Now, Here or Nowhere🔗

A small story:

An old man went with his whole family and his grandsons, to a movie theater. When the movie was moving towards a climax, the old man was found crawling on the floor and searching for something.

The grandson shouted, ‘Grandpa! What are you doing? The whole row is getting disturbed by you.’

Grandpa replied, ‘I have lost my toffee I am searching for it.’

At this the grandson shouted, ‘Sit silently…I shall get you a new toffee.’

For a minute, Grandpa was found sitting calmly in his seat…then again he was found on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees.

Again the grandson shouted, ‘What are you doing? Why are you disturbing the whole show? Sit silently! I shall get you a new toffee.’

‘I can't!’ said Grandpa, ‘I want that same toffee.’

The grandson could not understand what was so special about that toffee.

Grandpa wailed, ‘I need to find only that toffee because my teeth are stuck in it!’

Have you noticed that most of the time not understanding what we have lost…we do not know what we are searching for. Similarly in our life…not understanding how to live here and now in the present…we reach nowhere.

Now, Here or Nowhere…is the title of today’s discourse.

Before we enter into the subject…let me explain a few basic concepts regarding time. We have a very wrong concept, a wrong idea on which we built our understanding of it in our mind. We always think there are three time zones… past, present and future. This is totally a wrong concept and a lie. Such a division has been created by us for our convenience of dividing the events happening around us into clear cut compartments. How many of us have been troubled by these compartments while learning languages? These concepts of past, present and future certainly help us to classify events so that there is no misunderstanding as to when the event happened.

But at a subtle level understand clearly that there is no past…no future. There is only one time zone which is the Present. Either you live the present or you don't live at all.

You may say: Tomorrow I will do something. But when tomorrow comes, it will arrive only in the form of today, now; never in the form of tomorrow. If you say tomorrow I will be happy; tomorrow I will become enlightened; tomorrow I will do the meditation…please understand that the tomorrow you are thinking about is never going to arrive as this very concept of tomorrow that is of the future will present itself before us as a today, as a now…as a present. Forgetting this, again and again, you continue to say ‘Tomorrow I will be happy; tomorrow I will be enlightened; tomorrow I will be joyful.’ Do you honestly believe that these predictions will ever happen? Simply because you do not know the technique of living in the present, giving the present your 100% your cunning mind is merely locating reasons to postpone them.

A small mythological story from India:

Sani (Saturn) is one of the nine planets and is revered as well as feared as a minor deity. Ganesha, the pot bellied elephant headed son of Siva, who is loved by all Hindus, is considered to be immune to Sani’s evil intents. It is said that Ganesha has a big board outside his home that says ‘Go away today and come tomorrow’, and whenever Sani comes around, he reads that notice on the door and goes away. The next day when he returns, he sees the sign again and goes away!

Similarly, whenever we want to live, whenever we feel like expressing our being, whenever we want to live as we truly desire, our mind always insists ‘No No No No No…Now is not the time; let us wait; let us do it little later. Let us give it a little time till tomorrow… tomorrow.’

By putting it off for tomorrow we never do anything now, in the present moment. We never achieve anything. We end up being cocooned in the comfort zone of searching for those reasons that our mind dishes out to satisfy us and hooking our postponement to this reason.

Be very clear…once the habit of postponing begins, it becomes a mental habit, a mental addiction…our mind will then be solidified into this comfortable zone of postponing things to a tomorrow that is nonexistent.

Our mind gets used to again and again postponing everything. To ensure that this is real we also start collecting arguments; busy finding some more reasons to postpone. We end up moving in an endless loop of postponement and never ever do we enter into the act of action itself.

Make a list of the all those things that you have promised yourself that you will do tomorrow… maybe some other time as you have no time now. Topping this list you will a number of things that relate directly to your own growth process. You will also notice that you have done everything for everyone else…yet have always postponed action where you yourself are concerned.

I repeat it is the nature of our mind that we wish to do many things, know that there are things to be done for our own growth which should be the priority. That there are many things which we say we shall do tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow and never ever do…never do till the end.

Let us plunge into the topic…Now, here or Nowhere right now!

A small Zen story:

A man went to the Master and asked, ‘When I will become enlightened?’

The Master replied, ‘Now.’

