Enlightenment is the Key to Your Kingdom🔗

We now reach the ultimate, or what I call the peak experience. Realization of who we are and our role in this universe is the ultimate knowledge and experience that we can have. From the darkness of ignorance, we move into the light of truth. We become enlightened.

When you see somebody swimming, you understand three things. The first thing is that swimming is possible, that a man can float on water. Secondly, you have a tremendous urge: ‘If he can do it, why not me? Why can’t I? I can too.’ The third thing is, ‘Let me jump in!’ You get inspiration and courage!

In the same way, when you see an enlightened being walking on planet earth, when you live around him, you also understand three things. The first thing is that enlightenment is possible. You can live like a god on this planet earth. The next thing is, ‘If he can attain enlightenment, why not me?’ because he radiates such simplicity and ordinariness, which is close to your own human nature. You naturally get confidence that it is possible for you too. The third thing is courage, ‘Let me jump in!’All these three will happen only if you live around an enlightened master and continuously watch his body language. Nothing else can trigger this in you.

Living with the limitless continuum is enlightenment. The limitless continuum will happen when you relax from the identities you hold of yourself in the outer and inner worlds. If you are settled in that limitless continuum and are able to be active, you are living enlightenment. If you are not able to settle down in it, but you had at least one experience of it, then you have experienced satori.

The basic thing needed for enlightenment is a ‘psychological revolution’, a new clarity about the self (Jeeva), world (jagat), and god (Ishwara). How you think, why you think, how you are driven, what is your inspiration, what motivates you in life - this understanding is the clarity about the self or Jeeva. How to achieve your desires in the world, how you avoid fears and other things forced upon you by the world - this understanding is the clarity about the world or Jagat’. Clarity about Ishwara or god means understanding the source of both the individual self and the world. Achieving the source, knowing all these three, is enlightenment. When you have a clear understanding about you think how you think, this very understanding gives you the clear experience of the self. When you understand how to connect with the world, achieving what you want, and avoiding what is not needed, you gain a clear experience of the world. The third is experiencing god, Ishwara', the source of the self and the world.

Gaining a true understanding of the self, world and god is enlightenment.

People ask me, ‘After enlightenment, can enlightened beings enjoy?’ I tell you, only after enlightenment can you enjoy! Before that, you can only think or imagine you are enjoying. After enlightenment, you don’t even need sense objects to enjoy. You will simply be enjoying all the time. There will be such an intense excitement for no reason. If I have to define enlightenment in two words, I will say it is ‘intense excitement’ for no reason, intense passion directed towards no object. There is no object, but there is intense passion. There is no reason, but there is intense excitement. That is what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment does not mean esca ing somewhere. Tasting life here and now 1S what I call enlightenment.

What I call enlightenment is experiencing the same intensity of life that you feel inside yourself, outside your skin also. You are not alive just inside your body, but you are also alive inside every other individual, tree, and rock. Your hold over your physical body is transformed into a hold over the cosmic body! You are alive in every cell in the cosmos. Every cell is a complete, fulfilled part of the commos.

Understand, I am alive as much outside as I am inside my skin. So, I am alive in all the millions of heads, eyes, and feet and all the millions of beings in the cosmos. To achieve this, start seeing everything as if you are seeing for the first time, without bringing in your engrams, your past engraved memories. Then you will start experiencing the same life and intensity that you experience inside your skin, outside also. Try this for ten days. Once you get a glimpse, you will never miss it! You will see you are in ecstasy for no reason. You are in excitement for no reason. You will never take things for granted again.

You will always be in joy.

As of now you connect all the past experiences of your life and create a shaft. All your future experiences depend on how you have created this shaft. They depend on which words from the past you have picked, and how you have formed the shaft. Your future emotions, reactions, thoughts, and words depend entirely on this shaft. But after enlightenment, life is very different from this. Thoughts arise, and if they want to work, the body pursues the thoughts. Once the work is done, the thoughts disappear. Then the next time something needs to be done, thoughts arise again, and the process continues. The whole thing happens beautifully by itself. There is no shaft at all.

