Chapter 10: Nirvanic Body🔗

The next layer is the nirvanic body. The master lives in the nirvanic body. From the atman to the nirvanic body is where he lives. Only the nirvanic body and cosmic body can meet. No other layers can meet. You meet the master in laughter. Laughter is like a bridge between you and the master. It can transmit energy directly from the master to you. When you sit in front of the master and laugh, you can immediately feel the energy transfer happening.

The nirvanic layer is associated with bliss. It is so subtle that it almost doesn't exist. It is almost the atman, just the step before. What is the way to explore this last step? What is the way to bring out the energy of this last step? By totally cutting yourself from the past.

No evolution will help; only revolution will help. This moment of touching the nirvanic body is the moment when the seed takes the decision to sprout. When the seed is sprouting, the seed will experience agony. In Christianity, this is called as 'The dark night of the soul'. The moment when you take the decision to make the jump, you take the decision to go beyond. You take the decision with all your consciousness, with all your energy, to go beyond the body and mind. When you realize that everything you are experiencing is just your own conditioning, you suddenly wonder, 'Is this life really worth living? So many desires, so many sufferings, so much of guilt, so much of pain... Only one layer of joy, and that also is through the layers of pain!'

Look at your whole past. Read what you have actually written. Almost for everybody, the past is more like a wound which needs to be operated upon, or thrown out from the being.

When you consciously decide to drop the past, you can actually drop it. Understand a few things: your past is simply your conditioning. When you understand it is only conditioning, can't you drop it? As long as you think it is you, you can't drop it. But if you understand that it is your conditioning, you can simply drop it. When you psychologically drop it, even physically the whole thing will change! That is the beauty of it.

The nirvanic layer is the layer that the master is always in. So how do we relate with the master? When you come in front of the master, just feel a deep love, that is all. Feel a deep love in front of him, that is enough. Nothing else is needed. Nothing else needs to be done. There is no other code of conduct to be followed.

Many people come in front of me and do all sorts of things like either showing off too much or displaying too much humility. The ones who show too much humility are the cunning ones. The really innocent ones will just come and sit on the seat on which I am sitting or just next to me! And I always find that these innocent people are not only good to me, they are good to

A farmer went to Ramana Maharishi's ashram and tried to sit with him. Because he had knee pain, he sat on a small stool. Some of the ashramites shouted, 'Oh, you cannot sit in front of Bhagavan on a stool. You are to sit only on the ground.' Bhagavan gestured to them and laughed. On the roof, a monkey was sitting right above Ramana's head. He asked, 'What will you do about this monkey? He is sitting right above my head!'

So understand that all these codes and protocols are just foolishness. I don't see any juice in it. When you can have tears of love, tears of gratitude in your eyes, that is the real thing. That is the real way to conduct yourself in the presence of the master, nothing else is needed.

If you really understand whatever is taught and whatever is spoken, will you be the same person when you go back? No! You will never be the same person. You can never be the same person. So naturally when you meet the master, you will be reborn. You will have a second birth.

There are three types of garbha (womb). One is the garbha which is carried by the mother - which gives birth to a child. The next is the hridgarbha. If you carry a great ideology in your heart, if you give birth to a book, or a painting or a great scripture, these are all from your hridgarbha. If you carry the master's presence or the deep gratitude in you, you give birth to yourself through gnanagarbha – the womb of wisdom. So the master totally destroys your past. He makes you drop from your past, and gives you a new life.

Only a total disconnection from the past can help you grow. There is no question of evolution, it is always only revolution. Evolution can never happen; only revolution can happen. So just drop from your past, just decide totally, consciously, and drop from your past. Don't think, 'Oh, I do not know how to put this whole thing into practice.' No! Simply throw the old personality out. Don't respect your old habits that threaten to come back. Don't respect the old body; don't respect the old mind; don't respect the old conditioning. Simply decide, 'This is how I am going to live from now onwards. This is the way I will live... over!'

A small story, which is a very powerful story:

Once there was a rat in a king's palace. The king wanted to kill the rat.

One day he called his soldier and ordered him to kill it.

When the soldier entered the room, suddenly from somewhere the rat jumped on to his face. He lost his balance, got frightened and ran out of the room, shouting, 'No, no, no! Oh king, the rat is too big. I do not think the rat can be killed by anybody.'

Seeing the frightened and shivering soldier, the king got frightened and thought, 'Oh, this rat is something totally different, I do not know what to do.'

He called the palace cat and ordered it to go and kill the rat.

The soldier told the cat, 'Don't think it is an ordinary rat. I went and was totally shaken, so be careful.'

Anyway the palace cat got ready with all his paraphernalia. He exercised for two to three days at the gym and took a special diet of food. On the day of the fight, he entered the room. Again the rat jumped on the cat's face. The cat got totally frightened, lost its balance and ran out.

Now, the rat became a challenge for the whole country. Even the palace cat could not do anything about it! So the king announced, 'Anybody who kills the rat will be given a special prize. So, many cats were brought. They tried to catch the rat but just couldn't.

In a remote village, an old man had a cat. He thought, 'Why not try my cat?' He asked the cat, 'Will you kill the rat in the king's palace?' The cat said, 'Why not? Let us go.'

The man brought the cat. It was a very lean cat. He let the cat inside the room. The cat simply killed the rat, and came out!

The king asked in utter disbelief, 'How did you do it? Even the palace cat could not do it! How did you have the courage? How did you do it?'

The cat replied, 'What? I am a cat. It is my nature to kill a rat. I just caught the rat, that's all!'

Understand that while your nature is so clean and straightforward, simply being influenced by past experiences and undue conditioning only makes you spoil your real nature. You always think, 'No, the last time I tried and things were a failure. Nothing worked. I think this time too, the same thing is going to happen.' Don't have all those past things in your memory. Even the idea 'the last time I failed' is past. Cut it from the very root. Drop from the very root of the past.

Someone came and told me, 'Swamiji, last year alone, I stopped smoking 27 times!' Just imagine. Understand: it is you who gives energy to the past. The past can never control you on its own because there is no entity called 'past'! The past is actually dead. It is you who gives it life.

By the time you reach the nirvanic layer, you will be without samskaras and at the doorstep of enlightenment. You have to let go now to reach enlightenment. It happens on its own. It cannot be made to happen. It is like river water. It stays in your hands as long as your hands are open; once you close your hands to possess the water, there is no water. Bliss is like a flowing river. It is choicelessness. If you try to make bliss a choice, it will be absent. If you can understand the purposelessness of life as a part of the grand plan of Existence, you will reach this layer. The river flows without a purpose right? Does the river have any purpose? No! Yet it flows so blissfully.