The disciple could not understand and endless questions started whirling in his head. ‘…How can I become enlightened now? I need a lot of practice. I do not know all the methods. It needs lot of meditation for long periods of time. So, how can it be now?' were only some of the endless questions in his list of questions.

Then the Master says, 'Never, go away.'

Why is this story relevant here? As I said earlier our mind is very cunning and comes up with endless reasons for postponement. We need to understand this one story whenever our mind says that we are not enough unto ourselves. We are not complete by ourselves. We are not full by ourselves.

Our mind will always be telling us the same thing. I repeat it will always be telling us the same thing. Ask yourself the same question 'When will I get enlightened?' and observe the answers that come up The mind will definitely come up with 'No No No No No...I have to do that meditation, this meditation, that practice, this practice; only then I can become enlightened; only then I can realize my self. Only then I can achieve my life.' Ask yourself the same question tomorrow and sure enough tomorrow also it will be telling you the same thing.

Understand clearly...we will never feel, we will never see that we have reached somewhere or that we have achieved something, if we have the postponing becomes our very nature. Let us forget about enlightenment; let us talk about normal life.

A Zen Master asked his disciples, 'How many of you have taken bath this morning? Every day, early in the morning he asked the same question. Almost all the disciples raised their hands dutifully.

The next question would be, 'How many of you are aware that you took bath when you took bath?' Not even one hand would go up. Merely taking bath all of us do, as a mechanical chore every morning. However, taking a bath with awareness is a different thing altogether. Surely, all of you must have taken a bath today and all of you must have brushed your teeth too. How many of you were aware of what you were doing when you did that? When you brushed your teeth how many of you were aware? When you took bath how many of you were aware of the hot water and the hot shower pouring on your body? Were you aware that your body was just getting ready after the bath, and that your life was getting rejuvenated after the bath? How many of you were aware of all these things when they happened?

A small Zen story:

A king went to a Master, and asked him, 'Master How can I become enlightened? What all the practices you follow? What did you do to become enlightened? Please teach me'.

The Master replies, 'Oh! I eat when I eat, I sleep when I sleep; this is all what I do'.

The king could not understand.

The Master explains patiently, 'When I eat I only eat, I do not do anything else when I sleep I only sleep I do not do anything else'.

Let us now examine what we do. Recall the scene of how we eat. We will remember that either we would have been watching T.V. or we would have been sitting with some magazine or talking to some one or continuously thinking of something.

If however you had been calm, sitting quietly, your spouse would have been there to tell you of some problems in the house or there would have been some other action that would take away your focus from the food that you are eating. In many western countries the pressure of time is so high on individuals that people end up having their breakfast while walking to the bus stop or while driving to work.

In some way or the other, when you eat your mind does everything else except focus on the eating. You do everything except eat with awareness, focusing only on the food, on every grain and morsel that you are placing in your mouth…chewing and swallowing.

Let us take act of sleeping. When you sleep you do everything else except sleep. Only when you sleep you dream and you have your fear strokes. You then end up having a have disturbed sleep. Understand that whatever you do, you do everything else except sleep.

Psychologists say that a man or woman, in a Western country, never sleeps more than 14 minutes at a stretch. 14 minutes is the maximum time and many times it is often less. Just after 14 minutes they come back to the dream state or wakeful consciousness or just float in the dream level. Again they goes back to sleep for only a maximum of 14 minutes and again come back to the dream level and again go back to sleep. This is called the rapid eye movement or REM sleep pattern.

We never sleep totally, when we sleep. However there are levels of mind in which we will never have dreams. We never need to have any dreams. We can just directly enter into deep sleep, if we know how to live in the now. We will then know the art of eating; the art of sleeping…the art of living.

Living here and now, always in the present, is the art of living.

Recall all the events from morning till night about how you live. You almost live like a being that is half asleep. You do brush your teeth; but, do you remember the cold water touching your mouth? Do you remember the feel of the taste of the tooth paste in your mouth or the pressure of your toothbrush upon your gums? And how did you feel after brushing? Or how was the water being poured on your body in the shower? How did the whole thing happen? What is happening after you have eaten your food?

We do things, but we never fully know what we do.

After our eating, nothing is recorded. Nothing is felt. Nothing is enjoyed. Just like a wave our mind lives. When we brush our teeth we are already in the office. When we take our breakfast we are already at the workplace. In the mind, when we are working, we are already back home. When we are home our mind has already planned for tomorrow's office work.

