The First Glimpse🔗

Choicelessness is an attribute of enlightened beings

Dear reader, even incarnations need to be provided with the right ambience as they grow in their earthly bodies. The ambience needs to be supportive and conducive for the effectiveness of their mission. The divine existence, Parasakti, plans their settling down on Planet Earth in line with the mission she has determined for them. Events seem to happen at random, but are never random.

There is a correlation between one event and another, and the sequence, the path, is almost preordained. Ordinary mortals have definitive free will in choosing which fork of the path that they would choose and events unfold accordingly. In the case of enlightened beings there is an element of choicelessness that is part of the divine package.

When incarnations reach Planet Earth they are without samskaras and at the doorstep of enlightenment. They have to let go to reach enlightenment. Enlightenment happens; it can not be made to happen. Enlightenment is like river water. It stays in your hands as long as your hand is open; once you close your hands there is no water.

Bliss is choicelessness. If we try to make bliss a choice it will be absent. If we can understand the purposelessness of life as a part of the grand plan of existence we can and will reach enlightenment.

Ego believes that there is purpose to life; material, relational and spiritual. More purposes the stronger our ego feels. If we drop all other purposes and still hold on to purpose of enlightenment it is futile. Only when we realize that life is totally purposeless and drop our ego will enlightenment happen to us.

Even logically what is the purpose of existence? God who creates everything else including jungles, could he not have created concrete jungles and cities? 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....wife, husband, father, and son. Each collects sand articles thinking they are jewels. The bubble does not understand that it can burst any moment. A big bubble says it is going to be enlightened.

When we are ready to digest that everything is purposeless, material, relational, spiritual, only then life acquires meaning. Once we have a goal we miss the path.

Mind waits for something to happen. It waits for salary, weekly, monthly, yearly, 5 yearly payments. If someone offers us 100 years of salary and asks us to die tomorrow will we die? That’s what most of us do. When we measure life by paycheck we reduce our spirit to matter.

Our ego is stuck on what we see as a purpose in life. After I settle my social responsibilities I will come to you, my Master and take up the spiritual path, we say.

An elderly lady came to Nithyananda with her son; wanted him to take the son into the ashram as a Brahmacharya. Nithyananda was surprised since usually no parent would like their child to be a sanyasi. Vivekananda is great, but no one wants his son to be a Vivekananda. They feel how can my son or daughter be so blissful, when I am not? Nithyananda asked to tell him why she wanted him to be at the ashram. She said that her son is mentally unsound.

Nithyananda was confused whether he was running an ashram or an asylum!

We have many reasons why we can not do things. By the time we finish on responsibility we shall have ten more waiting for us. Running becomes our conditioning, not relaxing. When we are young we tell ourselves that we shall relax after we graduate from University; then we shift the goal post to marriage; then to children; then to educating children; then their marriage. Can we relax after you are 60? By then we have missed the path.

The primal sin we can commit is to miss the path of life by following goals. When we live let our being be blissful; when we start hurrying let us think about what we are hurrying for; let us not allow restlessness in us, hoping it will settle; that will never happen. If we are not able to relax into the present moment, even after fulfilling our responsibilities we will still feel unfulfilled. When ever we run, whenever we hurry, think why, what for?

When we understand this purposelessness healing happens. Even if we have been abused, we shall heal, if we allow this understanding to happen; the understanding itself will guide us.

What kind of teaching is this, one may ask? All my life I have had a purpose, and my life has been fine. Now you say all that is without purpose. Whether we like it or not, that's the truth.

Our seeing an enlightened Master is a dream. Scriptures say: moment one sees an enlightened master one becomes enlightened.

Seeing the Master is not the same as looking at Him, which is what we do. Looking is with eyes, seeing is with the being. The closer we come to the Master more our understanding of Him changes. Our maturity allows us to see Him differently.

