Paramahamsa Appears🔗

An affair with the Elephant God

As a baby nithyananda was carried by his mother's father, whose name he had been given, to the Arunachala temple every day. His grandfather used to tell him mythological stories and legends of the Hindu tradition, the puranas, as they went around the temple. Especially interesting to the child nithyananda were the stories of Prahlad, Dhruva and Markandeya. In Hindu puranas Prahlad, Dhruva and Markandeya were from childhood deeply attracted to spirituality. They spent all their time meditating upon forms of the Divine and reached enlightenment before adolescence.

These stories were deeply imprinted in the child’s memory. These mythical and mystical models became role models inspiring him in his future activities. nithyananda’s grandfather was his first teacher; and the stories that he heard from his grandfather his first lessons inspirituality.

From childhood nithyananda’s spiritual inclinations were very clear. His grandfather’s elder brother’s wife opened up her box of jewelry to the young nithyananda one day and asked him to pick whatever he liked. The young child without hesitation picked up a rudraksha mala, a necklace made of beads of plant seeds, which is usually worn by spiritually evolved people and those aspiring to the spiritual path. Rudraksha literally means Siva’s tears and come sin many forms, depending on the number of facets the seed has. Rudraksha serves as a battery, getting charged by the energy produced during meditation, and discharging it as needed to the wearer. Any normal child would have picked up a bauble that shone; something that was visually attractive; nithyananda, however, unerringly chose what he knew would be of value to him in life.

Child nithyananda loved playing with images and idols of Gods and Goddesses unlike other children who played with toys and dolls. He collected these idols and by associating with sculptors in the temple learnt how to make them as well both from wood and soft stone. Some of the idols that he had made and worshipped and played with are available in Dhyanapeetam.

When nithyananda was about three, he was given an idol of Ganapati as a gift. Ganapati or Ganesa as he is called otherwise is the son of Siva and Parvati. He is a jolly god with a pot belly and an elephant head, riding on a mouse. Ganapati is always prayed to before any practicing Hindu embarks on any serious venture to bless that venture; he is the remover of all obstacles and brings success. It is said that his own father Siva had to come back and pray to him when he forgot to obtain his blessings before he went to battle a demon!

nithyananda started worshipping the idol with great devotion. The vigraha, the idol, was not an inanimate statue to the child; it was a living object. He related with the idol at a personal level, offered Ganapati food, and became upset when Ganapati did not eat the food offered to him. He would threaten to drop the idol in the well that was in the center of the house. Cajoling and threatening, nithyananda gave Ganapati a deadline to eat or else. He waited for three to four hours even after giving Him this deadline. When Ganapati still did not oblige, nithyananda placed him carefully in the bucket that was used to bring the water up from the well, along with some food, and slowly lowered him by loosening the rope that was attached to the bucket. At each level of lowering nithyananda cajoled and threatened the idol again and again. He had mixed emotions; anger that Ganapati did not listen to him, did not care for his threats; at another level fear that if he did drop Him into the water, He may die. When the bucket reached the bottom of the well and floated on top of the water, nithyananda felt that he had carried out his threat far enough and that Ganapati by now would have eaten. He then brought Him up, and found to his chagrin that He had not eaten the food after all. Angered, nithyananda lowered the idol again, hoping that this time Ganapati would have better sense; when he brought Him up again the food was untouched.

By now the child had lost his anger and felt no longer any interest in threatening Ganapati. He felt only compassion that Ganapati had not eaten. When nithyananda told his family members about this incident, they laughed at him. They made fun of his childishness in trying to get the Ganapati idol to eat. They also worried that if nithyananda dropped the idol in the well, they would have to spend money in buying him another idol as replacement, and told him they would not buy him another one if he lost this.

Around this time nithyananda heard the story of Nambiandar Nambi. Nambi's father was a priest at a temple. One day his father had to go on an errand, and told Nambi to carry out the daily puja ritual and also to offer food to the God. Nambi took his father at his word and after the puja placed some food in front of the idol, drew the cloth screen in front of the idol and waited for the idol to eat. After a while when he looked in the food was untouched. Nambi started crying. He felt he had made a grievous mistake and the God was angry with him. He was also afraid that his father when he returned would be angry with him for not doing the job entrusted to him properly. Nambi started bashing his head against the stone wall of the temple, telling the idol that if He did not eat the food offered to Him, he would break his own head and die. When he looked up after a few minutes, the food had been eaten.