The ego believes that there is purpose to life - material, relational and spiritual. The more purposes there are, the stronger your ego feels. If you drop all purposes and still hold on to the purpose of enlightenment also, it is futile. Only when you realize that life is totally purposeless and you drop your ego, will enlightenment happen to you.

Even if you apply your strong logic you cannot find the purpose of Existence! The purpose of Existence is bliss, that's all.

How can we enjoy without possessing, without making something our own? We are like water bubbles on a wave in the ocean. Each bubble catches hold of a few more bubbles and calls them wife, husband, father, son, and collects shells thinking they are jewels. The bubble does not understand that it can burst any moment and once it bursts, none of this will hold good.

When you are ready to digest that everything is purposeless, whether material, relational or spiritual, only then life acquires meaning. The moment you have a goal, you miss the path.

The mind always waits for something to happen. It waits for salary - weekly, monthly, yearly, five-yearly. If someone offers you 100 years' salary and asks you to die tomorrow, will you die? When you measure your life by paychecks, you reduce your spirit to matter. Your ego is stuck on what you see as a purpose in life.

An elderly lady came to me with her son. She wanted me to take him into the ashram as a brahmachari. I was surprised since usually no parent would like the child to be a sannyasi. Vivekananda is great, but no one wants his son to be a Vivekananda. I asked her why she wanted him to be at the ashram. She said that he is mentally not sound. I told her I run an ashram not an asylum!

We have many reasons why we cannot do things. By the time you finish one responsibility, you will have ten more waiting for you. Running becomes your conditioning, not relaxing.

When you are young, you tell yourself that you will relax after you graduate from university; then you shift the goal post to marriage; then to children; then to educating children; then to their marriage. Can you relax after you are 60? By then you have missed the path itself.

The primal sin you can commit is to miss the path of life by following goals. When you live, allow your being to be blissful. When you start hurrying, think about what you are hurrying for; do not allow restlessness in you, thinking that it will settle down. That will never happen. If you are not able to relax into the present moment, even after fulfilling your responsibilities you will not be able to relax. Whenever you run, just think why and what for.

You may have a big house, drive a big car, and people around you might always be praising you. But can you carry anything of this with you? Can you carry with you even one single cheque book? No! It is all purposeless. When you understand the purposelessness, healing happens. If you allow this understanding to happen, even if you are abused, you will heal. The understanding itself will guide you.

You may be thinking, ‘All my life I have had a purpose, and my life has been fine. But now you say everything is purposeless.’ Whether you like it or not, that is the truth.

Your seeing me is a dream. Scriptures say that the moment you see an enlightened master, you become enlightened! Understand, seeing me is not the same as looking at me, which is what you do. Looking is with eyes; seeing is with the being. The closer you come to the master, the more your understanding of him changes. Your maturity allows you to see me differently as you grow.

People get a shock when I tell them about the purposelessness of life. Restlessness hides the purposelessness from you; it hides the path with the goal. Please understand this and be healed. All your dreams of the future, and all your guilt of the past will disappear; all ephemeral joys and suffering will vanish.

In Tiruvannamalai, my hometown, there was a saint by name Yogi Ramsuratkumar. He was as innocent as a child. Whenever people came to him, whatever their problem was, he would say ‘Alright’. When someone died, he would say, ‘Alright’. If someone’s son was getting married, he would say, ‘Alright’. I asked him, ‘Swami, why do you say alright to everything?’ He said, ‘Everything is just purposeless. Whatever you think has a purpose has no meaning.’ Whenever you remember the truth of purposelessness, healing will happen, and suffering will disappear.

You need courage to pursue the truth. Life will then take on a different path. You will live as a liberated soul. You will never drop your job, relationship or wealth. You will drop only what you do not have. You will drop the mental associations. You will drop the fantasy of a throne and start enjoying the seat on which you are sitting. When purpose is dropped, meaning will happen.

You actually become tired not by doing things, but by thinking of how much you have done. The play of the mind makes you tired and dull. You constantly struggle; you are restless. Once you understand why you feel tired and dull, you will switch track. When you switch track, you will never think that you are doing anything great. You think you are doing something great only because the mind makes it out to be so. The moment you understand this and your mind loses its power to do this, you will start working without ego and you will work ten times more! Then your inner space will be so pure. Even if you have achieved great things, you will not bother about it.

We just finished installing the largest Venkateshwara deity in the USA. In fact it is one of the largest stone statues here. All it took was a phone call. I do not think I did anything big for it. By the time you finish the word building game, you will become tired. Instead, you can finish the work itself. If you work towards a purpose, you calculate at every 10% step of the job. By the time you reach 50%, you are tired. You start thinking that you are doing something big.

Now it is time to enter into the nirvanic layer – the seventh body. Actually if you travel up to the seventh layer, there will be no suffering that can hold you back from enlightenment or from relaxing into Existence.

Only one thing will be there: the remaining seeds of karma - just the old memories or a little bit of emotional attachment to the old memory; that's all, nothing else. If you have the courage to move on from your emotional memory or your emotional attachment, this nirvanic layer also will be cleansed. There is nothing in this nirvanic layer which can hold you back.

Actually if you do this whole program intensely, it is a straight route to enlightenment. Do as much as possible, and it will enrich your life. It will cause tremendous physical and mental healing in you. But the aim of this program is not just physical or mental healing, but the healing of your entire being.

I have designed this program to get you out of the bhavaroga – worldly life. If you are intense, this single technique that you are going to do now, can completely liberate you from the entire past. In the nirvanic body, all you need is the courage to take the jump.

All you need to do in this nirvanic layer is to break free from the past. One important thing: just take a few minutes and think back...Now practically you have your complete biography in your hand, am I right? You have your biography in the papers that you are holding in your hand. If you have written properly from as much of your life as you remember, you will have your entire biography in your hand. Now ask yourself: the way in which you lived in the past, is it perfectly alright or do you feel there is a need for some improvement? Naturally you will feel that you should improve or develop it, am I right? If at all you think, if at all you feel there is a need for development, that there is a need for transformation, please understand that you have to drop the whole past mental set-up. You can't say, 'No, there are some good things that I will take, and all the bad things I will drop.' No! Either you erase the whole program or you live with the whole program, that's all! There is no such thing as taking a little bit and leaving the rest.