People get shocked. Now I know life is purposeless. I can not go to work. I can not take a vacation. That is the wrong understanding. Once you have the understanding of purposelessness you can never be lazy. Tamas (laziness) can not come out of intelligence. Perhaps for two days one will just lie in bed and not get up. Third day one will wake up as a different person, without restlessness; restlessness is a monster that one would have conquered.

Restlessness hides purposelessness from us; it hides the path with the goal. Please understand this and be healed. All our dreams of the future, all our guilt of the past will disappear; all ephemeral joys and suffering will vanish.

We referred earlier to this saint in Tiruvannamalai, Visiri Swamigal or Swami Ram Surat Kumar. He was innocent as a child. Whenever people came to him, whatever their problem was, he would say ‘alright’. Some one died Swami, ‘alright’; My son is getting married, ‘alright’. nithyananda asked him, Swami, why do you say alright to everything? He told nithyananda: Everything is just purposeless. Whatever you think has a purpose has no meaning.

Whenever we remember the truth of purposelessness, healing will happen, suffering will disappear; whether we have or do not have; neither has purpose.

We need courage to pursue truth and be enlightened. Life will then take a different path. We shall live as liberated souls. We shall never drop our jobs, relationships or wealth. We shall drop only what we do not have. We shall drop the mental associations and emotions attached to objects and events. We shall drop the fantasy of a throne and start enjoying the seat. When purpose is dropped meaning will happen.

nithyananda’s path to enlightenment had its own challenges. As we shall see later his first spiritual experience occurred when he was barely twelve. However, it took another 10 years before enlightenment happened to him. Nithyananda says now that had he let go possibly it would have happened earlier. His own struggles and rigorous practices perhaps delayed what may have happened sooner.

When nithyananda was around seven and was at the Devi sannadi (altar) of Arunachala temple one day, he suddenly had a vision of a golden colored diagram. The figure made such an impression on him that he felt impelled immediately to draw it. He got himself a copper sheet and a nail and started carving this diagram out of memory.

When nithyananda's grandmother saw him engaged in this work she became curious and wanted to know what he was doing and what this figure was. nithyananda told her that he was drawing something he saw in his mind. She was not satisfied with this explanation. Unsure of what her grandson was up to, she asked her friend Kuppammal for advice.

Kuppammal was a sincere spiritual seeker. Kuppammal's mother was without child for a long time. The mother's guru was Seshadri Swamigal, an enlightened master of great reputation in Tiruvannamalai, and a contemporary of Ramana Maharishi. Seshadri Swamigal blessed the lady and gave her a handful of mud to eat. With complete faith and no hesitation the lady ate all of it. Later that year Kuppammal was born as if by divine providence.

Kuppammal had mastered the art of Kundalini tantra by the age of 12. She never menstruated till she was 21. Against her will she was married off by the time she was nineteen and was stopped from doing her spiritual sadhanas (practices). Only after her marriage, about two years after she stopped her sadhanas she started menstruating. She regretted her marriage, and single mindedly focused on her spiritual pursuit. Her own guru was Isakki Swamigal. Kuppammal was adept in tantric practices and could materialize anything she wanted. She had had the vision of Devi as Raja Rajeshwari. She became a great inspiration to the young nithyananda and was a compassionate guide. She added much into molding his personality.

Kuppammal asked nithyananda how he came to draw this figure and he told her what happened. She explained to him that what he had drawn was the very powerful Sri Chakra, a highly complex and mystic pictorial representation of the Universal Energy, which even very highly trained artists found difficult to draw. She was astounded that this young lad had so casually and without effort drawn the figure from memory. (Years later our Master Nithyananda drew this chakra on a blackboard in about 5 minutes in order to explain its meaning). Kuppammal asked nithyananda whether he would like to learn the science of tantra which used Sri Chakra as a base for meditation practices and the boy eagerly accepted this offer.

Kuppammal was the first person who made nithyananda realize that he was different from other children of his age; that there was something extraordinary in his life. Till then nithyananda had not realized that what was happening to him was unlike that any one else around him was experiencing.