When nithyananda heard this story he was very upset and hurt. If God ate Nambi's food, why would He not eat nithyanada's food? Suddenly he realized that there was a difference. Nambi had tortured himself, hurt himself; he did not torture the idol; he did not threaten God like he himself did. Nambi did not lower his God into the well threatening to drown him; instead he offered his own life.

nithyananda decided he will not eat if Ganapati did not eat. He placed some food in front of the idol and waited. When Ganapati did not eat, nithyananda did not eat his food as well. He took the food from his mother, pretended as if he was going to eat, walked to the back of the house and dumped it. This went on for two to three days. Each day Ganapati's food was replaced. nithyanada's parents did not realize what was going on. Despite his hunger the child kept his resolve and waited for Ganapati to eat, dumping his own food untouched.

Believe it or not, at the end of the third day the food in front of the idol disappeared. The child was overwhelmed with love. Tears rolled down his cheeks. nithyananda's spiritual life started in earnest at this point in time. He had realized through personal experience the power of devotion and faith. From then on every day till the day of his own enlightenment nithyananda would only eat after offering food to Ganapati. Only when He ate, nithyananda ate. After enlightenment, Nithyananda never ate; only He ate!

There are religions and cultures that abhor idol worship, associating idols with pagan worship, and considering their own mode of worship as civilized. There are those cultures and religions which are exclusive and bounded, and who do not allow all those who do not accept their value systems in totality into their forms of worship. Hinduism is an inclusive religion open to all who walk in; there is no exclusivity of beliefs in the Hindi philosophy. Hindu philosophy allows dissent from within. Often times, one would find pictures of Jesus Christ in the altar of the very religious Hindu household, worshipped in all seriousness along with Siva and Vishnu.

It is easy to dismiss and ignore. Belief systems that have been embedded in our unconscious from childhood block us from anything new and different that is in seeming contradiction to those beliefs. Human beings limit themselves by such beliefs. Many of these beliefs are through societal and religious sanctions that are quite selfish in protecting the interests of those who control society and religion. They have no spiritual validity; there is no spiritual Truth that underpins these beliefs.

All it requires is a little bit of introspection and intelligence from the human mind to become aware and conscious of the over arching Truths which may seem to defy factual reality. It needs this conscious understanding to realize how the Hindu philosophy originated and where these numbers of millions of deities came from.

Hindu philosophy believes that all beings are divine in origin and in character. All religions, all great religions established by enlightened Masters say the same thing: we human beings are all divine in nature. There is absolutely no confusion on this score. In Hindu religion this Truth is clearly defined as divinity present in the individual, the soul, spirit or atman and the Divinity of the Universe, God, Cosmic Energy or Brahman. Atman and Brahman are one and the same; they are the same energy. There is no room for an atheist belief in Hindu philosophy. There is no God outside of you; you are God. All that is needed is to realize this Truth. Enlightened Masters have realized it; others are yet to. That is all the difference there is.

Both atman and Brahman are formless. They are energy. Atman is the energy enshrined in our mind bodies; Brahman is the Energy pervades the Universe. All that Hindu mythology states based on this belief is that every one of us is a deity, a god; not just the human beings alone but as well all living beings. The numbers of 330 million or 3.3 billion or 33 billion would refer to the number of beings on this Planet Earth. All these beings are forms of energy and are an integral part of the Cosmic or Universal Energy which is our normal concept of God.

The Hindu scriptures, the Vedas and the Upanishads state very clearly Existence is formless Energy. It is formless both at the universal level and in the individual level. This energy is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and all pervading. In the great Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, Krishna as the embodiment of the Cosmic Energy says: no weapon can destroy this Energy; water can not wet It; wind can not dry It; fire can not burn It; It Is eternal; It lives on.

However, for the average human being it is a complex and difficult task to contemplate upon this formless energy. It is too abstract, too distant; it is too much of an intellectual exercise; or alternatively it requires blind faith without understanding to accept this concept. It is a lot easier for the average human to visualize this formless energy in easily identifiable super human forms, to relate to such form with devotion and with emotion. Emotion is always stronger than intellect.

This is what Hindus did. They created forms to represent the formless to reach the masses. Forms that had features similar to humans and sometimes animals, familiar to them, and forms with whom they could identify. Mythology and folklore were created around these forms, once again to reach the masses. What is the point in trying to reach the human heart with dry intellect? Intellect without heart only creates monsters, modern day terrorists.

Most Indians and almost all Hindus are familiar with the many forms that Hindu Gods (and Goddesses) take. Almost all Hindu households will have a puja room or an altar that holds pictures and idols of these many forms of divinity as well as sages and enlightened Masters. Many Hindu households have pictures of Christian, Islamic and other religious Saints and enlightened Masters proudly displayed in their altars and worshipped along with Hindu deities and Masters. Most Hindu households offer ritual prayers in this puja room every day.