Be very clear: if you think it is garbage, you have to dump the whole thing; or you have to carry the whole thing in your head. You can't say that you will pick up pieces of the garbage, arrange it nicely and put a little perfume over it and live with it. No! Either you throw the whole thing out or keep the whole thing with you. If you consciously decide that you need transformation, then throw the whole thing out.

Immediately the next question will be, 'If I throw away everything, will I forget where my house is? Will I forget who my wife is?' Will I forget who my relatives are?' Be very clear, you will not forget where your house is or who your wife is, but you will forget the loaded memories or the loaded emotions associated with the house or wife.

When you forget, when you drop the emotional attachment to your memories, you are free from the 'burden' of the past. All these words appear to be too big, but I tell you your visualization has enough power, enough capacity, enough energy, to achieve this state.

The big problem is that we don't believe we have something called inner space. Just as you have an outer space, you have something called as inner space. Consciously you can clean this space.

All that we are going to do in the seventh layer is, consciously keep the inner space clean. To tell you honestly, it is not that you can throw away all the negative engrams. Whether it is desire or guilt or suffering or joy or anything else, it is not that you have worked on all the engrams completely. There will be a little bit remaining in some corner. Now it is time to dig deep in all the layers at once and throw them out. Re-live completely all the six layers, and relieve them! Reliving is relieving.

In the nirvanic layer, all you are going to do is only this one thing – breaking free from the past.

The seed is always afraid to break. It says, 'No, let the tree happen, only then I will break.' The tree in turn says, 'No, let the seed break, only then I will happen.' The seed has to break to allow the tree to grow! Only when you break free from the past mental set up can you create a new mental setup. You will be able to create a new mental setup only if you create the space for it.

Now, consciously, and a little violently, we are going to throw away our negative engrams. Not only consciously, a little violently also. You are just going to push your unconscious away from you. Or you are just going to bring your unconscious to your consciousness. The moment you bring it to your consciousness, it will be burnt away. You don't need to do anything special. Just bring it to your conscious zone, and it will be just burnt away.

If Shiva opens his third eye, it is just enough... Manmata (lust/ cupid) will be just burnt away. Manmata is a character from Hindu mythology used as a symbol of lust or unconscious. Now all of you are going to do the same thing. Actually it is a metaphysical story: Shiva opening the third eye and Manmata being burnt.

There is no real person called Manmata standing with a big sugarcane bow and flowers as arrows. And neither did Shiva actually open his third eye and direct fire on Manmata to burn him away.

If this really happened, then Shiva is a criminal; he has committed murder! It is a metaphysical story. When you open up the Supreme Knowledge, when you open the gnaanaagni - fire of intelligence in you, it just burns away all your negative engrams; all your negative engrams are burnt away. That is the meaning of the story. Now it is time for you to open your gnaanaagni or throw all your engrams into the fire of consciousness. Breaking free from the past is the ultimate liberation. Now you are going to open your conscious being to your engrams. You are going to open your engrams to conscious energy. You are literally going to burn all your engrams. The book in which you have written about all your samskaras, is going to be put in the fire, so that you are rid of the samskaras once and for all.

You may think, ‘Why should I put all my joyful moments also in the fire?’ Whatever you know as joyful moments are not the completely liberating joy, please understand that. They are just superficial joys. Drop them, and you will see a new dimension of intense joy rising in you. Just have the courage and drop all your joys, whatever you understood as joy into the fire. You will see that you will enter into a new dimension, and a different kind of joy will rise in you.

It is like this: when you were a small child, playing with toys was a joy. But now, the very dimension of your joy is different, is it not? Do you enjoy playing with toys now? No! The whole dimension has changed. Do you feel that you are missing all your toys? No! But if I had told you when you were a child, that there is a different dimension in which you can enjoy, would you have been willing to listen to me? No! In the same way I am telling you now that there is yet another deeper dimension waiting for you. So, just place your trust and take the jump.

The very depth of the joy will change. Right now, like how the children play with human dolls calling them mother, father etc, you play with real human dolls calling one your mother, one as father, one as sister, one as brother, one as aunt, etc. You are just playing with all these dolls. Now just relax and drop these dolls. You will understand that your life is something far more valuable and higher than these dolls.

You are not here as a citizen of some country or belonging to some caste or creed or related to some religion or belonging to some community. You are just a liberated individual being, pure consciousness, who is supposed to relax into the bliss within you.

Somebody has given me a letter. It reads, 'Master, please show me the way to intense and eternal peace.' This is the way. It is time to drop layer after layer of conditioning. You are continuously made to believe you are male, you are female; you belong to this religion or that; you belong to this state, or you belong to that country; you have this much of wealth or you are poor. Now it is time to relax from these ideas.

Actually if you drop your conditioning, you will have something called your inner space where you can rest when you wish to. When you are haunted or tortured by conditioning, you can go inside and rest. If you have a resort or an inner space to rest in, you will be able to work much more beautifully. You will be able to play the psychodrama of life much more beautifully.

I always tell people, 'You thinking that you are a disciple and you thinking that I am a Guru is also a psychodrama!' Don't think that only your life is a psychodrama; you thinking of me as a Guru is also psychodrama. Because you want to think that way, you think of me as a Guru and I look like your Guru, that's all. As you want, so I appear. I am just a mirror. The master is just a mirror. The whole thing is just a psychodrama. You are living in a psychodrama. Understanding that the whole thing is a psychodrama and the ability to relax from it only can help you in the nirvanic layer.

In the nirvanic layer, all you need to understand is this: whether it is your profession or your relationships or your spirituality, the whole thing is just a psychodrama! You have an idea about yourself. You have strongly positioned yourself in some spot. You have decided about yourself and set yourself a few clear rules. From that point, you are continuously working and measuring and doing things. But you forget that the base itself is not there. The base which you have created itself is just an illusion. Nirbana in Paali language means Nirvana. The very meaning of that word Nirbana means ‘nothing’.

There is nothing in all this! Please be very clear: all your activities are centered on you, what you think is you. For example, you think you are a person named Raman. That is the starting point. From that you start: Raman, Raman's wife, Raman's daughter, Raman's family, Raman's property, Raman's spiritual growth, Raman's physical body, Raman's mental health, Raman's economic status… the whole thing is centered on you, but you don't realize that Raman itself is not there! You are trying to continuously protect yourself, physically, mentally, emotionally, economically, spiritually or socially. But the very being whom you are trying to protect is not there.

