PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD🔗

Today, I will answer the questions from Inner Awakening participants to help you all realize the four principles (tattvas) as satyas (truths) in your life.

1) Question: Swamiji, I have a feeling that I am connected and not connected to you. Back home I am so connected to you. I talk to you through the Gurumurti photograph. Whenever I have pain, I touch the photo and feel the vibration entering me, and the pain is gone. I talk to you freely, like I am talking to a friend.

I am staying alone away from my family, but I live with you. When I go out, I tell you that I am going out, and when I am back, I again tell you that I am back. When I go to sleep, when I get up, I talk about everything to you. If I am late, you wake me up. I live with you in my home. I drive my car and so many times I feel that you are with me. I have even escaped from an accident because I know that you pulled me out of it.

But here in the IA program, you are physically so near and yet I feel you are so far away, as though some wall is there between you and me. Why is this so Swamiji? What do I have to do to break this? Please help me to connect to you like how I do back home, even when I am not physically in your presence.

Swamiji: This is a very beautiful question. Understand, this is the right problem to have!

See, I always say that there are some wrong problems to have & there are some right problems to have. Sometimes, people have the problem, ‘I have too many orders, I am not able to supply them.’ Sometimes, people have the problem, ‘I don’t have any orders, I am just jobless’. Which problem is better to have? Having too many orders and not able to supply them is the better problem to have, the good problem to have.

Listen! I am now expanding on some of the important truths. I represent your innermost soul - atma. Understand, I represent your innermost soul. atma, completion. If you are able to relate with me through my photograph, it means that you have already done enough of self-completion. You are complete within you. The svapoornatva is done.

But if you have a problem when I am physically around you, if you are not able to feel that strongly connected and close to me, it means that you still

need to do poornatva, completion with others. You need to do completion. Understand, in whichever space you are complete, you will be deeply connected to me in that space. How many of you have this problem? It means that you have done a lot of completion with yourself, but even in the completion, you have not completely completed! If you completely complete it, even the completion with others, you will be complete.

Listen! Listen to what I am saying. I am your soul. How you relate with me outside will be how you relate with the world outside. How you relate with me inside will be how you relate with yourself inside. I just reflect the quality of your ability to relate with others and with yourself. How many of you are able to cognize this? It's a very intimate question. I can understand you completely. And there are thousands here who can sympathize with you and understand you completely.

Sometimes you will see a new devotee, a person coming to see me for the first time, and you will see me standing and talking to the person for a long time, and enquiring, 'How are you? How do you feel?', as if I know him for a long time. When you see my conversation and my words, you will catch that I know thoroughly about him. he is coming for the first time, but I will be asking him – 'What happened to your house problem, were you able to sell it?' You will see me spending so much time with him. Sometimes, for a long time devotee who is connected to me for ten years, I will ask, 'What's your name?' That's all!

I just represent your level of completion!

Your state means you have done more svapoornatva but less completion with others. Now you need to concentrate on completing with everyone. If you have the feeling of completion with all the people around you, you will feel the same nearness with my physical presence that you feel with my photograph. And I will also be reciprocating in the same way. I will also be reciprocating and responding to you in the same way.

Understand, every devotee has his own version of me - atma Nithyananda, with whom they talk and relate to! And sometimes, they also talk back on my behalf! How many of you talk back for me? God! See how you do this even when I am in the body!

So, there are many devotees who literally live with me. It is called ishta nishtha and leela-dhyana; it means, feeling strongly connected to your own version of your chosen ideal. In Hindu tradition, you are free to choose your ideal. You can choose whoever you want as your Guru.

Your Kulaguru can't be changed, but your sadGuru can be changed. KulaGuru means family Guru, sadGuru means spiritual Guru. All families will have one Guru who is the Guru for that community. Having a Kulaguru is more for the purpose of training you as a child into the disciplines of what to do and what not to do. For example - take a bath three times a day, do sandhyavandana (worship at sunrise and sunset), Gayatri japa (chanting the Gayatri mantra), small-small instructions like that. SadGuru is the one who gives you enlightenment.

From time immemorial, Vedic tradition gives you

the freedom to choose your sadGuru, the one who will lead you to enlightenment.