When Hindus worship idols of Gods and Goddesses, they do not worship stones, meat objects or wooden images; what they worship are the visualized forms of the formless energy. What Hindus do is to worship the formless energy beyond the forms of these idols through the stone or wooden or metal idols; Hindus worship the formless through the form.

This concept of idol worship is one of the most misunderstood ideologies of Hindu religion, and it arises even amongst educated Hindus out of lack of knowledge of the underlying principle. It is far better to identify with a form of your visualization that appeals to you and which can uplift you, than to pray to the formless using one’s dry intellect. What the heart can reach, the head never can; only when you reach at least the heart level, the connection with the Being can begin.

Often times one is told by a well read, Western style ‘convent’ educated Indian, who believes he is above all rituals including idolatry, that it is foolish to worship a stone image. How much more foolish to worship something that does not even seem to exist? Is it more intelligent or scientific to believe in another human being who lived thousands of years ago, of whom all we know is through what others have written, than to believe your own heart and being in the here and now?

Spirituality is beyond science, far beyond science. Einstein, arguably the greatest Scientist who ever lived said: the last step in science is the first step in spirituality. Science has no explanation till date for creation of the Universe. Spirituality states that Universe always existed and will continue to exist. Despite Darwin and the Catholic Church, there is no proof as to how living matter emerged out on non living forms, what science terms as ‘abiogenesis’. There is only this word, no knowledge behind it.

Science, in the quantum physics, has established beyond doubt that all matter is energy. The first verse of the first Upanishad, the great Hindu scripture says beautifully: Iso vasyam idam sarvam. From

Energy arises all matter. This was stated 5000 years ahead of Einstein. This is what he referred to when Einstein made the statement that we read earlier. He said: My theory could only talk about how all matter releases energy. Thousands of years ago there was wisdom that stated that all this matter came from a source of Energy.

If one looks deeper and deeper into any matter, as with looking at an atom through a highly powered electron microscope, all that we would find is emptiness. The emperor has no clothes on! The atom has nothing to it!! Energy is formless. Yet, we see things around us which are in form.

It is not difficult for any one today, truly educated in science, to realize that ultimately form is formless, and that the formless can and is represented by form. This is what the great rishis, Hindu sages said many thousands of years ago.

Majority of Hindus have simple belief and faith in their Gods and Goddesses. They believe with their hearts and with deep emotion that these forms are real and are living forces. They also believe that Gods whom they visualize in various forms arrive on Planet Earth as Incarnations or avatars in human form. Stories, legends and epics are built around these incarnations. In the case of Vishnu, the Conserver of the Universe, ten avatars are listed.

The mythology of the ten incarnations of Vishnu is in a sense the story of evolution of life forms. The story is one of the creation and the ending of the Planet Earth in a metaphoric sense, and the sequence of life forms is the sequence of the incarnations. First is the fish incarnation, matsyavatara, depicting origin of life form as aquatic creatures. This is followed by kurmavatara, tortoise incarnation, representing the next stage as amphibian. The third is varahavatara, boar incarnation, representing a mammal. The fourth is the narasimhavatara, half human and half lion, half-way point to human form. The fifth incarnation is that of the dwarf, vamanavatara. The remaining five are human representations, four who have come and gone, Rama, Krishna, Bala Rama and Buddha, and the last Kalki, the warrior destroyer avatar yet to come. Of the human versions of the dasavatara, the ten incarnations of Vishnu, Krishna is considered the perfect incarnation or purnavatar. At one level, as the Super Conscious energy behind Bhagavad Gita He is the Supreme Lord and God; at other levels: he is the beautiful and naughty child every mother loves to adore; the dashing graceful youth that every damsel dreams of being in love with; the perfect friend who one can turn to at any time of need; the sagacious counselor that Kings and Saints seek advice from; Krishna is all this and more. Krishna is not a moral beacon as Rama or Bala Rama were, nor a dispassionate Sage as Buddha was. Krishna was and is and will be human, so easy to identify with, so easy to love, so easy to be devoted to; He is the perfect incarnation. Krishna has said in the scriptural Bhagavad Gita that he will take form upon Earth from time to time.

He declares:

Paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya dushkrutam Dharma samstarpanaya sambhavi yuge yuge

To protect the good and to destroy the evil To establish righteousness I present myself age after age

In the case of these divine and popular incarnations of Vishnu that are part of the puranic lore of Hindu mythology, we do not have historical proof of all except Buddha. Krishna and Bala Rama are supposed to have lived 5000 years ago in the previous age of Dwapara Yuga and Rama much earlier in the Treta Yuga; but then hard evidence is hard to come by so far.

