you will naturally have the doubt whether what I'm seeing is truth or unreality. Is it true or false?

If you start suspecting what you are seeing, the moment you seriously start suspecting what you are seeing, your whole awareness and attention will turn towards the seer. Seer will be automatically awakened. As long as you are engaged with the second person and the third person, the first person will never be awakened. If your interest towards the second person and third person is lost, immediately your attention will turn towards the first person. You will be awakened to the truth. You will wake up from this big dream.

I was telling you about the beautiful question. Somebody went and asked Ramana Maharishi also the same question. If everything is dream, seeing you in this dream, how is it going to help me?

Ramana Maharishi says, 'When you see a lion in your dream, what happens? You wake up. When you see me, you wake up.'

That fear of the lion wakes you up. Or even if you see a beautiful actress you will wake up. The greed will wake you up. See, whenever you try to elongate that shaft, whenever you try your best to elongate that shaft, sometimes beautiful dream, you try to hold on to that dream, and suddenly realize that it is dream. Sometimes frightening dream, you just want to escape from that dream, because of so much of fear. When you wake up you realize it is just a dream.

If you want to hold, or you want to escape, both the ways you will come out and understand it is just a dream. Whether it is greed or fear, both will awaken you. Whenever you see a Master, Master is like a 'simha-swapna', a lion dream, nightmare. It is like seeing a lion in the dream. When you see the lion in the dream, naturally out of that shock you will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. Same way, if you see the Master in this state, he will be like a 'Simha-swapna' and will awaken you.

I always tell people, 'Master is not a dream to fulfill your wishes. He is a dream to awaken you'. He is a dream to awaken you. Same way, greed also can awaken you. Master and actress, both can do the same job. Both can do the same job. That is why I always tell people, 'Whenever I can't train people, I just get them married'. I tell them, 'Please get married. That's all'. And they get trained. Sometimes, if Master takes 10 years, the wife takes hardly one or two years. In our ashram, that's what I tell our brahmacharis. Either you learn from me or learn from your wife. But learning from me will be with lot of love and courtesy. That is the only difference.

Greed and fear, both can teach you. Yoga chose the path of fear. It just controls you, controls you, controls you, controls you and corners you. At some point you are awakened. You understand that you are dreaming. Tantra chose the path of greed. It gives you, gives you, gives you, gives you and suddenly you understand that you are dreaming. Both ways, whether you are with greed or with fear, the theme or the idea is to put your attention on your Being. It is to turn your awareness on your Being. Whether it is fear or greed, we need only one thing to awaken us.

Kumbhitha Rechitaavaapi Puritaavaa Yathaabhavaet Tadhaante Shaantana Maasou Shaktyaa Shaanta Prakaashate

When inhaled breath is held or exhaled breath is held or again filled, experience Shiva Consciousness in that state of purity.

One important thing you should understand again is that your mind is universe. Only when your mind works you see the universe. If your mind doesn't work you will not see the universe. It is as if your samskaras, your engrams, are what decide your universe.

Shiva says, 'When breath is held or filled Shiva Consciousness, the Universe, is experienced'. Shiva is talking in the last three sutras about the neutral space. In the last three sutras he is discussing the same thing about the neutral space. He is telling us how to enter into the neutral space and helps us step by step. In the neutral space itself he is guiding us step by step. First he spoke about the neutral space. Next he said the neutral space and the breaths' time are one and the same. Now he is saying that the neutral spaces and the breaths are not only same in time, but they are also the same even in space.

By this he means that just in the neutral space, whenever you are in the neutral space, you are enlightened and you are liberated. You are in that full awareness. You are in the Shiva consciousness. There is nothing more that needs to be done. There is nothing else that needs to be done. One’s ego vanishes. That is what he says beautifully. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to kill. You don't have to fight. You don't have to do anything. It just vanishes.

He adds one more line. Beautiful line. 'This is difficult only for the impure'. 'Ashanta-prakashate'. This is difficult only for the impure. No we will have to understand what Shiva means by the words, 'This is difficult only for the impure'. What does he mean by the word impurity?

It is difficult only for the people who think it is difficult! If you are already clear that this is not going to work for you, this is not going to help you, this is not what you want in your life, then be very clear that this is not going to help you. The moment somebody thinks, decides that this is difficult for him, it is indeed going to be difficult. It is you who is creating a shaft. If you think 10 times this is difficult, difficult, difficult, the thought that it is difficult that happened today, the thought that it is difficult that happened to you yesterday, the thought that this is difficult that happened to you one year ago, you will connect all these thoughts and you will create a shaft that it is difficult. Then nothing can be done.

If you have that thought that it is easy, it is easy. Then again you will create a shaft that it is easy. If you create a shaft that it is easy, it is going to be easy for you. If you create a shaft that it is difficult by all your ideas of believing it is difficult, then it is going to be difficult for you. Let you be very clear: whether it is easy or difficult both shafts are created by you.