Primal fear on being attacked by Hyenas

nithyananda started walking around the Arunachala mountain around this time. He would start very early in the morning around 4 am and walk for three to four hours around the hill chanting songs about the hill. nithyananda was totally in the present, least bothered about what happened the next moment; an innocent child playing in the lap of his mother; an innocent child delighting in the ambience of his beloved Arunachala.

One morning he started very early, soon after midnight. In those days there were no roads, nor lights on the path around the hill. It was just a jungle, a dense forest all the way. At a spot near Sona Nadi, a rivulet, a group of hyenas approached him. nithyananda had been walking with his eyes cast downwards singing some stotras (devotional songs) and had not noticed the hyenas till he was very close to them. When he lifted his head and saw them, the animals were ready to pounce on him; waiting for him to lift his head and see them before they pounced on him. From deep down his hara, the Swadishthana spot, in desperate fear the boy let out a scream, a scream of pure fear that he had not experienced neither before nor after. Along with the scream he felt a total surrender to Arunachala, and a deep trust that Arunachala would take care of him. Immediately, an elderly sanyasi appeared in front of him with a big stick, and at the sight of this man the hyenas melted away. As soon as the animals ran away he disappeared. nithyananda did not know where this man came from, nor where he went. With that primal scream nithyananda found that his body had suddenly turned much lighter; he started walking, almost floating as if the frequency of his Being had increased. (Primal theory is a modern psychological treatment in which patients scream from deep down, their hara, to relieve fear and other suppressed negative emotions in catharsis).

In later days Nithyananda told us often about the need to surrender completely to Existence, without any trace of ego, with the absolute confidence that Existence will take care of us in any eventuality. This incident is another of his own experiences even before his enlightenment when the sheer trust in Existence took care of what needed to be done. We, his followers, have had a number of such experiences with the Master that we shall read about later.

Meeting Rudraksha Muni

nithyananda had heard of a sage whom people called Rudraksha Muni, who used to come to the temple at night and occupy a place near the Rudraksha mandapam. For many days nithyananda waited for him at this spot without success. One night a man covered with rudrakshas appeared in the temple. Thinking this was Rudraksha Muni nithyananda ran after him. nithyananda followed this man's schedule everyday and waited to serve him and talk to him. One day the boy followed this man as he left the temple and found him walking into a house not far from the temple. He had a family and children! nithyananda was angry and felt cheated. He accosted the man and asked him why he didn’t tell him that he was not Rudraksha Muni. This person was in fact a kind man; he explained to nithyananda that seeing how keen he was to meet Rudraksha Muni, and how disappointed he would be in not meeting him, he decided to play along so as not to disappoint him! He said: You were so joyful that you had met Rudraksha Muni. I could not take away that joy from you. I too felt so much joy with you around.

Over time this man became a good friend. He was a depressed man seeking spiritual solace. He gave nithyananda a whole bagful of rudraksha malas that feature in some of the early photographs of nithyananda.

Whenever he could nithyananda would spend time cleaning the idols of the various deities in the Arunachala temple. By now he had a group of young followers who would do what he told them. They would go around cleaning and decorating the idols and organizing small events.

Annamalai Swamigal and the self inflicted wound

Around the age of 10 nithyananda started going to the Ramana Ashram. He would spend hours in the ashram meditating and reading books from the ashram library. On one of these occasions a family member took him to meet Annamalai Swamigal, an elderly man who was an enlightened disciple of Ramana Maharishi. nithyananda took to sitting with Annamalai Swamigal's disciples regularly. Another attraction was that Annamalai Swamigal used to distribute candies after his discourses and nithyananda was fond of these candies. One day in the discourse nithyananda heard Annamalai Swamigal explaining the concept of maya or illusion by saying: 'we are not the body; we are beyond pain and suffering.'