It is a vicious circle…a never ending vicious circle. We live in one way but our mind is working in another way. Our body and the mind do not dovetail into each other. We do not live where we live. We live in one place, but our mind lives in another place. If we are here, the only truth we can be sure of is that we are not here.

Ramana Maharishi, a great enlightened master, says beautifully ‘If you sit for meditation, you can be sure your mind will be walking. Better you walk; you will see the mind stills. Mind will sit.’

He used to tell his followers to go round the hill, the hillock on which he stayed.

People used to ask him, ‘Why are you asking us to go around the hill? Why can't we sit and meditate?’

He would reply, ‘If you sit your mind will wander. At least if you walk, your mind will be still.’

We live in a half hearted manner. Never do we live totally. Never do we live with our full being. Our mind will be always thinking of something else except where we are at that moment in time. That is why our eyes have no glow. Just look how bored we all look. Just look at your face in the mirror and see how bored you are. This boredom is in tune with our life…very dull…terribly dragging…constantly living in the tomorrow instead of living in the now.

A small story:

After a long dry sermon, the priest announced that after the benediction, immediately, there would be a Parish Board meeting in the next room. After the benediction, when the priest entered that room he found an old man sitting there whom he did not recognize. Worse still he did not even seem a local, not even a Catholic. This guy was dressed like an Arab and sitting there in the adjoining room.

The priest went near him and quietly asked, ‘Did you misunderstand? The board meeting is going to be held here. Are you sure you are part of the Board?’

The man replied, ‘I do not know about your Board meeting. I thought you said a meeting of the bored. I came here to see how many others were also bored like me after your sermon.’

The priest said Board and the man understood bored. Note how the man replies that he wanted to meet others who too were bored like him.

Look at your life; look at your face; you are all bored. Somehow you are pulling along…attempting to infuse joy or pep into your life which sadly is not there in you. It is just a drag. Why? Because, all you do, all that you know to do for everything is how to postpone. Your mind never sits with your being. Your mind never lives the moment. Your mind never lives in the same moment that you are in.

You are always in the space of tomorrow or in the space of yesterday. It is never in the space of today, now, the present.

Your tongue never lives when you eat. Your eyes never see when you look. Your ears never listen when you hear. Your body never feels when you touch. How many times you shake your hands in a dead way? Remember, all that you do is to stretch your hands but never your being. It is just a dead hand; a dead man’s handshake. Never has your being penetrated through it.

People ask me, ‘Master, how does your touch heel so many people? How can just your touch do so much? So much healing is done physically, mentally, emotionally.’

People ask me: ‘Do you chant any mantra when you heal? Do you chant any mantra? Please teach us we will also do.’

No, actually I don't chant any mantra. No chanting at all. When I touch you, I just became the touch that is all. My whole being touches. There is nothing else. My whole being feels the touch.

I tell you there is no other secret.

Our being is nothing but pure energy. Whether we believe it or not, our being is energy. If our being is not energy, how will we be alive? We are alive and we are moving, because our being is energy. Our being is pure energy; nothing else. Just the touch; when I am touching I am totally in tune with the touch. It's total. That's all. That is the only thing that heals.

Totality is always energy.

Why do we touch the feet of the Master? Simply, because he is total. His being is truly in the present. His being is in the field of now. He is in the present, now and here. He is present in this space, here, in the time, now. In space, he is here. In time, he is now.

However, all our life, throughout our life, from the moment we are born till we die, even after the death, we never face the moment of now.

Facing now means taking the responsibility of our own life; living with full of energy. But the cunning mind never allows us to take that responsibility and hypnotizes us into the habit of postponement. As I said earlier, humans are intelligent by nature and it is up to us to use the choice of living now or living later.

Let us observe how our mind works. Even before going to our friend's house, we do a complete rehearsal in our mind about what we should speak and if they ask something, how we should reply. We are afraid of facing even our friends; leave alone our boss; leave alone other managers and colleagues. Even our friends, we are afraid to face! We are afraid, because, at any moment we may express the truth and we feel afraid to express our true self.

You see, if you have to speak the truth, if you have to be truthful, there is no need to prepare the rehearsal. There is no need to prepare the script. We have to show something which is not, so we have to prepare a big script. Do we need a script, if we have to tell the truth? We don't need anything. We don't need to remember all these premeditated scripts.