Currently, we all carry constant irritation from the moment we get out of the bed until the minute we go back to bed. Constantly we carry some irritation or other. We are waiting to jump on people. We only need some excuse. After enlightenment, the constant fear or guilt or desire, something that constantly irritates is not there. When you unclutch from the shaft for even one moment, you get a glimpse of enlightenment.

The shift from the shaft happens in a fraction of a second. If you are deeply aware, you can catch that precious moment when the unclutching happens. All our tapas, spiritual training, is only preparing us to catch that shift. The shift happens many times. You just need to be really aware and you can catch it. When you permanently unclutch from the shaft, you are enlightened.

I can say that a few changes happened permanently in me when I became enlightened. The first thing was that all inner chatter disappeared. By inner chatter, I mean the constant chatter of words that goes on inside us normally. In the gap between my words as I talk now, even in those few seconds, there is no chatter inside. It is simply pure space, silence. The second thing is that the idea that my boundary ends here at this body, and there starts the rest of the world disappeared. Border consciousness dissolved.

I don’t feel I am just this six-foot form. I see and feel myself in everything. If you watch me, I will be the first one to enjoy all my photographs after a photo shoot or on the book covers! I will just play with them for four or five days.

The third thing is that even though the body is a male body, the inner identity of male or female disappeared. The psychological idea that ‘I am male’ or ‘I am female’ doesn’t exist in me anymore.

And the fourth thing is that there is a constant excitement within, everything excites. Even small things give big excitement. Even a simple thing creates intense excitement and joy. I can say that these four changes are permanent things that happened in me after enlightenment.

Be very clear, enlightenment is not the end. It is the ultimate experience, but not the final experience.

You need to understand these two words ‘final’ and ‘ultimate’. They are very different. For example, after the first day of discourse in a series, one person came to me and said, ‘You have said everything. Why do we need one more class?’ The next day, another person said, "Swamiji, on the first day, I thought you could not take us any deeper; it is over. And today, suddenly I felt that you have taken us deeper than yesterday, and you cannot take us any deeper than this. Every day I feel that you cannot take us much deeper than this, but we do keep going deeper.’ Every day the person felt that the experience was the ultimate. Ultimate means living every moment totally, completely. Ultimate is not final. It can be updated.

There is a big difference between these two words, ultimate and final. If it is ultimate, it is happening every moment. It is not final.

When a being becomes enlightened, not only does he experience his potentiality, but he also starts creating more enlightened beings. He starts creating the possibility of more enlightened beings.

When you are enlightened, there will not be any movement of letter or word or thought between your navel and throat. Words will come only from the throat. I can say this is one of the precise descriptions of enlightenment. There will not be any word, thought, syllable, or sound movement between the navel and the throat.

Words will be there only when you are talking. When you are not talking, there will not be any words inside. Only the energy movement will be there. There will be no thought, no verbalization, no continuous inner chattering.

Understand, when you don’t have inner chatter, it is not dead silence. It is intense energy! From that energy, whatever needs to be done will come out as a complete visualization. If you have inner chattering, it will come line by line like, ‘In the morning, I have to wake up. Then, I have to go to

office. There I will work on the new project. In the evening I will come back. Then I may go out for dinner...' In a linear manner, one by one, thoughts and words come out.

When you don't have inner chatter, when you are just with yourself, the whole visualization comes out as one package, one piece of information. That is what we call intuition. When you go through the logical process, it is called inner chatter, it is intellect. But when you don't have that inner chatter, things start expressing in you intuitively. Straightaway, you know.