In addition to these incarnations of mythology, there are many other historical beings who we know have walked the Planet Earth, who are also revered as incarnations in the Hindu belief system. In recent times of historical recollection Mahavira, Sankara, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Shirdi Saibaba, Ramana Maharishi and others have been considered as incarnations and revered.

In Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's biography by Saradananda, the biographer discusses why and how incarnations arrive on Planet Earth. Saradananda traces the origin of such incarnations to Vedic times when sages of divine consciousness started being revered as incarnations. In India its spiritual legacy of the Vedic and Puranic times still lives on as a palpable energy. Its people accept and believe the truth of conscious births of incarnations, who arrive fully enlightened upon Planet Earth.

As Krishna proclaimed in the Gita these incarnations arrive upon Planet Earth with a clear mission. Existence, the Cosmic Energy, provides these incarnations with the necessary energy to fulfill their mission in a choice less manner. Each incarnation is unique and mission of each incarnation is personalized.

Saradananda talks about various levels of spiritual evolutions from within and outside of the definition of incarnations, such as jeevan mukta and jnanis and yogis. He also tells as how these people can be identified based on the natural characteristics they are endowed with from birth.

Each incarnation differs from the other in the way he performs his mission. Each one has his own path though the goal is the same: to teach rest of humanity that they too are divine and they too with effort on their part can be liberated from bondages of the world.

Incarnations are not miracle makers

In the human form that they have assumed, these living incarnations are subject to the same physical laws of existence as all of us human beings are; after all they too are in human form. It is easy to visualize and accept the divinity of a Krishna who none of us has seen. However, when you live around a living incarnation, whose physical functions are no different from yours or mine, questions arise on the acceptance of their divinity by many.

It is easy for the average human to be impressed by what may be called super natural feats of spiritual beings; very often these feats seem unbelievable, irrational and contradictory to all known laws of nature.

Because we do not understand the laws of such feats such as teleportation or materialization of objects, we tend to classify them as miracles and consider those who perform such feats as divine beings. There are no miracles in nature; such miracles operate through natural laws that our scientists are yet to understand.

Even a primary school student today is taught that there is intelligence residing in each cell of our body. Mind is not a vague entity that is to be found somewhere in the brain, but is a life force that is spread all over the body. Every part of or body is mind as well. Mind and body are not two separate terms, as Osho remarked, it should be mind body. Viewed in this perspective all illnesses are psychosomatic; there are caused by disturbances to the mind body; not to mind and body separately. Therefore healing the mind can cure the illness of the mind body. Mind unlike body, as we understand body, is not matter; it is energy. Body and mind too, like matter and energy, are interchangeable and they are the same. Healing a sick person through energy healing of the mind is unscientific only to the ignorant. It is very scientific if one understands recent advances in science.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, an eminent Cellular Biologist, describes his experiments at the single cell level in lay man's terms in his mile stone book Biology of Beliefs. In this book he explains the mind body behavior through the functionality of cells. Through a simple experiment with a single cell he shows how the cell is attracted by nutrients so that it establishes itself in a growth mode and how it is repelled by toxins, when it sets itself up in a protection mode. He then goes on to show how the cell can not at the same time be in a growth mode and a protective mode; it has to be in one or the other. Using this basic behavior he logically shows how stresses in today's world, repetitive and illogical, affect the mind body causing depression leading to serious illnesses.

A spiritual healer who cures chronic and fatal diseases uses his energy at the cellular level to redress damage caused to the mind body. His performance is miraculous only to the gullible; it is laughable only to the uneducated; when we understand the working of the cell at the molecular level as explained by scientists like Bruce Lipton, it is extremely scientific and rational.

True incarnations go beyond the display of such extraordinary powers termed by us as miraculous because of our lack of understanding; their mission is to help mankind, not to work miracles to impress other humans. Having experienced the divinity of their own beings, incarnations are focused on assisting the rest of mankind experience the same divinity within them. Just the same way as a Scientist develops formulae and techniques to reproduce phenomena of the outer world, mystics develop formulae and techniques to reproduce their experiences of the inner world. A master is able to apply these formulae so that others can experience

Over time in the Hindu tradition great Masters have laid down the path and techniques to achieve liberation from the illusion that we are not divine. Patanjali, greatest of them all, in his Yoga Sutras specified a path of eight practices that lead to Yoga or Union, the union of the individual with the divine. These eight practices yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and Samadhi are valid today as techniques for spiritual evolution even after thousands of years. Techniques of Yoga Asanas and Pranayama, which are now practiced worldwide have their origin from Patanjali, an enlightened Master, whose mission in life was to share his wisdom in a practical manner with his fellow men.