The concept of maya is quite fundamental to the vedantic concept of Sankara and the advaithic (non dualistic) principles propounded by him. Sages like Ramana and his followers such as Annamalai Swamigal explained the ultimate Truth about the divinity of the individual through an elaboration of the concept of maya. Ya ma, iti maya, say the scriptures; that which is not real is maya; maya is loosely translated in English as illusion. It has nothing to do with illusion; to most of us except the enlightened this maya is reality, as we see it; which indeed is the problem.

We all see what we wish to see, not what there is. We are all driven by or mind, our thoughts, or desires. Say the Upanishads: as our thoughts are so are our desires; as our desires are so is our will; as our will is so are our actions; as our actions are so are our lives.

Thoughts are our connectivity between past and future. Neither past nor future is real. One is dead and gone, never to return, and the other yet to come, quite speculative. Yet, our mind is focused on these two, caught in the web between these two and would like to interpret everything based on the unreality of what has happened and what is yet to happen.

If for a moment, we could suspend thoughts, if only we could disengage our minds, we would be in the Present. We would be where reality is, where life is where Bliss is. Being in the present, being in the here and now guarantees that we are grounded in reality, free from maya. In this state, we see life as it is, not as we want it to be.

Because there are no attachments in the present, there is no suffering. This is what Buddha referred to, when he said that desires cause suffering; that the attachment to what we want, the hangover of our desires, cause suffering. Mindfulness, the ability to be in the present, eliminates suffering.

When Annamalai Swamigal said that there would be no pain, he referred to the suffering attached to the physical pain. Pain in purely physical terms is bearable; it is the baggage of the suffering that is attached to the pan that causes us great discomfort.

Normally you may be fascinated by a concept or conclusion but still you are stuck with reality. Unless you question both, you will not realize the truth. This attitude of questioning is the attitude of the true seeker. Only a true seeker is not content with reality as it is presented to him and a conceptual conclusion however beguiling it may be. He would question and continue questioning the logic of the conclusion till he is satisfied, and doubt reality and keep doubting reality till he goes beyond the superficiality of his perceptions.

Despite his age and lack of experience, at a very deep level nithyananda understood what Annamalai Swamigal said. He knew it was true, at his Being level. nithyananda could not sleep that night. Annamalai Swamigal's words haunted him. The vibration of his presence and the piercing gaze of this enlightened Master stayed with him. He needed to prove for himself the correctness of what this Master had said in passing.

nithyananda was fascinated and intrigued by what he had heard earlier that day. He thought to himself: even though the conclusion that pain and suffering do not exist is fascinating, reality is different. I do and others do feel pain when we are hurt. I am fascinated by the concept and conclusion that our body will not have pain and suffering but as this is different from my experience of reality. Therefore, I would need to test this out.

When he woke up the next morning nithyananda took a knife from his mother's kitchen and cut himself on his thigh just below the shorts he was wearing. It was a deep cut and started bleeding profusely. nithyananda was in deep pain but stopped short of crying out for fear of attracting too much attention. Unable to bear the pain after a few minutes he went to his mother, who immediately rushed him to a Doctor who lived nearby. The Doctor stitched his cut, mother spanked him and the pain stayed for a while. The scar still remains on Nithyananda's thigh.

Later that day nithyananda went to Annamalai Swamigal and told him what happened. You said there is no body; there will be no pain and suffering. But there was. Why?

Annamalai Swamigal laughed and said, I did not ask you to cut yourself to test what I said. Why did you do that?

Annamalai Swamigal immediately understood the seriousness of the boy's seeking; he was willing to undergo tremendous pain and suffering to test out a concept that he had given out as an intellectual truth. He decided to help the boy in his search, and asked him whether he would be prepared to follow a simple technique that would help him in his spiritual quest. nithyananda immediately accepted the offer.. Annamalai Swamigal then taught nithyananda a simple meditation technique to follow his thoughts back to the source where they originated.

nithyananda asked him, Swami, why did you not teach me this earlier? I need not have cut myself to learn this.