This story actually happened to me as a darshan, as a vision, as an experience. It is from this that I created our institution's emblem. If you see our emblem you will see the Paramahamsa bird in it. The Paramahamsa is our emblem. I had a beautiful vision or experience, from which I created the emblem.

Ramakrishna speaks about the great Swans – the Paramahamsas. These great Swans are actually enlightened masters who take a bird body just to go around and see their territory! They are metaphysical birds, seen only through enlightened eyes or by people who are living in the higher consciousness zone. Of course, only if you are enlightened, you will be able to stay in the higher consciousness; that is different!

The Paramahamsa never comes down to planet earth. It just flies high in the sky, enjoying and expressing its freedom; expressing its own bliss. Sometimes it descends in height and flies closer to earth.

The Paramahamsa lays its egg while it is in the air. Within forty percent distance of touching the ground, the egg will hatch. Within sixty percent distance, the small one will emerge and grow wings. Before touching the ground, within ninety percent distance, the small one will just take off and fly back into the air. It will never touch the ground! It will never touch planet earth. These are called the Paramahamsas – the supreme Swans that are untouched by worldly matters, who represent enlightened consciousness since birth.

There is a small story about these great Swans:

Figure 15: Paramahamsa flying over the lake

The Swan is flying high in the sky. When the reflection of the Swan falls on lakes or the ocean or a river, when the reflection falls on the water, all the fish in the lake start jumping, 'Oh, some new fish has come, some big fish has come!' They all start jumping on the reflection and playing with it. The very sight of the reflection fills them with joy.

Some fish will jump this way, and some fish will jump that way. Some fish will think, 'What a beautiful fish, what a wonderful fish this is,' and they will be jumping this way and that. Some fish will start calling the other fish, 'Hey come quickly, come and see this beautiful fish, this pretty fish!'

Some fish will even put a fence around the reflection and declare, 'Only we can go near this fish!' Some fish who jump towards the reflection will feel that the fish is hugging them. They will go back and write reminiscences, 'Oh... this fish is so great, so loving, radiating compassion; what amazing love and compassion!'

Figure 16: Fish jumping over the Swan's reflection thinking it is a new type of fish

Some other fish start purchasing neighboring land - real estate, thinking the Swan may come there. Some other fish claim, 'I am the brother of the Swan, I am the son of the Swan, I am the beloved of the Swan.' The whole drama happens!

Some fish which jump a little away from the reflection will feel as if the Swan is kicking them out; as if the reflection is kicking them out. They will go out and say, 'No, no. This fish is arrogant. He is not as loving as these other fish have told me. In books I read that it was very loving and compassionate. I went there and the swan kicked me out. It is not as compassionate as these fish say.'

If the water is calm, the fish see one kind of reflection of the Swan. If the water is turbulent, they see another form of the Swan. When they move with the water, they see yet another form of the Swan. They argue with each other, claiming that what each one sees is the real Swan; all by looking at the reflection! Each different perception of the reflection is held on to by either individual fish or groups of fish. The Swan just keeps flying, and the fish just keep arguing. When they do not see the swan's reflection, the fish have no recollection of the reflection that had filled them with joy just a while ago. Their memories are short and they are back to their eating, mating, fighting and dying!

Suddenly the Swan starts flying over land. The reflection which was appearing on the water suddenly disappears! Immediately all the fish start crying, 'What happened? Our Swan has disappeared! What happened to our Swan?' But they never understand that the Swan never landed on planet earth in the first place to disappear now!

Different types of fish come around the reflection. There are some fish that are very busy - just jumping this way and that way. And when these fish jump this way and that way, the reflection starts moving because of the ripples created by the fish. And these fish will think that the Swan is moving. The fish cannot distinguish between the reflection and the source. They are too excited about the 'big fish' in the water. Some fish feel they are even getting enlightened. They feel that the closer they are to the reflection, the faster they will get enlightened! Of course, wherever the reflection falls, automatically, ashrams and communities and temples just come up! You don't even have to do anything; they will just come up! If the reflection falls on Malaysia, all the Malaysian fish will gather and a temple will be built! If it falls on Los Angeles, all the Los Angeles fish will gather and the temple will be built! If the reflection falls on Bengaluru, all the Bengaluru fish will gather and a temple will be built! If the reflection falls on some other country or city, all the fish will gather and naturally, an ashram will be built!

Suddenly the Swan starts flying over land. The reflection which appeared on the water suddenly disappears!

Figure 17: Fish try to capture the Swan in various frames

Immediately all the fish start crying, 'What happened? Our Swan has disappeared! What happened to our Swan?' Some of the fish start cursing the Swan, 'What is this? Believing this Swan, we built such a beautiful house and raised all the real estate around this building. Now each building will go for five lakhs.' Yet, the Swan flies on blissfully untouched by the drama that is going on with the fish. But they never understand that the Swan never landed on planet earth in the first place, to disappear now!

The whole thing is just a drama! In the same way, in your life too, you have started thinking that you have a soul. Of course, you have a soul, but that soul is entirely different from whatever you understand as your soul. It is just like your misunderstanding of the Swan's reflection. But based on your own understanding, you start protecting yourself and creating a fence around you. You create a house, family, relations, social security and wealth, then decide, 'Oh! I need spiritual growth also.' Then you go to some Guru and start searching for spirituality also.

But you forget that the very Swan has not happened! There is no Swan in what you are seeing. You are just playing with the reflection.

The problem is, the reflection itself is so graceful, so beautiful, that most of the fish have no motivation to look up! The fish are quite happy building walls and fences in the water, with the belief that they possess the Swan.

But there are some intelligent fish... who think... 'No! This does not seem to be a fish. This seems to be something else.' Some intelligent fish will suddenly think this way. These fish are what we call devotees!

There are some other - very few but more - intelligent fish. They will see the reflection and say, 'No, it is not even something else, it is just a reflection of something!' And they will look up...and see the Swan flying! These are the disciples!

Figure 18: Some fish look up!

Understand? There are many levels of fish. There are fish that will jump this way, towards the reflection and feel that the reflection is hugging them. They will feel that He is very loving, caring and compassionate. They will go back and write reminiscences. This is one level. Or they will make a website for Him, or they will write a book for Him.

There are some fish that will jump that way, away from the reflection and say, ‘No, no, that fish kicked me out. It is not loving or compassionate.’ This is one group of fish.