Other great Masters communicated and communed differently. Ramakrishna

Paramahamsa initiated his disciples into enlightenment by touching them. Ramana Maharishi liberated his disciples through silent communion. The concepts of deeksha, the Master's grace by sight, touch, and words are well documented in Hindu scriptures.

The greatest blessing that Existence can bestow upon a person is the opportunity to live with and around an incarnation as his disciple. The master, divine incarnate, just by his sheer presence can and will elevate one to enlightenment; nothing else is needed but the surrender to the master. The mission of an incarnation is to lead other human beings to enlightenment. All one needs is to get ones ego out of the way; easier said, however, than done.

Early one chilly morning, during Fall 2005, a group of us sat at the feet of our master Nithyananda at the newly opened ashram at Duarte, near LA. Nithyananda spoke to us on the background to his birth.

When a pup, a dog or even a baby is born, it takes time for the new born to settle into its body and perform. In fact a human child takes longer than any other animal to move and to walk. A pup or a calf struggles after it is born for a few minutes, gets up tentatively, wobbles around and is functional. A human child, however, takes several months before it starts moving.

It happens the same way with the human spirit as well. To evolve and get liberated, the human spirit struggles through its samskaras. Samskaras are the embedded impressions and memories of past actions and desires. Samskaras drive our decisions, very often unconsciously. In the normal course of events most of us are bound by our samskaras and live our entire life chasing them, forever unfulfilled. When experienced and unfulfilled, these samskaras which are stored deep in our unconscious mind reappear with renewed vigor. Many of these samskaras follow us through many birth cycles as mind sets and attitudes. A few amongst us, a few lucky ones, who are mostly guided by enlightened masters, may find ways to work our way out of the bondage of our samskaras through meditation and sometimes through sheer devotion and finally find liberation.

These beings are born with burning desire to be enlightened. They have not been enlightened in previous births, have been close to it, have been close to enlightened Masters, but for reason or another had missed the bus, so to speak. Such rare beings, who seek desperately in this birth and finally find liberation, enlightenment, mukti, moksha or whatever name you wish to give to this experience of your being one with the divine, the Cosmic Energy, the Existence, are the jeevan muktas. Jeevan Muktas are different from incarnations; they do not have a conscious birth; they are born like all of you and struggle through life in the same manner. They do not arrive on this Planet Earth fully conscious of their true divine reality. They practice sadhanas (spiritual pursuits) diligently till their chosen path of gnana (wisdom), bhakti (devotion) or dhyana (meditation) leads them to the realization of their innate divinity.

Then, there are Incarnations. Incarnations take birth consciously, fully aware of their divinity within. They too may go through sadhanas; however, these sadhanas in the case of incarnations arise out of the realization of their own divinity, instead of being the necessary prerequisite to such understanding and realization. The sadhanas are part of their witnessing consciousness.

What you need to understand is this. Incarnations are already enlightened beings who descend upon Planet Earth with a mission defined by the Cosmic Energy. They have no choice in this matter. It is as if the energy of these enlightened beings is sucked into Earth due to a combination of circumstances; wherein the Cosmic Energy decides that the presence of the energy of this enlightened being would be value to human beings.

Incarnations are like the legendary swans, the Paramahamsas. These swans fly high in the sky and when they lay their eggs, their eggs hatch in mid air. The infant bird emerges from the falling egg and starts flying without ever touching ground. These swans never touch ground during their entire lives. They are forever in flight; born in flight they mate in flight and die in flight. These birds have conscious birth. Paramahamsas are incarnations, who come down to Planet Earth fully realized, fully aware and conscious, and ready to fly fully conscious.

Jeevan Muktas on the other hand are like pups, calves and infants who struggle to get up and move. Unlike other pups, calves and humans, jeevan muktas eventually learn to fly and reach the same level of realization as the Paramahamsas. At the level of divine realization both jeevan muktas and Paramahamsas reach the same level. The difference between them is the starting point which is the conscious birth of the Paramahamsas. Paramahamsas do not need sadhanas and tapas (penance) to reach enlightenment; they already are enlightened at birth. Their sadhanas and tapas are only to inspire others and provide other spiritual sadhakas (spiritual practitioners) the template for guidance in their individual paths to enlightenment.

You may be tempted to ask how we know whether we are dogs or Swans.

When this question was asked of him Nithyananda said: You must be at least a dog to be here. Otherwise you would not have reached this far and ask. If you are a Swan you would not even ask; you will know. Target is where you park, and you walk to the goal. (This incident was at the LA ashram and there was a Target Store in the Mall in the next block, where visitors parked their cars).