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Friday, March 11, 2016

MAHASHIVRATRI – 2016


7th March, 2016 – Samarpan Ashram, Dandi

This year too there were last minute hiccups before departing for Mahashivratri festival. Three sadhaks dropped out and three new came in as last minute replacements. This time I left home at 6 in the morning on Sunday 6th March, picked up Mallika Ghai, Revathi Venkateshvaran and Peeyush Shivananda (a new sadhak) from Andheri East, then at around 6.30am picked up Deepali Gokhale from Borivali East on the highway. I had a meeting at Yoga Prabha Bhavan at 11am hence the early departure. We had sumptuous breakfast at Datta Wada House at around 7.30am. We reached Yoga Prabha Bhavan at 10.30am. I parked my car and went to A1 Bungalows to Mr. Sundeep Sharma’s residence and joined Pratapbhai and family for some light snacks. In the meanwhile Ramaniji came with the international sadhaks and I spent some time chatting with them. We got a message to come to Yoga Prabha Bhavan for the meeting and then left at 11.15 for the meeting. Mr. Sundeep Sharma’s driver dropped the sadhaks who had accompanied me from Mumbai to the Ashram and returned.
We left for the Ashram at 4.15pm and immediately had to go for another meeting. The thing that literally struck you was the festival atmosphere as one entered the Ashram – it was like a complete mela had been set up. The Ashram was buzzing with activity with a total festive atmosphere – there was high energy and a joyous spirit energized the entire atmosphere. After the meeting we had a quiet meditation and tried to reconnect with my fellow sadhaks who had been dropped to the Ashram in the morning.  By the time we finished bhojan Prasad it was 7.30pm. We got in touch with Deepali and Revathi and Peeyush. They were all panicking as Mallika seemed to have disappeared. Knowing her we thought she was in a trance in some place. Peeyush was desperate and poor guy kept running all over trying to locate her. Even I took one complete round of the Ashram and did not locate her. I decided to leave for the Hotel around 8.30pm. As Mr. Sundeep Sharma was with us I told him to take Mallika’s bag and deliver it to Rupambhai’s bungalow in A1 as Mallika was originally supposed to stay there. When we reached the Hotel we got a call from Mallika saying that she had left the Ashram at 6pm and was staying at Naimishaji’s house. My intuition of sending her bag to A1 proved correct as she at least now had her belongings with her!!

We checked into Hotel Regency at around 9.30pm and immediately went to sleep. Peeyush was keen on watching the Asia Cup Cricket final, so I just muted the volume and went to sleep. I woke up at 3.15am and freshened up. The plan was to leave by 4am, but by the time we checked out it was already 4.40am though both Peeyush and I were ready by 4.15am. Even the ladies were ready. Ramnath said, ‘call for breakfast as it comes immediately’. We called for poha and tea. This year the hotel did not keep complimentary breakfast which they had done till last year – cost cutting maybe. 


23000 sadhaks present at the ground on this holy occasion

We left the hotel at 4.40am and reached the Ashram at exactly 5.25am after waiting behind a long line of vehicles going to the Ashram. After that we had to stand in a serpentine queue to get to the ground. Guru Ahavan took place while we were in queue, and we maybe missed ten minutes of the meditation. It was 5.40am by the time we got our place to sit for meditation. The crescent moon of Lord Shiva was beautiful in the dawn sky with Venus glowing brightly just below it.We were subsequently informed that there were close to 23000 people who attended the event.

Sun rise on Mahashivratri - the divine Sun's rise with Swamiji coming on stage simultaneously

The meditation was intense as there was high energy, one could feel the energy as it coursed through the body sending cold tingling waves up the spine. There was a lot of coughing and movement up and down which is not really conducive for good meditation. But I guess I too was at fault as I did not make it within the 5.30am deadline! Even then one could feel the high energy levels! The meditation ended at 6am.

At 6am Rambhai announced that Anuragji and Ambareeshji will felicitate the Jain monks who participated in the Anushthan. Anuragji felicitated Tarachand Muniji, Prashant Muniji, Samarpan Muniji and Malaisagar Muniji. Ambareeshji then felicitated Ratnakarsagar Muniji, Lokesh Muniji and Lalitesh Muniji. Thereafter Umedbhai Tandel, the President of the organising Committee for the Anushthan felicitated Vasudev Muni (Jungli Maharaj Math, Shirdi). Ramdas Baba (Ahmedabad), Keshav Bhagat (Jamnagar), Prem Hari (Mateshwar Ashram, Surat), Sunil Namdev (Akhil Bhartiya Samarpan Sanstha Trust) and finally Abbasaheb Vashi.

At 6.10am Pujya Guruma arrived to the blowing of conches and took Her seat. As Rambhai announced Her arrival waves of consciousness started flowing with each and every word, I was literally awash with cold divine energy which was accompanied by a beautiful fragrance which appeared unearthly – I actually could not place the fragrance! Pujya Guruma then inaugurated two Samarpan offerings – Atma Prerna (Makarsankranti CD of Pujya Guruma’s discourse) and Life Management (Swamiji’s 6 Anushthan Messages) in the form of a book in four languages – Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and English. Guruma then spoke a few words on the book Life Management and explained briefly why we should keep a copy.