Some rare, intelligent fish will look and say, ‘No! This is not even a fish like us. It is something else…'

You see, there is a beautiful sloka – verse - in the Bhagavad Gita which says: whoever thinks that the Guru is a better human being, has abused the divine Presence. The Guru is

So only a few intelligent fish get an idea: No! He is not a better fish or a big fish or anything. He is not even the same species which we think we are. The very quality, the very idea is totally different. Those who are fortunate enough to have this click, become devotees! Only they start living around or start practicing very sincerely whatever they caught in the expression of the Swan.

Figure 19: You are also a Paramahamsa!

Understand: the people who come and go...these are the fish that claim He is loving and compassionate as well as the fish that jump out and say, 'No, not like that, everything is business...' both the fish are only 'consumers'. The fish that start looking, that start feeling, 'No, this is not a fish, it cannot be just a fish like us...' - that fish is an investor! Only when you have this doubt: No, this is not just a fish, it is something else, you are ready to look up and see the source. When you look up and see the original fish…the original Swan…you understand the truth! Not only that… Suddenly you will see…you were also never a fish, you were thinking that you were a fish! Suddenly you will see…‘Arrey! I am also a Swan!’

Then, you will just fly and play with the Swan!

Until you see the Swan flying, you do not realize that you too are a Swan. You are a Swan, who for some reason, fell into the water, and forgot you can fly. You are just tumbling this way and that way, struggling to survive, thinking that you are a fish.

This is the truth.

Understand one important thing: whether the fish are jumping and moving the reflection, or they are feeling that the reflection is loving and compassionate and hugging them, or they feel that everything is just business and hating it, or if they look a little deep and find out the reality of the Swan - throughout all of these stages, the Swan does not even bother…. He is not even touched. He is neither touched nor bothered! That is the beauty! His reflection falls on the lake for one purpose only: expecting and seeing if maybe a few fish will look up; that’s all! Maybe a few fish will look up…

Understand:

In the first level, when you jump and say that he is compassionate, you are a fish, and the reflection is also a fish.

If you jump out and say, ‘No, no, it is not as we think; it is all just foolishness,…’ again, you are a fish and he is also just one more fish. In the third level, when you look at the reflection and say, ‘No, no, this is not a fish,’ then, you are not a fish and He is also not a fish either. He is a reflection and you are also a reflection of the reflection. That is why you are able to feel that it is something else.

Then, in the fourth level, when you look up, He is a Swan and you are also a Swan!

Along with your transformation, you will feel the higher experiences of Him. And by seeing the higher experiences of Him, your further transformation will happen; both are inter-connected.

When you see the divinity in an idol, it is the first level. When you see the divinity in a living human being, in the Guru or master, it is the next level, and it is called Guru Bhakti – devotion to the Guru. You will see that Guru Bhakti suddenly leads to Atma Bhakti – devotion to the Soul! The Guru just turns the devotion that you have on him towards yourself and says, ‘What is inside this system, is inside that system as well. Tat Tvam Asi – You are That!’

The reflection of the Swan happens everywhere in the hope that maybe a few fish will look up. But understand one thing: especially the ones who are the organizers… I always tell them, these rituals, rites, temples, ashrams, everything is for service, for the public. You should remember only one thing: do not forget to see the Swan. Some fish are so busy collecting pebbles to add to the height of the temple, they forget to look up and see the Swan. One fine morning, the Swan may no longer be there; only empty water will remain. They will be stuck with the memorial they built. The Swan would have disappeared. All you need to do is look up! Look up at the real Swan instead of being caught in its reflection! Just look up and you can simply see that you are also not a fish either; you also have wings and you also can fly just like the Supreme Swan or Paramahamsa. You are Him.

Before the Swan disappears, do not forget to look up and see the Swan. Sometimes, people just play around and miss. They forget to look up and see the Swan, thinking that it is going to be there forever.

So, do not miss…

If you can meditate on this one story, I tell you, you will be liberated this moment! If you can, keep your focus only on this one understanding, just like a Zen koan. Remember: you have never happened as you think you have; whatever you think is you is not you.

The root of you is non-existence – nirbana. Nirbana means nirvana which is ‘non-existence’. Just imagine: to protect something which is non-existent, you are torturing yourself so much. The stream is flowing; if the fish is trying to push the stream, or if the fish tries to stop the stream, will the stream even know about it? Whether you try to become enlightened or you take on a stand against enlightenment, God doesn’t even know anything about it.

All the fish on seeing the Swan think, ‘Let us stop this stream. Let us have a barricade and stop this stream.’ If all the fish line up in the stream and try to stop the stream, do you think they will be successful? The stream will not even know that the fish are trying to stop it! In the same way, you not becoming enlightened, or you not realizing what reality is, your atman doesn't even know. You are not connected to your being even that much. So whatever you think is you is just non-existent.

A small story:

A man who was blind from birth went to the doctor. The doctor said, 'I will operate on your eye. You will have your eye sight back, and then you can walk without your stick.' The blind man said, 'Doctor, I understand that you will operate on me and I will have my eye sight back. But how are you saying that I can walk without my stick?'

Unless the man has his eye sight back, he will not be able understand how he can walk without a stick. Just intellectually, you cannot convince the man that he will be able to walk without his stick!

The great enlightened masters are the Paramahamsas who touch the planet earth from time to time taking a human form, with a mission, from time to time. A Paramahamsa is one whose spiritual awakening leads to enlightenment even before adolescence. Such a being never touches the ground; his spirit soars high well before it is enmeshed in the web of worldly reality. Paramahamsas are rare beings whose innocent wisdom pierces even the most hardened heart and mind.

In such beings, the divine kundalini energy, which is the universal energy that flows through every individual, that is stored in the muladhara chakra (the energy center at the base of the spine) never moves downwards as it does with normal beings at adolescence.

In all humans, this energy moves downwards, leading to sexual awakening and the desire to fulfill the need for procreation. In the case of the Paramahamsa, the kundalini energy is awakened before puberty, and it moves upwards instead of downwards at the time of spiritual awakening, without causing any desire for sexual pleasure.

The energy within the Paramahamsa stays pure, uncorrupted, and exceptional. Their purpose in life is to communicate to the rest of humanity this truth that has been gifted to them, in the hope that at least some of the others would get a glimpse of this truth for themselves. Each Paramahamsa communicates this message in his own inimitable style. Ramakrishna, forever in divine ecstasy, inspired others through devotion or bhakti. Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, another great Paramahamsa, communicated his message mainly in silence, through a process of discrimination. There are others who by their touch and at times by a mere glance imparted their wisdom to disciples who were ready to receive the truth. In whichever way they may impart the truth, it is not to be forgotten that they happen on planet earth for only one reason: the hope that at least a few of us will look up and see the Truth, and become That.