The person who has removed hypocrisy from his inner space will experience enlightenment. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the enlightened master from India, says beautifully, 'Integrating your inner chatter and your spoken words is enlightenment.' He says, just integrate your inner chatter and the words that you utter. Let both of them be integrated and you are enlightened

After someone achieves enlightenment, they have a very sharp superconscious awareness. With that superconscious awareness, it is easy to do research, experiments and analysis. Even after enlightenment, I have been doing so many experiments, so many practices along with scientists and researchers of the outer world and inner world, and by myself. Understand, when an enlightened being does spiritual practices it is not just for him. It is to create the right formulas for the disciples, so that he can reproduce the same experience in them.

Someone asked me, 'Is enlightenment the natural human state or is it a transcendence of the human state?' Surely, enlightenment is the transcendence of the human state. Whatever you think of as the human state is not complete. You are only a seed, a potential, a possibility. You are not a tree. You are not actuality. Your actuality is enlightenment. You are called a human being in your potential state. In your actual state, realized state, you are called an enlightened being. Be very clear, you are not a human being with a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being with a human experience!

When you meditate, you can get various yogic powers or siddhis,.. But enlightenment happens when you go beyond these powers also. Enlightenment is having the capacity to handle the powers, as well as the intelligence to drop them when necessary. The other day I read an interesting article about a book "Occult Chemistry based on research done by the theosophists Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater on the molecular structure of various elements. It said that even long before physics discovered that an atom has a nucleus, the theosophists had determined the atomic structure of many elements, and that too down to the 'quark', the most fundamental particle known today in quantum physics!

How did they find this out with no modern scientific equipment, before even quantum physics was born? The report says it was through the siddhi, or mystical power, known as anima that has been described in the Yoga sutras by the sage Patanjali, and enlightened master from India and father of the science of Yoga'. Patanjali described anima as 'the ability to acquire knowledge of the small, the hidden, or the distant, by directing the light of superphysical faculty'.

With yogic training, they could experience visual images of minute objects too small to be seen by the normal eye. They found five new elements through these yogic powers. They even went beyond the quark as well as its detailed structure, into the sub- quark, which science is yet to find. These very same findings have also been made by at least three other people from different places in the world at different times, through such occult capacities. They concluded that all matter is like bubbles in space, just like pearls on an invisible string. The report says that the researchers not only ‘saw’ the subatomic particles, but they could also see inside the atom down to the sub-quark, for which science needs a very powerful particle accelerator that costs billions of dollars!

There are many yogis who have these kinds of siddhis or powers that come about as a result of meditation. They are good as long as you don’t get caught in them. Otherwise, you will lose sight of the ultimate goal of enlightenment

Enlightenment is having such a strong and clear sense of peace inside you that even your thoughts cannot disturb you.

Do not think enlightened masters don’t have thoughts. It is just that their inner space is so big that the mind is a negligible part. For you, if you have a ten-acre mind, all ten acres are like a zoo. With an enlightened being there are a million acres, but still only a ten-acre zoo. In a million acres, if there is some movement in ten acres, can you consider it as something disturbing? No! It is negligible. It is practically not there. That is why an average person feels ‘I am the body’ but an enlightened being feels, ‘I am the body also.’ It is not that the idea I am body’ disappears. It just expands to ‘I am also the body.’

‘Always being intense’ is the main mark of an enlightened master. When you see that, you understand it as ‘bliss’ or ‘happiness’. To tell you honestly, I myself do not feel that I am a separate blissful being. All I know is that something extraordinary is constantly happening in me, very intensely. Only an outsider feels it is ‘bliss’. Actually it is not even ‘bliss’. It is the quality that cannot be described, that cannot be conceived by the mind.

As of now, you see three separate things: the experiencer, the experience, and the experienced. For example, you are reading this book now. You are the experiencer that is the reader, the experience is of reading, and the thing being experienced is the book. When you get enlightened, all these three — experiencer, experience, and the experienced, become one. You are only the experiencer having the experience of you, who is also the experienced!

As of now, you are not mature enough to hold the chaos, the cosmos, inside the frame of your body. You need to put the chaos in order because you are not able to handle the cosmos as is. The six feet frame of your body is not mature enough to hold the chaos as is, to experience and enjoy the cosmos as is.