You can choose your God. You can even choose your Guru as God and God as Guru. Understand. You can choose your Guru. You can choose your God. You can choose your God as Guru and Guru as God. Or you can choose both separately. We have hundreds of examples for those choosing Guru as God. How many have done that? For choosing God as Guru - Arunagirinathar did it.

In Thiruvannamalai, there was a great saint, a devotee of Lord Muruga, called Arunagirinathar. he chose God, Lord Muruga Himself, as his Guru

So you can choose God as Guru and Guru as God. And you can also choose both of them independently. Just like you can have Lord Shiva as God and Swamiji as the Guru, you can as have Nithyanandeshwara as God and Nithyananda as Guru, you can have Rama as God, and Ramadasa as Guru. You can have all the options. I can give you hundreds of examples of how many people choose God and Guru independently.

Sri Ramakrishna chose Goddess Kali as his Guru. In the beginning, he chose Kali herself as his Guru. Then Kali herself came in the form of Bhairavi Brahmani and taught him! Later he chose Kali as God and Totapuri as Guru. Hinduism gives you a vast variety, a vast variety!

Living with your chosen ideal is called ishta nishtha or leela dhyana. I have seen so many people, who are ordinary villagers in India, living with their chosen ideal and living the highest enlightened life, without even knowing words like integrity, authenticity, responsibility, enriching and all that! Without knowing any of these words, they are radiating, radiating enlightenment!

I tell you, just this one truth of ishta nishtha and leela dhyana has made millions of Indian villagers enlightened! Millions of Indian villagers practice the presence of God. Do you understand what you are doing? You are unknowingly practicing the presence of God!

This country that I speak about every time is a great civilization, the civilization of Bharat! In the western world, kids are taught to live with Barbie dolls or the cartoons that they see on TV. Fortunately, God saved me! I was born in a village in South India.

From a young age, I was living and practicing the presence of God. See, what I understood about Lord Ganesha at the age of three, and what I understand about Lord Ganesha now, is different. But it is that understanding at the age of three that has led me to this understanding.

If I had been too busy with Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry at the age of three, I would have been disillusioned at the age of thirteen when I discovered that Tom and Jerry don't exist. But I would not have reached any higher understanding. Instead, because I started living with Ganesha at the age of three, even at the age of thirty-five, I

have a higher understanding of Ganesha that has led me to higher and higher planes of existence. ishta nishtha and leela dhyana means practicing the presence of God and living with God!

Understand, for every individual who wants to attain enlightenment through the path of devotion, who wants to make their life authentic, this is the best path. I tell you, whether you want it or not, your life will continue to become more and more authentic, because you know that I am there! I am there!

Practicing the presence of God makes you more and more authentic. That is the beauty of the Hindu tradition, the beauty of the Vedic spiritual tradition! ishta nishtha helps you do a lot of self-completion with you. Actually, because of this leela dhyana practice, you become more complete with you.

And if you observe deeply, you will find that if you have any incompletion with you, you will feel that I am angry with you that day! You will feel that I am angry with you. When you have any incompletion inside, you will project its reflection on me, and you will feel that I am angry with you. All you need to do is do completion with yourself and completion with others.

How many of you feel that I am angry with you? All of you have to do completion with yourself and completion with others. Understand, I am not angry with you! If I am angry with you, then I am incomplete. I am not angry with you, because I am complete with myself and with others. All you need to do is complete with you and with others.

Understand, the completion you need to do with you and with others is responsible for how you feel connected to me on the outside and inside, because you practice the presence of God, ishta nishtha and leela dhyana. See, all these are three different words, but they finally boil down to the same thing. leela dhyana means, remembering and experiencing all the acts of your chosen ideal.

Remembering all the pastimes of Krishna is Krishna leela dhyana. Remembering all the leela (divine play) of Shiva, and experiencing it as if it is happening now, is Shiva leela dhyana.

Even for you all, for many of my devotees, wherever you are, you will feel that I just possess you! You will simply remember only me, whether you are sitting in the office and doing your job, or in the kitchen, ironing clothes, washing vessels, or anything!

How many of you feel that for almost twenty

Like this devotee has written, whenever he goes out, he tells me, ‘Swamiji, I am going out and I will come back.’ Same way, when you wake up, you say, ‘Swamiji, I am on time. I am in Integrity!’ If not, you say, ‘Swamiji, I am late. I am completing with you.’ This is practicing the presence of God.