Understand this one thing: if you really look inside yourself, whatever you thought of as being you will not be there. It will disappear the moment you look inside. Whatever issues are the basis for your suffering, where those issues are rooted, that very root is non-existent. That is why I tell you, your name itself is non-existent!

That is why in Zen they say, meditate on how your face might have been before your birth. Just visualize how your face might have been before your birth. Will you be able visualize? No! If you are 50 years old now, just 50 years ago you were non-existent. Whatever you think as you now, was non-existent 50 years ago, am I right? And 50 years later, you will be again non-existent. Why are you then suffering so much? Why are you torturing yourself just for these few years of drama? The whole thing is just nirbana!

Meditate on this one sutra. Don't bother about what others are thinking about you, because they are bothering about what you are thinking about them! It is just a drama that is happening continuously; you don't have time to stop and look, that's all.

You don't have the time to open your eyes and see. You don't have the time to relax for a few minutes and watch reality because your inner television is never switched off even for two seconds. You don't even know that the television can be switched off or that there can be a few moments when the scenes will not appear, when the screen will be blank.

Here I am trying to tell you, that just because the screen is continuously filled with scenes, don't think what you are seeing is the truth. It can be switched off. You can switch it off, you can relax. It is time, at least for the next half an hour, relax and meditate on the face which you had before your birth.

One more thing: to understand the whole thing as 'Nothing', you don't need much spiritual practice. All you need is simple knowledge of English - to understand my words.

Listen carefully:

You are not a noun, you are a verb. You are not a being, you are a happening.

Understanding that you are not a being is what I call Nirvana. The moment you understand that you are not a being but a happening, tremendous freedom and liberation happens to you. You don't have to protect yourself anymore. You can be so open and free. You don't have to have any guarding mechanism against everyone and everything.

Immediately your mind will say, 'No, I may have physical pain, or somebody may hurt me. If I don't protect myself, I may fall sick.' Please be very clear: I am not asking you to go and jump in the river. No! I am not asking you to allow yourself to be hurt. When I say don't protect yourself, I don't mean: enter into the river Ganga and watch what happens! Your mind is always playing these games. That is the problem. When I say don't protect yourself, immediately your mind will say, 'Oh! He says I have to jump into the Ganga.' No. The second statement is not made by me. It is made by your mind.

You have to understand your mind first. For example, if I tell you, 'There are two doors, and one door is open,' what do you conclude? The second door is closed! But this statement is not made by me. Then, who is it made by? Your mind! When I say now, 'You are a happening, and you don't have to protect yourself,' there is no need for the second statement from the mind. Just internalize the first statement. Then, as and when situations arise, you will have enough intelligence and you will see that things happen automatically.

Understand that you have enough innate intelligence to handle your life. You take the body with inbuilt intelligence. Not only that, the more years you live on planet earth, the more experienced you become and therefore you should feel that much more confident to conduct the remaining years of your life on planet earth. You should not bother about protecting your being, about protecting your ego. Just trust your innate intelligence - swa-buddhi – and live an open life. Then automatically only auspicious things will happen in your life.

You have innate wisdom - swa-gnaana, to take the right decision in every passing moment; to handle your personality every moment, and to decide spontaneously every moment.

Because you don't trust that you have spontaneity, you try to keep all these records in your head, so that you can decide based on these records. But you miss one important thing – situations continuously keep changing! Whenever you decide based on the decisions of your predecessors, be very clear: you are taking outdated decisions. Likewise, in life also, if you decide based on your past decisions, you are outdated. Then you can't be considered as a living being. You are live-dead!

Be very clear: whatever you think of as you doesn't exist. The moment you relax, a big load is taken away from you. That is what I call liberation. There is nothing to protect because you are just nirvana – Nothingness!

Just as an experiment today, drop whatever you think of as you and relax for a few minutes. I am not asking you to relax forever. When you go back tomorrow morning, you can carry it with you. Just today, as an experiment, relax. If you do this, you will understand that what is happening with your whole being; how you are continuously creating new struggles for yourself by trying to protect the reflection of the Swan.

First understand that you are just a reflection of the Swan. The moment you understand, you become a Swan! You are just the reflection of a Paramahamsa. The moment you understand that, you become a Paramahamsa!

Whether you want to be a reflection of the Paramahamsa or a Paramahamsa itself, it is up to you. Even if you think that you are a reflection of the Paramahamsa as of now, you are a Paramahamsa! Even if you think you are a reflection, be very clear: you are not the reflection, you are the real Swan!

You may try hard to think that you are only a reflection; you may try to protect as much as possible; to struggle as deeply as possible, but the whole thing is just like the futile efforts of the fish. You may say, ‘All these things are good to listen to, but let me think of my next routine. Tomorrow what I am supposed to do. Let me think of my life’s pending decisions, and what I am supposed to do next.’ If that is the case, it is perfectly up to you. Try to protect yourself, nothing wrong, but suddenly one day you will realize that someone inside you wakes up and understands or experiences that what you were protecting all these days was just a shadow.

We worked these four days continuously on your mind so that you can understand this single truth; this one single truth. If your mind is too crowded with your own thoughts, you will not be able to understand. If too many fish are jumping on the reflection of the Swan, you can’t understand that it is a reflection. All I did in these four days was ask the fish to move a little away, to give a little space so that you can just see and realize that it is not the Swan, but just the reflection of the Swan. The moment you understand it, you will play the game of reflection so beautifully! The moment you understand this, the moment you realize this, if you are a doctor, you will become a much better doctor because you know that it is a game you are playing; so you will not suffer with it.

Let me explain to you why this understanding will liberate you. It is like this: you are sitting here with me now in this room. As long as you know that the exit door can be opened any time, and that you are free to move any time, you will be comfortably sitting here. The moment you feel it might be locked and the key might not be available any time, you will not be able to sit here comfortably. You will first try opening the door! You will first try to escape! In the same way, if you don’t understand that life is a game, you will hurt yourself and you will hurt others, taking the whole game too seriously. Taking the whole game too seriously is the only mistake that you make. The moment you understand you are just Nirbana, you will see that physical well-being and mental well-being simply happen!

There is a beautiful verse written by Ramana Maharishi addressed to the sacred hill Arunachala as his very beloved. The verse says: I thought you are my God and you will protect me. I came to you, but suddenly now I see, you have simply destroyed me completely! Whatever I thought is 'me' is not there now. I am missing!