I tell you if you speak the truth there is big freedom. We don't have to remember what we have spoken; because the data will always be the same. Only when we speak lies, there is a big problem. We need to remember the whole script. We need to remember the whole thing which we have uttered or plan to utter. The next time also we have to repeat the same thing.

If we live with the truth there will be no need for any more activity of the mind. There will be no need for any more hide and seek games. We will see that we can be relaxed. We can be total. There is no need for any script writing before entering into friends' houses or in any other situation.

Can you remember an incident when a friend would have left a message for you to call him or her back immediately? What suspense for you! Now recall how your mind will starts its gymnastics...before you ring him up, how many thoughts come in your mind? How many assumptions? How many fears? How many expectations? Before you ring back in just that two or three minutes, you can see the rush of thoughts happening in your system, in your being. Why? You want to be sure of your script before saying anything. You want to project yourself as only how you want to be projected, as per your ideas of yourself and in this process you resist being projected as you are. That is the reason you go ahead creating entire scripts. Continuously you create scripts, and when you are there in the middle of the play, sadly, you don't remember the script!

You can only once, may be twice, project your own scripted views. The next time or another endless time try repeating the performance...you will fail! That is why almost all love affairs end in failure. How long can you continue to act out? How long can you continue to prepare? How many times? How many days? How many times can you remember what you said the previous time? Not more than once, certainly. You will see that truth comes out eventually. In most failed love affairs the lady will say she has been cheated and the man will say that he has been cheated. Both feel that the other has cheated.

Be clear...there is nobody who cheats. It is just that your reality has come out. Love affair is like a dye and powder. When you walk in the rain, the color changes as the dye runs. Black runs here, and white goes there. How long can you maintain the pretense? Naturally the truth has to come out.

The truth comes out when you relax.

Once truth is out, you will be in greater trouble as you are now in a confused, agonized state.

I repeat, if we fall in tune with the truth, then there will be no need to remember what we had said before. Then there will be no problem. Then there will be no fear of having to create the script. We can live as we are. We can continue as we are. Otherwise we will have to be continuously finding arguments and in arguments, we do not know the mistakes we commit.

One lady after two years of her marriage goes to a lawyer and tells him, 'I want a divorce; please arrange for it.'

The lawyer is surprised and asks, 'Divorce? You must have some reason for it.'

The lady replies, 'Oh! Reason! What sort of a reason?'

The lawyer explains. 'Reason...as for example, he doesn't give you enough money.'

The lady replies, 'Money? It is I who gives him money'.

The lawyer continues, '...or, if he beats you continuously and tortures you'.

The lady interrupts, 'Beating me! No, I am the one who beats him'.

The lawyer continues, 'What about faith? What about being truthful? Is he truthful to you in love?'

The lady replies, 'In love? Yes. Now we have got him rightly. This is the right reason we can get. No. He is not the father of our third child.'

When we try to give reasons, when we try to find reasons, we end up in only this type of logic and fault finding. If we do not live the real life, we will be only living with these false reasons. Our mind goes in one direction and we go in another. When this happens and we don't live truthfully, we create a new energy field around us called a pain body.

Understand this one thing clearly...pain is nothing but the unawareness.

If we don't live now, here, in the present, our body will not be attended to. Our body will not have the attention of our being. Just imagine, living continuously outside our body! Our body is here; but we are somewhere else. Our body is in the house; but we are already in the office. When we are in the office your body is in the house. If we continuously live outside the body, our body will go without any attention...without being attended to.

Pain is nothing but the feeling which is created in the body when it is not attended properly. Understand this important secret...attention is energy.

Notice how good we feel when somebody attends to us. Recall the number of times you have felt that you are flying in the air just because somebody complimented you, appreciated you or praised you. How dejected you have felt when you have not been appreciated or praised?

When we are attended to; when somebody attends to us; when somebody serves us, we feel so good. We feel elated. We can see that politicians seem to be continuously energetic. Do you know why? Everywhere they are attended to. Thousands and thousands of people listen to their speech. You can see that if the crowd is more, their voice will go up; because the attention creates energy. If we are attended well, we feel energetic. We feel alive. Attention is energy. When we don't live inside our body, when we don't attend to our body, we will see that our body feels shrunk. Our body really contracts, it shrinks. It just begs us, 'Please give me your attention, please.'

The begging of our body, the begging sound of our body is what is called pain. Pain is nothing but the begging sound of our own body asking for our attention; asking for our presence.