See, you can be doing this with anybody. You can do this with Shiva, Hanuman, Rama, Krishna, Devi, whoever you have as your chosen ideal. You can do this with Guru or God; you have the option!

Practicing the presence of God is so powerful! I need to tell you - I myself did this, practicing the presence of God in my life. I carried the photograph of Sri Ramakrishna, from the age of thirteen till the age of twenty-two, practicing his presence continuously, the whole day!

Practicing the presence of God is one of the most powerful methods to make you authentic and integrated. Practicing the presence of God is one of the most powerful and integrated methods for becoming enlightened!

Listen! I have defined leela dhyana. leela dhyana means, being lost in the pastimes of the Guru or God. One thing with practicing it with God is that you will not be directly involved in the whole leela. So you have to remember and try to practice. With Guru, you are directly a part of it. So you don't even need to try to remember; he will be sitting inside you and remembering you! It will happen on its own. This is called leela dhyana. Even if you are afraid that he is going to scold you, it is leela dhyana!

Practicing the presence of God is constantly feeling that you are with him and he is with you. Practicing the presence of God is the greatest and most powerful technique to put you in bhaava samadhi immediately. Ramakrishna practiced it. Ramana Maharshi practiced it. Even the great agnostic, atheistic enlightened beings like J. Krishnamurti practiced it.

If you read the biography of J. Krishnamurthy, you will see that from a young age, he was trained to practice the presence of a higher power.

Understand, practicing the presence of God directly leads you to bhaava samadhi.

The third word I uttered is ishta nishtha. You may accept all divine beings. If you have chosen Shiva as your ideal, it is not that you will not go to a Vishnu temple, you will not go to a Devi temple, but if you are connected to Shiva, you will know that he is your ideal!

Ramakrishna gives a very beautiful example. The lady of the house serves everybody in the family. She serves her brother-in-law, sister-in-law, father-in- law, mother-in-law, husband's elder brother, younger brother, sister's husband. She will serve everyone, give them food, give them water to wash the hands and take care of them. But she knows that her bed is only for her husband!

In the same way, you may bow down in front of any deity, any Guru, but you know that you are bowing down only to your Guru in this form. Be very clear: it means that you may bow down in front of any deity, but you know that you are bowing down only to your chosen ideal! This is ishta nishtha.

In the same way, if your chosen ideal is Shiva or Devi or Muruga, even if you bow down to me, you should bow down to me only as an embodiment of your chosen ideal. For example, if your chosen ideal is Vishnu, even if you bow down to me, if you

bow down at all, you should bow down to me only as an embodiment of Vishnu. If your chosen ideal is me, even if you bow down to anybody else, you should bow down to them only as an embodiment of me. That is ishta nishtha. That will bring integrity, ekaagrata, to your devotion.

Understand these three words. Then you will understand this whole space that the questioner is going through. I address all of you who are in that space. Practicing the presence of God, leela dhyana, ishta nishtha - all these three boil down to the same space, the space of bhaava samadhi.

Practicing the presence of God, leela Dhyana, ishta nishta, all these three boil down to the same space, the space of bhava samadhi.

leela dhyana means constantly remembering the actions and life of your chosen ideal. Practicing the presence of God means cognizing that His presence is there with you and constantly relating with Him, keeping Him present in your presence. Keeping Him present in your presence is practicing the presence of God.

Practicing the Presence of the God means, cognizing that His presence is there with you and constantly relating with Him. Keeping Him present in your presence! Keeping Him present in your presence is practicing the Presence of God.

ishta nishtha means bowing down to and revering only your ishta. Wherever you bow down, even if you are bowing down to your father or mother, you should know that you are bowing down to your ishta, who is in your heart.

You need to know: I myself bow down to the Nithyananda who is in your ananda gandha, your inner space - whether he is awakened or not!

He is there in your ananda gandha, whether you experience it or not. If you are initiated into ananda gandha, you will also experience it. If not, you may not experience it, but I can experience it. I bow down to the Nithyananda who is in your ananda gandha.

So, to answer this devotee's question, the solution for this problem of feeling close with my photograph but distanced from me is this. Because you already practiced the presence of God with my photograph, you feel that intimacy. You feel the completion in your inner space.

But now, you have to complete with everyone! You should also be in completion in your outer space. Then you will feel the same intimacy, the same nearness, even outside you. And I will also be responding in the same way!