That is what I am telling you now. Many of you have come to me for healing, thinking that I will protect your body, your mind, and your life. Understand: the moment that you understand there is nothing to be protected, everything is simply protected.

Your body is not the same body that was there yesterday. Your mind is not the same mind which was there yesterday. If neither your mind nor your body is the same, then who are you? How can you say that you are the same person who was here yesterday? How can you say that?

If your body is not the same thing which was here yesterday, and if your mind is not the same thing which was here yesterday, how can you say that you are the same person who was here yesterday? What you think of as you now is not the same you that you thought you were yesterday. Then how can what you think of as you be true even at this moment? Yesterday is different from today. Then how can you think that there is some continuity in you? When you think that there is some continuity in you, you start protecting yourself; you want to protect the continuity. You want it to be saved, preserved... and the problem starts. Just understand that you are fresh and different every passing moment.

The moment you understand that there is no need for any protection of your identity, there will not be any suffering, and you will understand that the whole thing is happening just like small bubbles in the ocean! Any minute, the bubbles will disappear!

There is nothing to protect. There is nothing to care for. There is nothing to grow. Understand that you are just liquid. The very understanding that you are liquid is enough to liberate you. Just a simple understanding that you are not as solid as you think you think you are is more than enough.

Contemplate on this one thing and relax from whatever you think of as you for the next half an hour; you will emerge as a new being. At least you will have a glimpse, one glimpse of who you are. When I say 'you' I mean capital letter Y-O-U, not small letter 'y-o-u'. Please sit as you are and close your eyes. Allow these words to merge in you. Whatever understanding happens let it happen.

The master is there to awaken this understanding in you. Ramana says: The master is a simha swapna - a nightmare where a lion is chasing you! You will wake up even if you are in your deepest dreams in the waking state. However thick the veil of illusion may be, you will wake up.

Sit down on the floor. Whatever you understand by these words let that sink into you.

See clearly that you are just liquid. See very clearly what prevents you from realizing this. See where you are stuck: whether it is your social position, or it is your fear of losing your health, or it is the fear of losing your relationship, or the fear of losing your wealth. Just see where it is getting stuck and stopping you from experiencing that you are liquid, that you are fluid. At least understand that which stops you from realizing it. If nothing stops you, then relax into you.

You are not the same person as you think you are. There is no need to protect you, because you don't exist. You are just the greatest illusion created by you, and supported by worldly illusions.

Forget about tomorrow. There is no need to bother about it. Realize this truth now; that is enough. Don't bother about the consequences of this realization. Don't analyse whether it is positive or negative. Relax bother about the consequences; just see the truth. Don't worry about how many times you missed in the past. Even if you have missed ten thousand times in the past, it is alright. Now there is a possibility, you can capture it! Just catch it.

(After the meditation…)

So, we have gone through the meditation to drop the entire past. Now you know where you are stuck. Whatever thought came into your mind repeatedly during this meditation, that is where you are stuck. That is what you need to drop. When you are finished with all these seven layers, the final touch will happen by the master's grace. Actually that is what happens when you put in your entire effort. If your effort has been intense, the master's grace happens automatically. When you open up and throw out everything, the master will be there to heal everything. This is what happens during the meditation in all the seven layers. You throw everything out and the final touch is given by the master's grace.

Now we are going to have only these two sessions: the session of expelling everything from the past and receiving the master's grace. The meditation which we are going to do now is called vraja homa. It is the meditation done by the people before taking sannyas. Don't worry; I am not going to give you sannyas now! This is normally the meditation done by people who are taking sannyas.

Of course when I introduced this meditation to the public, some traditional swamis criticized me. They asked, 'How can you give this to everyone? It is specially for us.' I said, 'Only because of this secrecy, we lost the real science of Ayurveda medicine; we lost the real science of Siddha medicine; we lost all the ancient surgery methods; we lost so much of our knowledge. So I believe that when something can give results, it should be shared with the whole world. This is such a highly powerful meditation technique that can transform beings; why not give it to the whole world?' Therefore, I brought it out!

Now I am giving it in all our NSPs. After all whose property are these meditation techniques? They are all our ancient rishis' (sages) property. Why were they created? They were created for the sake of the whole world. It is not meant to be monopolised by some small group of people. It belongs to the whole world. Knowledge belongs to the whole world. No one can say that it is only for them. That is the reason why I brought it out.

I want all of you to understand the importance of this meditation so that you will enter into it with intensity.

The first part of the meditation is the Nithya Dhyaan meditation. It cleanses and energises the vital energy centers in your body which are responsible for the swaying emotions and stored negative memories. It brings intense awareness into your system to awaken the inner intelligence. It can create an explosion in your consciousness that can steer you towards a life of totality.

Nithya Dhyaan is a technique that gives you what you need to balance yourself and experience complete harmony between your body, mind and spirit; to harness the inner intelligence as a propelling force to excel in the inner and outer worlds.

It is a guided meditation technique for 35 minutes comprising five steps. Please listen to the instructions carefully.

Figure 20: Chaotic Breathing

Step 1: Sit in Vajrasana (if not possible, sit cross legged or on a chair) with hands on your hips. Close your eyes and breathe chaotically for seven minutes.

Step 2: Continue to sit in vajrasana (if not possible, sit cross-legged or on a chair). Form 'chin mudra' with your fingers (form a circle with thumb and forefinger of both hands, palm upwards), and placing your

Figure 21: Chakra awareness

hands on your knees, hum intensely for seven minutes. When you hum, keeps your lips together and produce the 'mmm' sound.

Step 3: You may now sit cross-legged on the floor if you wish to or continue to sit in vajrasana. For the next seven minutes, you will take your awareness from the muladhara chakra to the sahasrara chakra. Dwell on each chakra for one minute with total awareness on that chakra.

a. Take your awareness to the muladhara chakra. Your muladhara is pure Your muladhara is filled with energy Your muladhara is overflowing with bliss Your muladhara is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

b. Take your awareness to the swadhistana chakra which is two inches above the muladhara. Your swadhistana is pure Your swadhishtana is filled with energy Your swadhistana is overflowing with bliss Your swadhistana is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

c. Take your awareness to the manipuraka chakra which is located at the navel center. Your manipuraka is pure Your manipuraka is filled with energy Your manipuraka is overflowing with bliss Your manipuraka is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

d. Take your awareness to the anahata chakra which is located at the heart center. Your anahata is pure Your anahata is filled with energy Your anahata is overflowing with bliss Your anahata is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

e. Take your awareness to the vishuddhi chakra which is located at the throat center. Your vishuddhi is pure Your vishuddhi is filled with energy Your vishuddhi is overflowing with bliss Your vishuddhi is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

f. Take your awareness to the ajna chakra which is located in the region between your eyebrows. Your ajna is pure Your ajna is filled with energy Your ajna is overflowing with bliss Your ajna is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

g. Take your awareness to the sahasrara chakra which is located in the crown center. Your sahasrara is pure Your sahasrara is filled with energy

Figure 22: Gratitude

Your sahasrara is overflowing with bliss Your sahasrara is radiating nithyananda (After 1 minute)

Step 4: For seven minutes, just be unclutched in silence.