Annamalai Swamigal said, son, do not worry about this pain. It shall pass. You had the courage to test the truth and find out for yourself. That's the true sign of a seeker. Your courage will liberate you. It is far more valuable than the pain.

These words stayed for ever in nithyananda's mind. They initiated a transformation in him. These words remained a source of strength to support him whenever doubts assailed him as to whether the path he was following was the right one. It was an inspiration to run faster.

This experience with Annamalai Swamigal and the meditation that he initiated him into started yet another new chapter in nithyananda's life. This experience helped him to beyond the illusion of thoughts.

The attributes of Seen, Seeing and Seer are all thoughts at different levels of frequencies. First person is seer, third person is seen, what is in between is seeing. When nithyananda started going to the source he realized that all these three were same, only different levels of illusion created by his own thoughts. Going back to the source of thoughts was to go right into the present moment. At the 'present' moment, there is only the reality of 'being', nothing else. The activity of 'being' is the experience that encompasses the experiencer as well as the experienced.

In his Atma Shatakam, Sankara says beautifully:

nithyananda realized that the ultimate reality was to go beyond these thoughts right back to their source. Just sitting, just being had become a habit with me, he says now.

nithyananda practiced the meditation technique that Annamalai Swamigal had taught him with all seriousness and discipline. Swamigal had told the young lad ‘Practice this meditation and you will get your answers’, and he was desperate to get to the answers.

A little over a year later, when nithyananda was about twelve, he was as usual sitting on a rock in the Arunachala Hill and meditating, when a strange experience happened. It was on the Buddha Purnima day in the month of Vaikasi (May-June). In the midst of his meditation, nithyananda felt some thing opening up with in him, something was getting crushed, some thing else was getting created. It was like an vessel inside getting broken and a door opening, both together.

With his eyes closed he could see all around him. He did not need eyes to see; not just that, he had a 360 degree vision. With equal clarity nithyananda could see the hill in front of him, the temple behind him, the rock below him, the stars above him, the trees to the left, part of the hill to the left, all these were in his visionary filed, without having to open his eyes!

Nithyananda says: At that moment, I awakened to the realization that I was one with the whole of Existence and everything was I!

nithyananda rushed home in great happiness, drunk with excitement and told Kuppammal about what had happened. Kuppammal immediately knew that the boy had had a very powerful spiritual experience, very unusual for a person of his age and that he needed to be looked after. She took very good care of him. The after effects of this spiritual experience that Nithyananda now calls satori lasted about three days.

This satori experience was the beginning of a new phase of spiritual development in nithyananda's life.

From this point nithyananda could see all around him when he wished. He called a close friend of his soon after the satori incident, took him inside the temple with him and sat with him with his back to a tree. ‘Look here’ nithyananda told his friend, ‘something strange has happened to me. I can now see all around me.’ Saying this he told his friend, ‘look at the tree behind me. Can you see the ant which is moving at this point’ and pointed to the spot where an ant was indeed moving. nithyananda’s friend was frightened at what was happening and ran away on the pretext having to drink some water. This friend later told nithyananda’s parents what nithyananda had shown him.

Nithyananda now refers to this experience as a glimpse of enlightenment and uses the Japanese Zen word satori to describe it. In the case of persons that we have seen it happen with in the follower group, it is an experience that happens in the presence of the Master with the grace of the Master. In the case of nithyananda it happened on his own, partly out of the tapas he was undergoing, and mainly as a result of his own evolved state.

One of his disciples was once asked by Nithyananda as to why he was not doing his sadhanas as rigorously as they should have been practiced. Nithyananda said, if I had been lazy like you, I would never have been enlightened. The disciple responded tongue in cheek: That's because you did not have a guru like we have! We are far more fortunate than you!!

Nithyananda himself says that had he surrendered to a guru his own spiritual growth may have been faster. He says that he had to experiment with ten thousand keys before he could find the right key that unlocked the mystery of enlightenment. He says that in the case of his disciples he has already given them the keys and all that they have to do is to fit the key to the lock for the Truth to dawn.