There is a beautiful song written by Ramana Maharishi in Tamil that says, 'So easy, atma vidya, Self Knowledge is so easy'. Somebody goes to him and says, 'Bhagavan, it is very difficult to achieve enlightenment'. Bhagavan says, 'It is so easy to achieve atma vidya. It is so easy'. They ask him, 'How?'

He says, 'To achieve something in the outer world you have to work. To achieve something in the inner world, nothing needs to be done. Just relax'.

Your mind says it is difficult but Masters say it is easy. According to me it is neither easy nor difficult because it is there already. You don't have to think it is difficult. You don't even have to think it is easy because it is already there. Nothing needs to be done. Nothing needs to be achieved. If you have to achieve only you need to say whether it is easy or difficult. Here you are not going to achieve anything. It is just there. Existence exists. It is just the truth. It is there already. All you need to do is just remember, 'You are unclutched'. You are already unclutched.

As I was telling you yesterday, even your thinking is nothing but connecting. All the thoughts are thinking that you are thinking. Actually your thinking is not a problem for you. Your thinking that you are thinking is the real problem for you.

See your thinking is not a big problem for you. It just comes and goes. But when you start thinking, 'Oh! I am constantly thinking. I'm not able to stop thinking'. That is where you start creating problem. All your problems, when I say all, capital letters, ALL your problems are just because you create shafts. You create a shaft that does not exist. If you just understand you are unclutched, by your very nature you can see, even if you try to clutch you can't clutch. Try your best to connect your thoughts. Try to be on the same subject. Try to concentrate your mind. You can't concentrate because God saves you constantly. God is protecting you. That is why you are not able to concentrate.

People come and ask me, 'Swamiji, how to concentrate my mind?'. They don't understand what they are asking for. Be very clear: The more you concentrate your mind the more you will start suffering. As of now concentration will bring you only suffering. When you concentrate, what will you concentrate on? Whatever is out there in your mind is what you will concentrate on. In your mind you have only sufferings. If you start creating the concentrating power, your suffering will become more and more.

People come and ask me, 'Swamiji, I forget things. Please give me the power to remember'. I tell them, 'You don't know what a big blessing it is!' Because you forget things, you soon get healed of your mental pains. You heal yourself. If you can't forget things, be very clear, you will be constantly suffering because all you know is only one thing: suffering. You do not know how to be in bliss. You do not know how to be in joy. You do not know how to connect the gaps and create the shaft of gap. All you know is how to connect the thoughts and create the shaft of thoughts. Any thought will create only suffering for you.

As of now, the fact that you do not have concentration is a big blessing for you. According to Tantra one of the great functions of Shiva is about making you forget things or making you move away from the past. If you start trying to have more concentration power be very clear: you will bring more and more misery and suffering for yourself.

That is why the people who practise hypnotism, mesmerism and yogic practices to concentrate their mind are always in tension. They will always be in tension. Attention means you are at tension. At tension means attention. When you start giving your attention be very clear: you are at tension. Such people will always be serious. You can see. They will have constant headache. Really, they will have headache because they are constantly trying to think on one subject. It means they are trying to create a shaft. They are trying their best to create a shaft. One more thing, without doubt they will turn schizophrenic.

That is why I tell you that if you start doing some of these yogic practices without the needed intelligence, if you start doing without the necessary maturity, you will end up only in more problems. You will end up in only more and more difficulties. You experience more and more problems because in concentration you exclude everything. In awareness you include everything.

In awareness you are not aware of a particular thing. You are purely aware. Anything can come in front of you. You will be just aware. That's all. In awareness you work on yourself. In concentration you work on something outside. You concentrate on something. Your whole consciousness is centered on something. In concentration you are working towards a different angle. In awareness you are working towards different angle. The whole West is suffering from concentration. So much of depression exists because they misunderstood awareness as concentration. They started thinking concentration is going to help. No. Concentration is in no way going to help you. Concentration will bring you more and more suffering. You will create more and more shafts. You will create too many shafts and you will start fighting with those shafts. All concentration is excluding something.

For example, if you concentrate on one line you exclude everything else. In that one line if you concentrate on one dot, again you exclude everything else. You are excluding. By excluding you will not be able to achieve anything. But with awareness you will aware of the whole board. You will be aware of this whole scene. You will be aware of this whole space. You are aware of this whole universe. In awareness you do not exclude anything. You only start including things. In concentration you will be excluding things.

When you start creating shafts, when you start thinking that you are thinking be very clear: you have lost purity. Then it is difficult for you. Then you can't achieve what Shiva is teaching. Even you believing that you are pure or impure is nothing but a shaft. Let you be very clear: all your guilt, all your pain, everything is pure shaft. The mistake you made ten years ago, the mistake that you made seven years ago, the mistake that you made three years ago, they are all independent, unconnected incidents. But when you connect them and start thinking, naturally you will start creating guilt.

Let you be very clear: you cannot be helped by creating guilt. Is there a single person who says, 'No no, I changed myself by creating guilt, Swamiji?' Never!. Be very clear: you might have stopped expressing the attitude. You might have stopped doing that act. But never think you are liberated from it. Never think you are liberated from it. Symptoms may change but you are not cured.