The body, mind and brain being awakened, tuned to experience the cosmos as is, is what is living enlightenment. For this, the body, mind and brain need to be prepared. The body can be prepared with techniques like Nithya Yoga.

The mind is like the software. It consists of the conscious mind and unconscious mind. The conscious mind can be cleared by teachings, removing the wrong ideas and taking in the clear, correct ideas. The unconscious mind can be cleared by meditation techniques. But ultimately, for the software change to be permanent, the hardware also has to change. Your very brain grooves have to change to hold the experience of and radiate living enlightenment. This can happen through initiation, through the touch of the master. Initiation is directly transmitting the energy after which different dimensions of you will start getting awakened

Living enlightenment has nothing to do with married life or celibacy. It is just living a conflict-free life where your actions and knowledge are in tune with the desire.

Not being in the extremes of anything, not being caught in the extremes of emotions is what is called the Middle Path. Being in the middle path, the madhyapantha,,, suddenly you see a reduction in the number of thoughts that arise before any action starts. That is the period called ‘living enlightenment’. When thoughts completely drop and you are able to do all your activity without thoughts, you are enlightened.

When you are centered in sattva', positive energy, you have a clear understanding of the je eva“, the self. You have the clear understanding of how to relate with the jagat, the world. Because of the clarity of the self and the world, naturally you will fall into the source, Ishwara', god.

The very understanding will give you clarity. That clarity will automatically awaken the non-mechanical parts of your brain. When that awakening happens, a chaos will start happening in your routine. Your routine will start getting re-arranged by itself. Just cooperate with it. That is what I call ‘living enlightenment. Cooperating with the awakening that happens in you is what I call being a disciple or living enlightenment.

‘Living enlightenment’ is the right word. When you are living these great truths you are enlightened, that’s all.

You are supposed to live the truths. Living the great truths in your life is enlightenment. Enlightenment does not mean you will leave your body and die. No! You will live in a center that is beyond the five senses, but with the five senses. Only

your center will be shifted. The cognitive shift will happen within you. This is what I call Jeevan mukti, living enlightenment.

Your ego is not powerful enough to take away your enlightenment! Understand, your ego is not so powerful that it can take away your enlightenment. You need to stop thinking that you have an ego. Even your ego is not as big as you think. You are not as big as you always think! So even your ego cannot take away your enlightenment.

Whether you believe it or not, experience it or not, you are eternal Consciousness. Your logic is also not as strong as you think. I always tell people, your ignorance is not so strong as to take enlightenment away from you. Even in your ignorance or ego you are not that big a person, and that is the truth!

deep want, no qualifications

People ask me, If a master wants, whether a disciple is qualified or not, can he give him enlightenment?’

An enlightened master can enlighten anybody just by one touch — not even touch, just a thought is enough. Nothing else is necessary. He can liberate anybody. The greatest happening on planet earth is an un-enlightened being sitting with an enlightened being and becoming enlightened.

The master can simply download the software of an enlightened physiology into anyone. When you are completely open, the software of an enlightened physiology can be downloaded into your system. Your body learns that it can be better than what it is now. Your bio-memory learns the lesson of the possibility for a better existence.

A small story from the life of the enlightened master Buddha: Buddha was once asked, "Why don’t you give enlightenment to everybody? "He said, "Please ask in the village who wants enlightenment. Bring them to me and I shall give." The man went through the whole village that day asking who wanted enlightenment. Buddha asked him, What happened? Nobody wants enlightenment, is it?" The man replied a little cheerfully "No, no, two people want enlightenment." Buddha replied, "Ok, get them right now. I will give them enlightenment." He came back to Buddha in the evening with a low face.