We need to understand that if we continuously live in the past or live in the future; we are not present inside our system. When we are not present, the energy flow inside our system never happens totally and properly. Blood flow has nothing to do with energy flow. Energy flow is far deeper.

It is something like this...if our presence is here; the energy flow is present. If our presence is not here, then the energy flow is absent. If the energy flow is perfect, our intelligence will be perfect. We will be spontaneous. We will have the ability to respond spontaneously. The energy flow creates a tremendous awareness of spontaneity. Whenever we live outside our body continuously, some portion of our body does not get enough attention. So it just begs you for more attention through more pain. That begging is created in the form of pain. When we give our attention, we will see that the pain simply disappears.

I have given a discourse called 'Pain to Bliss'. If you feel that you wish to live in the now in the here and in the present without pain, listen to that discourse, and understand how to remove the pain just by meditation.

Some doctors in LA did this meditation. They said: 'It works miracles, Master'. And one oncologist, who is our devotee, also says that it works miracles. Every one should listen to that cassette. That cassette guides you on to how to create your awareness; how to create your attention, and create your presence in that place where you have pain.

Our pain is nothing but unawareness. Not merely the physical pain but emotional pain also. Physical pain and psychological pain are both nothing but unawareness. If we don’t live here and now, we will see that our pain body keeps growing. The thickness of pain body increases beyond control. Whenever our suffering is attended to, whenever our depression is attended to, we can see that it disappears immediately.

When we do not attend to ourselves, then it becomes deeper and deeper. If our suffering is not cared for then the wound only grows deeper and deeper. If we attend to our body and our mind and emotions we will see how totally our being transforms. The pain body totally disappears leaving behind a beautiful you. Sadly, many of us do not want the pain but only the beautiful self. How many of us are ready to work on ourselves to see the beautiful self?

The concept of the pain body is something new. We understand it as the gap between our real body and our mental body. I repeat…the gap between the body and the mind is what the pain body is. If we live out of our body for a long time, the gap becomes too much. If the gap is too much the strength of the pain body will also become too much. If the gap is less you will see that the strength of the pain body also grows less.

If we continuously live in the now and here throughout the 24 hours, if we live in the present be sure that not only we don’t have pain but we have continuous bliss inside our being. We feel continuous bliss inside our system. Whatever pleasure we feel, whatever joy we feel in the form of pleasure, in the form of enjoyment are nothing but the reduced gap between the pain body and the mental body.

When the gap between the pain body and the pleasure body is reduced we feel pleasure. When the gap between our body and the mind is reduced, when we come to the present moment, we feel that pleasure. Whenever we do not live in the present moment we feel the pain.

There is a beautiful Zen saying, that if you bring your awareness to your body and to your pain, you will see that pain disappears…any pain!

Pain has no positive existence. It has only negative existence. It is like darkness. If we just bring light into darkness, it has no other option but to disappear. In the same way, pain is low energy darkness. It is low attentiveness. When we bring our attention to the pain, our energy to it, we will see that pain simply disappears.

What you think as pleasure is nothing but a present moment happening. Let us say that our mind continuously asks for a special kind of sweet. If we get that sweet, when we put the sweet in our mouth, immediately the mind which continuously asks, comes to the present moment. So, when it comes to the present moment, it continuously feels pleasure. We feel a kind of relief. We feel a sensation of peace. Immediately we start thinking that the pleasure or peace has come from the sweet. Note here that the pleasure is not from the sweet. It is from the mind which is a little calmer after having got what it asked for. It is from the being which has centered itself into the body.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, ‘If a dog bites a dry bone continuously, blood starts pouring out from its mouth. Then the dog thinks that the blood is coming from the bone and it starts enjoying it’.

It works the same way with all the tastes of the world; all the pleasures of the world. We think that our joy comes from the outer world. When we enjoy it, our mind gets settled, gets a little calmer. It just goes inside our being and pleasure arises. However, when we come to the present moment, when we come to the now, here the pleasure and joy happens to our being. We are just like that dog, we do not understand and we start thinking that the pleasure arises only from outer comforts or outer objects.

No! It is not from outer objects that pleasure arises; it is just from our own inner being; from our mind; it is just from our own inner consciousness.