A doctor asks a patient, 'How do you feel after the medicine. You came to me with the complaint that you are hearing a ringing sound in your ears?'

Patient says, 'Oh, after the medicine I get only busy tone!'

'I get only the busy signal. I'm not getting the ringing tone'. The ring tone may change into the busy signal. But you will not be cured.

Let you be very clear: by creating guilt you may just change the symptom but the healing itself will not happen. Changing the symptom is not liberation. Changing symptoms is not going to help you.

Let you be clear about what you are supposed to do. Inner space needs to be completely awakened. You need to bring your awareness to your inner space. You need to be completely aware of your inner space and whatever is happening in it. Let you be clear: even your thought that this is difficult or impure is nothing but shaft. One more thing: even if you practise some purity or some discipline for 10 or 20 years you will not feel you have achieved it. At least I have not seen anybody who has got the confidence that they have become pure. I've seen hundreds and thousands of Swamis, hundreds and thousands of spiritual seekers, and hundreds and thousands of yogis and sadhakas, practitioners. Nobody feels that they have become pure in their inner space. They can't feel the purity because constantly they are creating these shafts inside.

Let you be very clear: your inner space, inner thoughts are in no way logically connected to the outer world. There is one important thing. Just now I said, 'You see the universe as you want'. Now here is another statement. Let you understand these two statements that appears contradictory. But Shiva is answering how they are not contradictory. They are complementing each other. First I told you, 'You create the world which you want to see'. Now I'm telling you, 'Your inner space is in no way connected to the outer world'.

When I made the first statement, I meant that you project this world and see. That is the truth. When I made the second statement, I meant that your inner consciousness is not disturbed or affected by the outer world as you think. You think that if something is wrong with the outer world, you will feel the suffering. Or if some nice thing happens in the outer world, you will have the joy. But it doesn't happen always logically. Sometimes even if you have something nice in the outer world, you don't feel the excitement, the joy in the inner world.

Sometimes, if something seriously wrong, when something goes wrong, suddenly you see a confidence rising in you. You stand up and you show your strength. Mentally you may be thinking, 'If that happens, I will completely collapse. I cannot do anything'. But when it happens, suddenly you will see that you are able to handle it. You are able to manage it. You are able to live through it.

Be very clear: two things you need to understand. Your thoughts or your response is in no way connected to the happenings of the outer world. Second thing, your thoughts themselves are not directly, logically connected with each other. Your response to the outer world and your response to the inner world, both are illogical, independent and un-clutched. Your thoughts towards the outer world and towards the inner world, to your own self, both are not logical or connected as you think. You are made to believe you have a logical identity. It is only a belief.

As long as you believe a logical identity, you will be constantly bringing more and more suffering. You will not have the spontaneity. I've always seen that people who are not logical and educated, they will be spontaneous. They will be so alive and spontaneous.

Whenever I utter the word 'spontaneity' I remember a beautiful incident that happened in my young age. I think I spoke of this incident in some other lecture. But I will tell this once more at least for the new comers.

In my young age, in our village, they used to recite the Mahabharata. It is the history of India. In every village there will be recitation of Mahabharata every year. During the day they will recite the story. In the night they will enact the drama. The play is not enacted by a professional group but with just four or five old villagers. They will decorate themselves and come. There will be two small benches. On that bench they will fight. That is the stage. They will sing some songs and enact the play. Thanks to these types of programs, India is still alive. The whole country is still connected morally and culturally because of these types of programs. It is done in a very ritualistic way. Morning will be the recitation. Evening they enact the drama. Drama will be very nice and very spontaneous.

There will not be many accessories. There will be only one stick. That will be used as veena (traditional musical instrument) when Narada, the celestial bard uses it. If he holds it horizontally like a guitar, it is veena. If the monkey god Hanuman holds it vertically it is his mace. You have to just understand. Who holds it and in what way he holds it makes the difference. It is a nice village program.

One day the story was 'Draupadi Vastraharana'. If you know the Mahabharata, you will understand. The Kaurava princes insult Draupadi, wife of the Pandava princes, in their court. That is the story. Of course only males will decorate themselves as females. No females are allowed to act in those dramas. Only males took on the female roles also.

Draupadi will be wearing seven saris. She will come wearing seven saris and the person who is supposed to remove the clothes will be pulling the saris off one by one. After the sixth sari he will say, 'Oh! I'm tired' and he will fall. That is the story and Krishna will appear to save Draupadi.

By the time the guy reaches the sixth sari, Draupadi has to shout 'Krishna, Krishna'. Till then she will be shouting different names like Gopala, Govinda, Madhava, Madhusudana etc. When it comes to the sixth saree she will shout 'Krishna' and Krishna will come from behind the stage. From behind the stage he will jump into the stage. There will be small screen. Behind the stage Krishna will be standing. He will jump into the stage and say, 'O Draupadi, I've come to protect you. I've come to save you'. By the time Krishna comes Dushassana, the evil Kaurava prince who is pulling the saris off has to say, 'Oh. I'm tired' and he has to fall. This is the story that is supposed to happen.