Step 5: Take your awareness to the sahasrara chakra. With your awareness only on your crown center, just relax. Smile and relax.

With your whole being, offer your gratitude to your beloved mother for giving you this body. Remember and give your gratitude to her with all your being.

Offer your gratitude to your beloved father for giving you this life and providing for all your needs.

Offer your gratitude to all the doctors and nurses who received you when you came to planet earth.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who built the hospital or home where you were born.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who took care of you when you were an infant.

Offer your gratitude to all those who worked for your food, clothes and living when you were young.

Offer your gratitude to all the teachers who gave you primary education.

Offer your gratitude to all your young age friends who made your life happy and blissful, who shared their innocence and joy with you.

Offer your gratitude to your brothers and sisters and other relatives for nurturing you and caring for you.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who gave you professional education, who helped you stand in your profession; who gave you the courage to stand on your own feet.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who helped you financially, whenever you needed it.

Offer your gratitude to all the doctors and nurses who took care of your health, who gave you medical assistance whenever you needed it.

Offer your gratitude to your spouse for giving you love and security in your life.

Offer your gratitude and love to your children for coming into your life.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who encouraged you and gave you inspiration in your spiritual life.

Offer your gratitude to all those who have served you in one way or the other all through your life: the milk man who delivers milk, the grocer, the laundry man, the garbage collector, your servants, your driver, all these people whom you take for granted.

Offer your gratitude to your enemies and those who have hurt you, for making you strong and forgiving by virtue of their behaviour towards you.

Offer your gratitude to all those who helped you physically, mentally, socially, economically and spiritually. Remember each one of them and offer gratitude, taking your own time.

Offer your gratitude to your body and all its parts one by one.

Offer your gratitude to your mind for its miraculous functioning.

Offer your gratitude to all the spiritual masters.

Offer your gratitude to the master who has given you this Nithya Ananda Spurana experience.

Offer your gratitude to the Divine, to the Whole, to God, for making all these things possible in your life.

Now you will read whatever you have written in your book about all your samskaras and re-live them completely once more in all the four layers of desire, guilt, pain and joy. You have 15 to 20 minutes to relive the whole thing. Relive them and be relieved from them. You will realize when you do this that you don't even feel connected with those memories now! This happens because of the deep meditation that you did for each layer. You will feel that the memories are moving away. Relive everything and bring them out. You can visualize that bulldozers are moving the earth and bringing out everything. Visualise that the whole thing is just moving away from you. Finally, offer everything into the fire. Here we will have a fire which is energized with the mantras or chants from the Upanishad mantras.

The master's love is the greatest medicine which can heal the past. The master's grace can simply heal the entire past and totally cut you off from the past, giving you a new birth. You are then reborn; you become dwija - twice-born. At the time of taking sannyas, this same fire ritual is done. To cut yourself completely from the past is the ultimate initiation.

Let me explain the whole initiation process. First, the mantras are chanted. The meaning of the mantras is: I am burning all my past, all my ideas of any relationship, my ideas about desires, my ideas about worries, my ideas about depression, my ideas about aggressiveness. These mantras touch each aspect of our past one by one and just burn the whole thing in the fire.

Once you put everything into the fire you will feel so refreshed. When you do the cleaning consciously, it happens this way; you are totally cleansed, and you are out of it. Consciously offer everything to the fire. You will see that the entire past is cut off from you. This is the way to come out of all the seven layers. In the end, the final touch, the master's grace, or the master's blessings complete the whole process.

In the vraja homa, the intention is to purify the whole world, the whole universe. Of course when you are purified, the whole world is purified. Understand: you are going to disconnect yourself from the past consciously and totally. Don't think: how will my imagination work for me? Imagination can do miracles. Sit for a few minutes and imagine that all your wounds, all your suffering, all your guilt, all your pain, all your tears, all your joy, all your desires, all your karmas are getting burnt.

If you wish to, you can sit and read the whole thing you have written once, so that it will be easy for you to remember. Just relive the pain, relive the desire, relive the guilt, relive the past. From the first line to the last line of what you have written, read all of it. Relive your entire past; the gist of your entire life and relieve yourself from desire, guilt, pain and pleasure.

First, undergo all the desires; then undergo all the pain; then undergo all the pleasures. Relive all the moments deeply and as vividly as possible. Only when you live the karmas, the karmas will leave you. Otherwise it will be just a hangover in you.

When you really live it, the very reliving becomes relieving. So take your own time, and put all your emotion and imagination in every step, doing it as slowly as possible, as deeply as possible with no urgency. Relive it; only then you can be relieved from it.

(The group finishes the meditation)

I wanted to express to you the deep impact the NSP program with Swamiji Nithyananda had on me. The experience was profound even though I still haven't fully comprehended its scope, as the process continues to unfold. Swamiji touched my heart and every part of my life, and left me in a state of bliss.

Dr. Tom Glew BSc. ND.

During the Shiva Sutra meditation, upon my first meeting with him, I was in the back of the room and Swamiji said, 'Now feel my energy'. I was suddenly consumed by light and bliss. I felt as if I was floating in space with the biggest smile across my face

During the NSP program, we covered the 7 energy bodies. Part of our exercise was to write down all our desires, our past guilts, emotional sufferings, and our joys. I feel like Swamiji took a squeegee and wiped the slate clean. If I had to re-write all of these things again, it would take me a tenth of the time. I know that I have a choice not to be concerned with these small details which only create more stress, more suffering. I seriously came away with the belief that these things really don't matter. I now know I can be in a space where I am full of divine bliss all the time.

It took me a week to come back to earth after being with Swami for the weekend. Suddenly all the small stuff no longer mattered. What matters now is the truth, that it is our birthright to be blissful beings, free from suffering.

I am so honored to have had this experience. Without a doubt, this was the most powerful time of my life.

Kristin Campbell Neoalpine Yoga, Whistler BC