The past is something that is like the dead. The future is nothing but a promise, a potentiality…a seed. The present is the only the real moment. That is why the present is called present. God has given that to us as a present. It is a gift but the great sorrow is that it is unopened. We never live in the present moment. If we only live for 24 hours, just 24 hours, if all of us take an oath that we will live in the present for only 24 hrs…see what happens. Don’t take the oath that I will live in the present for the next 1 year. That will not happen. No. Take just one oath; give a small trial only for the next 24 hours…until tomorrow evening. Try to live in the present moment.

Consciously choose to live in the present moment. When you go to the bed, sit and feel the bed. When you lie down, feel the comfort of the pillow. As soon as you wake up early in the morning from your bed, feel the carpet or the floor under your feet. When you go to the bathroom, when you brush your teeth, feel the water. Feel the paste. Start living throughout your body for the next just one day; then you will understand how by being in the now and here, how much of power and energy is created in you.

There is a beautiful book called ‘Miracle of Mindfulness’. One famous Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says in ‘Miracle of Mindfulness’, that when you start living in a mindful way with every moment, then you will understand how big a miracle this life is. The bread that we eat becoming blood in our body is a great miracle. Thousands of miracles are continuously happening within us, but we never understand that life itself is a miracle. Only when you understand that life is a miracle, it is worth living. As long as you do not understand that life is a miracle, it is nothing much worth living. This is just a simple statement that I am making here…It needs to be understood and applied in practice to actually taste the fruit of the power of now.

We will understand the power of now, when we understand that life is more ‘here’; that life is more ‘now’. When we understand that life is now, not only all the pains, physical and psychological, disappear, but we will also see a tremendous sense of freedom happening to us. Because, if we live now and here, we will never bother about the next moment or about future fears; because, every moment is going to come to us only as now and here. If we can manage now, here, we can manage very effectively the next moment which will also come as a now, here.

Every moment takes birth only from this moment. Birth of a moment is only from this moment and this new moment is what becomes the next moment which is the new now or here. If we can live this moment, then the next moment also we can live. We will then live happily with no regrets, no guilt and no expectations and no surprises.

Our mind has conditioned us to killing this moment we live in. In the same way, we kill the next moment and the next. Killing the moments is what is happening to you now. As long as we don't live now here, we do not live in the present moment. We kill the moment. We kill life. We don’t live it. When we come to now and here, we start living life. We start enjoying it. Unless we come to the now and here, we can’t enjoy our whole body. We can’t enjoy our whole mind. We will only live as a dead, dull mechanism. Being now here makes us alive and makes us live. Now here or Nowhere. If we cannot, I repeat, if we don't live now here, we will reach nowhere. We will be nowhere. A man who lives now here, only lives. Everybody else is more or less like a ghost walking in sleep. Of course, we do not know what is happening, because our body is going in one direction and the mind in another. I repeat a man who lives now here only lives. Other persons…they think they live…they never live…they only live a lie deluding themselves that they live.

May you all enter into the space and time of now and here.

Let you enter into Nithya Ananda, eternal bliss. Thank you. We will now have a question and answer session followed by a meditation.

Q: Why do we sometimes while doing a job which is pretty boring like driving, we do something else, like listening to music, which takes the boredom out of it?

A: A great Master was living in Maharashtra. In the last phase of his life, for ten years, he was asked by doctors to eat only a certain type of rice and grains. Everyday he used to have the same type of food. One day his cook got bored out of her wits. She came and told the Master: ‘I am bored just by cooking the same food. Are you not bored by eating the same food’?

He responds beautifully: ‘No I don’t eat the same food everyday. No I am not eating the same food everyday. How can I eat the same food everyday? Once I eat, it is over. Every meal I eat, I know is a new meal. It is a new ’.

It is not the nature of the mind to make things as habituated. The mind never takes things for granted. However you condition your mind to take driving for granted. Then only you feel bored. Live the moment. Live the road. No moment is old. Especially driving can never become old because of new cars, new vehicles, new things, and new sights on the road. Is the road always the same? Is the sky above you always the same? Is nature around you always the same? You have fallen into a rut of being the same and wanting the same. You do not want changes and you do not want changes around you. Why don’t you enjoy the new around you? Take time to observe, be sensitive and you will notice that it can never become old. Be in the present and live in the moment totally. You condition your mind to make things old and now because it makes things old, you feel bored.