Buddha asked him, What happened? Nobody wants enlightenment, is it? The man replied a little cheerfully ‘No, no, two people want enlightenment.’ Buddha replied, ‘Ok, get them right now. I will give them enlightenment.’ The man replied in a low voice, "No, they don’t want to come here. If you send it to where they are, they will take it! " Nobody really wants enlightenment in the real sense! They just want it as a utility or to keep in their showcase! Understand, god gives you the freedom to be in bondage also. Enlightenment can never be forced on you. If it is forced, even freedom will become bondage.

There are two things: qualification and wanting. There is no qualification needed for enlightenment, but the deep feeling, the deep wanting that ‘I want

it’, should be there.

Please be very clear, I also had ALL the problems that you are having like not being able to trust Existence or not being able to trust myself. All I can say is, there is no qualification for enlightenment. For somebody to become enlightened, they do not need any qualification.

Enlightenment can be had by giving yourself to Existence. Giving yourself is not an equal thing for what you receive. Even if you give your life, it is nothing more in effort or value than buying a lottery ticket.

After it happens, you will understand that the whole thing is nothing but the pure grace and blessing of Existence. The result or the transformation will be so big, so great that you can’t think of a reason why you were chosen for it, why it was showered on you! No qualification is necessary, but the deep need, the seeking is necessary. Fulfillment is always a gift. To receive a gift, there is no such thing as being worthy. Ramakrishna used to say, ‘Suppose you are living in poverty, dying with no food and no clothes. But somehow you know that there is a lot of wealth kept locked in the next room. Even if you take it nobody will know. Will you be able to sleep restfully now? Either you will try to open the door or you will break down the door. Unless you have that wealth under your control, you will not be able to sleep.’

In the same way, you should know you are in spiritual poverty right now. You should know that inside you there is a room in which there is immense wealth that is kept under lock and key. That knowledge, that attitude, that intensity, that mood is a basic necessity. With that, the seeking can simply transform your whole life.

Your dedication is powerful enough to lead you to enlightenment. Actually, enlightenment is practically like cooking. Something has to be added, something has to be removed. You have to add the intense seeking. Whatever is unnecessary, like restlessness, etc, will come out automatically, and enlightenment will happen!

During the vedic times in India, the whole life, the whole society was based on enlightenment where seventy percent of the people were enlightened and the remaining thirty percent were seeking, working towards enlightenment.

Arts, sciences, education, lifestyle and every sphere of life, every action was directed towards the ultimate experience of enlightenment. Classical dances like Bharatanatyam, traditional vocal and instrumental music, traditional architecture of temples and sculptures, classical paintings and art forms, the science of languages like Sanskrit, the sciences of astrology and vaastu,,, the unique gurukul,, system of education, traditional ceremonies right from birth through marriage to death — every single activity in every dimension of life was an expression of the enlightenment of the great seers, as well as a means to get enlightened

There can be nothing more than the enlightenment experience on planet earth. No philosophy, no system, no theory, no ideology, stands, survives, or thrives for more than one generation if it does not have an enlightened base or the base or inspiration from an enlightened being.

In ancient India, there were at least 3000 kings ruling at different times. Not a single king or kingdom that was not guided by an enlightened master was able to flourish. Even today if you go to South Indian villages, you will see huge temples built of stone, installed by enlightened masters. But the palaces that were constructed by the same kings for themselves no longer exist.

Understand, the same king and the same architect who built the temples to hold the enlightened energy, also built the palaces for the king to stay. One might think the king would have used better material for his own palace! But today, if you see, the temples are still standing while the palaces have disappeared with time.

In my own village Tiruvannamalai in South India, the village in which I was born and brought up, we have a temple that has twenty acres of built up area. The palace built by the same king is not there. It is just ruins. But the temple built by him is still alive because the enlightened master's energy is there.

keeping the science of enlightenment alive

The biggest service you can do in your life, the best use you can make of your life is to keep this science of enlightenment alive on planet earth. Planet earth is alive today in spite of all the atomic weapons we have piled up, all the depletion of forests, minerals, and natural resources. It is so because of the presence of enlightened masters. As long as there are enlightened masters on planet earth, planet earth can never be destroyed!