The Door to Enlightenment🔗

Many people tell me after the NSP that they feel they have emerged as new beings; they feel they have been born again as a new person. Of course, you will realize at the end of the program that it truly is a new birth. That is why you have a choice of taking take a new name, a spiritual name, given by a master.

At the end of the NSP, you have a choice of getting a spiritual name from me. The new name which I give you, the spiritual name, is like constantly reminding you to nurture the psychological revolution which has happened in you through this program; to nurture the new life, the new understanding which happened in you. When a psychological revolution has happened inside you, and you enter into a plane of higher consciousness, again and again if you remember your old name, you will be allowing it to pull you back to the older familiar plane with your older mental habits.

Your name is a very powerful thing for you. Let us say your name is John, and you are sleeping with a few people in a room. If somebody walks into the room and calls out, ‘John!,’ immediately and unconsciously, only you will wake up and respond! This is how deeply your name has been embedded in your unconscious. Your name can be a powerful technique for realizing your Self.

Another important thing is that whenever somebody calls out your name, you are suddenly jolted into a split moment of deep consciousness and awareness of yourself. You must have experienced a situation where you were sitting in a big classroom and suddenly the teacher calls out your name for something. You might have even been dozing off, but the moment you hear your name being called, you will break from the sleep or whatever thought pattern you were in, and you will be jolted back to the present place and time!

Our name has tremendous influence over our state of mind. I meditate upon your being and give you a name which will put you on your path to enlightenment. This spiritual name indicates the spiritual path which will suit the innate nature of the person and lead to the ultimate flowering of the individual and actualization of his potential.

Every time we call a person by his spiritual name, we remind him about his path to enlightenment. By and by, the name will enter the very core of his being.

If you have the right spiritual name given by an enlightened being, the very name will take you to the depth of your consciousness. It will connect your mind and consciousness. It will be like a bridge for you to enter into enlightenment. It will tell you how your way of life should be, how you can achieve enlightenment, how you should take care in your life.

There are thousands of ways to live a life on planet earth. To give you the proper guidance meant for only you, the master chooses the name. Your name is like a mantra.

Let me give the definitions of the words engram or samskara and mantra.

Any word which is inscribed in your inner space, which binds you, which suffocates you, which brings you down in your consciousness, is a samskara or an engram.

Any word inscribed in your inner space which liberates you, which takes you to higher consciousness, which takes you to a more joyful and blissful state is a mantra.

Mantra and samskara are almost the same, but samskara binds you, while mantra liberates you. Mantra is the antidote for samskara. If you are given your name by a person who is yet to get enlightened, who still lives in unconsciousess, then your name can become a bondage for you. If you are named by an enlightened being, by a person who lives in superconsciousness, your name is a method or technique to liberate you. Your very name can be used as a technique for enlightenment.

If your spiritual name can be used in the social setup in which you are living, that is the best thing, because the whole day from morning until night, either you will be using the name or someone else will be using the name to address you. When this happens, understand that every moment becomes a spiritual practice for you! Your name is the right word from an enlightened master, given to you as a technique. Every time it is repeated, you are entering into the zones of higher consciousness. Every time you remember the meaning of it, you move to a different plane.

People come and tell me, ‘The spiritual name you gave me is so beautiful. Whenever I remember the name, I feel fulfilled. Whenever I remember the name along with with its meaning, whenever I meditate on the name and its meaning, I feel like I am overflowing!’ The spiritual name can take you to the deepest level of your being.

One more thing: any other word is only an addition to your already existing collection of words, but your name is your very center. Your name is the center, and everything else is only an addition. That is why in the vedic tradition, we use only Gods’ names as names for newborns. That is why we have chants for every God. They describe the God through 1008 names. Such chants are called sahasranama. Sahasranama is used for two different purposes. One: to address the Gods; second: to pick out names for your children. The elders in the family will first refer these sahasranamas. They will see which your family deity is, what your astrological birth data is, then refer to the sahasranamas to find a suitable name for you.

Here an enlightened master straightaway gives you your spiritual name which can take you to your enlightenment. Many people ask me if it is compulsory to change the name legally. Understand two things: unless you change your name legally, you will not completely change over to the new name in your everyday life. You will entertain a mix of your old name and spiritual name all the time, thereby defeating the very purpose of giving the name. Secondly, unless I make it mandatory to change your name legally, people don’t take this seriously. Just out of curiosity to know what name I might give them, they sign up for a new name. So just to make people more aware and conscious of the whole process of giving a spiritual name, I tell them it is better to change their names legally.