Q: It is very stressful here, Master. You come to the USA thinking okay it is going to be a very comfortable life. Finally you end up finding that it is more stressful here than in India. You have to kind of get up and do all the work at home and then go to office which is more stress and then come back. When one is doing all the things by oneself, it really helps when you do two things at one time. If I do something else while I am waiting I can get the work done faster.

A: One thing, be sure, you can never have efficiency by two things together. You can never have efficiency. You see it is not as if I am in a forest and do meditation whole day. If you live around me for two days, then you will understand how many hours I work. How many hours I work, you will know. You say it is stressful here; you think in India they are not busy?

You see they may not have business, but they are busy. Busy without business. It is not that they are not busy. They don’t have business, but they are busy in their own way. Yes, of course, they are busy in their own way. Of course, sitting in the same tea stall and speaking about the same politics. That is also in a way, business. It may not give dollars, but they are busy. It is not that in some place you are stressful and some place you are not stressful. It is just your mental habit.

Live totally. You see, you feel stressed only when you don’t live totally. If you live this moment, you will never be afraid of other moments. Stress is nothing but psychological fear, just psychological fear. If you live this moment totally, you will never be afraid of next moment. You will never be afraid to face the other moments.

Now when you do this work itself your mind is continuously being boggled, burnt worried about the next moment. The question…What to do? What to do? What to do…keep swirling in the mind. You mark these words as a golden sutra, as a key word for your life. 99% of your worries never come true. Whatever 1% comes true is always good. It is actually true. 99% of your fears and worries never come true. 99% of your stress is just your own creation. Drop this folly of living in the future through worry and start living totally only in the now. Take care of the now and the later will take care of itself!

As I told you yesterday, you feel good if your enemy is too big, and bored if your enemy is too small. So, you know how to create stress. It is just a knack. You see when you put on your awareness cap and the level of awareness increases in your mind, naturally you will understand how much stress you create for yourself. Then all these things will be healed. All these things will be cleared.

Putting on this awareness cap is not easy as your pain body will never allow you to create your awareness. If you put on your awareness cap on your self, the pain body has to die. The pain body also wants to exist just as the other bodies exist. Every body wants to protect its existence. So does the pain body which wants to live. To be alive, the pain body never allows you to turn your awareness and attention on it. Experiment this for your self. Turn your awareness on the stress. Look into it as deeply as is possible. Ask yourself the question ‘What is stress actually?’

Search throughout your body and the mind with awareness; search for any symptom of pain and the associated problem. Whenever you get into a somber mood, whenever you get into states of tiredness, irritation, anger…whenever you get the feeling that you want to shout at others, whenever you feel the headache… whenever you feel like giving headache to others, watch it carefully…observe it minutely. Watch what is happening. Observe the thought circuit of how you are planning. Why are you planning? What for you want to do this?

Turn your awareness and pay close attention to the thoughts in your mind… on the pain and you will see that in this process of close attentive observation the pain simply melts away like ice. Ice can remain as ice only as long as the sun rays do not touch it. When the rays of the sun touch it, it cannot be alive. Your energy, your consciousness, your being present, your being now and here has the same effect as the rays of the sun. They just melt the ice. Go ahead… put your cap of awareness and you will see miracles happening in your system…just miracles. Don’t bother about anything else. Just for 24 hours do this. Just 24 hours…only till tomorrow evening.

All your psychological pains, all your emotional pains, and all your physical pains, watch them keenly…do not ignore any one of them, however painful they may be. Remember I told you right in the beginning of itself that truth frightens us…do not be afraid…courageously go on watching them. Remember you need to just watch them. Do not anything to suppress them. Don’t do anything to avoid them. Simply watch!

If you have a headache just watch it without thinking about the word pain. Watch as it is. Look at what is happening. If you have any emotional problem watch it as it is. Look what is happening. See if you have fear; any fear, watch…look…be here. Be in the present. When you start living in the present you will become a presence.

The master, because he lives in present, becomes a presence. You are no more a person when you start living in the present. You become just a presence. You become energy. You become God. As long as you live in the past or in the future, you just drag your pain body. You are being pushed from this side to that side. When you stop living in the present, you see that you just become a presence. Thank you.

Q: Can you explain what you said about your discourse ‘Pain to Bliss’?