All the ashramites who are with me now have practiced the presence of God in their past janma (birth) and received the boon to live around me. But unfortunately, some of them have forgotten about it, and when they are given that space, they miss the chance to continue to practice the presence of God. Then they are again away for the next janma, and after two janmas they again practice the presence of God and come back. They have been doing this and falling into the same rut for lifetimes! If you also complete outside and catch the same closeness that you feel with me outside you also, you are complete and you live an enlightened life. You will enrich yourself and others. So all you need is more completion with others!

2) Question: What is the significance of doing homas (fire rituals), especially when I am sitting in your breathing space the whole day? Is there anything more that doing a homa could add to my inner space and my spiritual growth? Can you please explain?

Listen: homa is not a faith-based action; it is a science-based action. First, understand that it is not a faith-based action but a science-based action. There are many ideas that are not scientific, but are considered scientific, because it has been promoted in that way. For example, you think that if you eat, you will become more energetic. This is considered as science because the media promoted it. Why don't you eat fast-food every day and see? It is not a science-based action, it is a faith-based action, which has become a science-based action because the media promoted it. Are all of you getting it? I can give you hundreds of examples like this.

You think that if you take antibiotics, your cough will disappear. It is not a science-based action. I'm trying, but it's not disappearing. Because the media promoted it, it has almost become a science-based action.

homas and yajnas are not faith-based actions; they are science-based actions. When a person who practices integrity utters the words, 'Ihaagachcha, ihaagaccha, iha tishtha, iha tishtha', that space is filled with the presence of the deity, the Divine energy that he is inviting and invoking! Especially for all the homas that happen on this campus, I am responsible for the Divine Presence to be there, and receive what you offer. Getting it? Better get it!

Understand, when you invoke those energies in the fire with integrity, properly and through the right procedures, the Divine appears and receives your offering! Experience the space of the Divine! Even though it is only a faith-based action, you think that if you have cough lozenges, you will not have a cough! No! If you take them, your throat is engaged in something else, so you don't cough, that's all!

homas, yajnas, yagas - all of them are very powerful science-based actions, not just blind rituals.

Tomorrow, in the Kalabhairava homa, you will see, you will see the Presence! He will literally be there, receiving the offerings and responding to you! When you are in that presence and making the offerings, he will straightaway answer your prayers and give you boons.

I challenge you - if you do scientific analysis and research, you will see that the ability of homas to cure disease will be more than that of allopathy! Unfortunately, the science of performing with integrity and authenticity is lost - that is where the problem is! We will it revive now. We are reviving it now!

I am especially reviving it with my Gurukul kids.

My Gurukul kids will be the best integrated and authentic beings on the planet earth! And they are going to be chanting these mantras in future. Do you know the effect of that on the planet earth? You will see!

And, I commit with you all, I will create a group of my Gurukul kids who are able to do yajnas like Varuna yajna. And I guarantee one hundred percent that when they go and perform those yajnas in any city, it will simply rain! I’m training them for the yajnas like Varuna yajna and Vaitheeshwara homas.

You will see, when they practice this mallakamba (pole yoga) and martial arts, even their muscles will be integrated into their integrity! I’m training them. I’m still training them with more details, including how the yajna kundas should be created, how the yantra will be, everything. And everything will be so authentic that when they say, ‘Let it rain,’ it will just shower!

Only the water which showers from the sky can put the fire out, nobody else can put it out! And it will shower and put the fire out. Only then will the yajna end! Only when it showers, they will say - ‘Okay. Agne tvam samudram gaccha, prithivi tvam sheetalaa bhava,’ indicating that the homa is ending. It is just the power of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and the decision to enrich!

I'll prove this as a science to the world. When you are sitting in my breathing space or in the homa, be in the space of pure listening. Deities land in the homa, and the Presence opens up in the homa as a sound! Understand, they then become fire, but the vehicle through which they land is a sound!

homa is science-based action, not faith-based action. So listen! Be in the space of pure listening! It can transform you. It can transform you. It can just transform you!

I bless you all to achieve, experience, live, express, radiate, share, explode and enrich with enlightenment! Let you all achieve, experience, live, express, radiate, share, explode and enrich with eternal bliss, Nithyananda! Thank you!

First understand, that all the last rites you do, the celebrations you do, the prayers you do, everything is not for that soul, it is for your own completion with that soul.