S: You can get the cassette and listen. It is a long explanation. The idea is from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. It speaks about day dreaming and night dreaming. You have two types of dreaming; day dreaming and night dreaming. It is about, how to go beyond day dreaming and how to go beyond night dreaming. That is a discourse given in Los Angeles. The cassette is easily available. You can listen. It will be surely useful. The meditation is there in the cassette. We did that meditation in LA and after that in just two three days many people came and reported: ‘Master, for a long time I was using pills; sleeping pills; now I don’t need. I am totally having my rest. Two three days I am feeling quite comfortable. I don’t need the sleeping pills’.

Many people reported, ‘My sleep time has been reduced. The quality of sleep has been increased.’ So it can work miracles for you. Of course, that also speaks the same thing; living in the present, but from another view point. I speak the same thing, however if you are aware you will notice that there are different, different connotations…different, different titles and different, different meanings.

For the next 24 hours do only this one thing; whenever you remember just start living in the present. Whenever you remember just bring your mind back to your body to where you are. And live just with this body. Over the next 24 hours, you will see just how many miracles can happen because of this mindfulness. Somebody was asking me: ‘Master, can I do the Ananda Spurana Program. Already I have done one ASP. Can I do this ASP also?’

I want to tell you: Just by once attending ASP, just by doing once the 7 meditation techniques don’t think that you can become God. Most of you think just once if I attend, that is enough. If you attend two or more sessions, then you will understand how much you missed. Many people come and ask me after attending the second ASP,’ Master, these meditations in this ASP, you didn’t teach us in the first ASP’. I tell them all that ASPs teach the same technique. Now in the second level called Nithyananda Spurana Program or NSP contains a different set of meditation techniques. Yes…all ASPs teach the same meditation techniques. In this context what the psychologists say is interesting. Only 2 % of what happens around you, the mind can grasp, which means you would not have harnessed the total benefit from your first ASP. So don’t bother if you have done it earlier; if you can find time this weekend, even if you have done ASP already, do it once more; then you will understand how much you have missed last time.

Q: What is the difference between imagining and dreaming?

A: They are two different things. Imagination is different. Dreaming is different. Imagination is like creating your own future. Creating here means that not only do you imagine, but also you start working for it. You have a solid method. See, if you can imagine yourself 10 kilometers ahead of the same route in which you are traveling, it is absolutely certain that you can reach there. If you imagine yourself just floating in the sky, it's a dream. Imagining that which cannot happen, just fantasizing is in no way going to help you. Imagining which can happen in a creative way is going to help you. Creative visualization will always help you. Dreaming is like fantasizing about your future. Just dreaming and fantasizing is in no way going to help you. I have seen many people fantasying about being with great actors and actresses. That is in no way going to help. But imagining your own steps, leading you to where you are going to reach, is of great help as it will lead you to the goal. Please take the decision now here or nowhere what you want to do...imagine and create or just dream!

At the end of the NSP you will have a small compliment from the ashram; a rudraksha (seed from a tree strung together and worn around the neck), an energized rudraksha. Earlier, I was telling you about the total touch. Whenever Master touches something, it is total. The whole touch; that which is touched becomes holy; it becomes energized.

People ask me, why do you wear all these beads? Why these beads? You know, whenever the battery gets discharged, you plug the battery into the power source to recharge it. Much in the same way whenever your body gets discharged, whenever it reaches a low energy depression, these beads can supply energy to you. These beads, when they are energized by the Master, can supply energy to you, to your system. They can supply energy to your body. There are a few ergized beads which were presented to the ashram, by one of our devotees from his own rudraksha trees.

So, each one of you will be given one rudraksha bead; a bead energized by the Master. You can wear it around your neck. If you feel in the work place you cannot wear it, at least in the night time you can have it on your body. You will see that it works miracles. It does lot of good things physically and mentally. The amount of good these type of beads, the rudraksha or the raktha chandana (red sandalwood) can do to you, you cannot imagine. It works with your body for 24 hours.

Not only that, it again and again reminds you to live now and here. You can use this as a one more tool. You can use it as a technique. Whenever you remember the rudraksha on your body, immediately, you can bring your mind to now here. It can remind you of the spiritual nature of you. So, you can have it around your neck or have it in the hand and or even if you have the mangal sutra (necklace Hindu women wear as a sign of being married, similar to a wedding ring for a Christian) attach this with it. Where ever it is possible, under the pillow, anywhere if it is near your vicinity, it can radiate and give you tremendous energy. All of you will have this as a compliment. Thank You.