Swamiji's Discourse
At 6.30am His Holiness Swamiji’s arrival was announced to the sound of conches as a feeling of great expectations, love and joy spread through the atmosphere. The atmosphere was very pleasant – not too cold and not too warm before Swamiji arrived. After Swamiji took His seat, Guru Ahavan (invocation to the Guru Energies) was chanted (my crown chakra was throbbing with energy) and then Rambhai requested His Holiness to deliver his nectar filled discourse. By this time waves of cold consciousness had started flowing over the entire ground. We were awash with the energy, as the temperature kept going down and we were enveloped in a nice cocoon of cold, loving, divine energy.
Swamiji: Welcome to all pious souls! Today, on the occasion of the holy festival of Mahashivratri all of us pure and pious souls with pure and pious feelings have gathered together over here. Today is Monday – Monday is a very pure day, it is also the occasion of the festival of Mahashivratri and also the concluding day of the 10th Deep Meditation Practicum – a union of all three is taking place and you are dipping and bathing in that consciousness and divine energy. This Mangal Murti (Auspicious Idol) has a special importance – this Auspicious Idol is the one during which the work for a permanent Guru Shakti Dham has started in Dandi which indicates that we are moving towards stability. Now leave impermanence and move towards stability, receive and absorb. First, if you think you have come by yourself – actually you have not come you have been called; your body goes where it gets some facilities, entertainment – there is no such attraction here, to come here you have come from different villages, states and countries only because you have control over your body. An ordinary person lives under the control of the body and not the soul. Here there is no attraction for the body, means soul has full control over the body and you can take it where it wants. The soul never has desires – this is the main difference. If desire is fulfilled then the body is happy, else not. Desire has connection with the body, feeling (bhaav) has connection with the soul – the soul is not affected by whether feelings have been fulfilled or not. You have reached here means you have control over your body.

The Mahashivratri festival has importance – it brings a pause in your life – introspect, think – today is that day. We keep running, we sleep while thinking and there is no permanence/stability in life. Today is the day to stay with your soul in peace, today just remain with your soul. Forget all your physical feelings, from where you have come, your name, village, religion, country, male/female, colour, language, etc – forget everything. Today look at Shiva, the Guru Energies, not with your physical eyes but with the eyes of your soul – for that you will have to experience that energy with your inner eyes and ears – take Darshan of Aatmeshwar (the Soul-God) within for which you have come for from such great distances. It is necessary to forget your physical feelings for some time, keep your chitta on the special experience, then you will see that the flow of energy is resident within you from which you attain all knowledge. All these are roles from our daily routine – a drama is taking place – Ramu plays the role of King Virbhadra. He performs it very well, all his village folk praise him for his role. But Ramu is different and King Virbhadra is different – they are not the same. But when Ramu dies, people say Ramu’s body is there and pray for his soul’s peace. What remains is his body. So the question is Ramu’s body is not Ramu nor is it the soul – then who is Ramu? The body and the soul make up ‘Ramu’ – so Ramu is a role which he plays. Separate yourself from Ramu and see! You have come to play your role, play your role – I am playing my role, but what is there is impermanent. Ramu’s soul is permanent, Ramu is impermanent. What is permanent is the soul. How much time we give to our soul is the subject of introspection. How much time we give in 24 hours!
The body is important, it is valuable, because you get inner knowledge through the body – you can find your path from that. The body is necessary to reach Paramatma from different paths, religions. You will have the wrong notion that you have reached Paramatma. If you just start climbing step by step then religion will prove useful. Similarly if you use this body for sadhana (spiritual practice) then it will take you up or else it could bring you down. Not doing any karma through the body is very difficult because you do it with the physical feelings. If you think good then you save energy and if you have bad thoughts then you expend energy. With both good and bad karma you have to take re-birth – the karmic cycle never stops, hence it is necessary to have inner knowledge, self-realisation for you to become free from the karmic cycle. The biggest event of life is self-realisation. For self-realisation you need to perform penance, spiritual practise for births together! You attain self-realisation because of the punya (good) karmas of your past births, but if you do not get good proximity, then you do not know that you have got self-realisation in the past birth. Because of the good karmas of your past birth you do not know what you have got. Those souls get self-realisation who have done a lot of penance, spiritual practise, taken efforts and have a great desire – they get it. 

They know because of the amount of penance, spiritual practise, efforts and great desire that they have got self-realisation and then attain that state which is called moksha (liberation). These are all turning points – there is nothing left to attain after self-realisation and nor can you get anything greater (than that). Even then, after this too, you will have to perform your own spiritual practice. It is important to realise this. In my life self-realisation had a different importance. Paramatma is invincible – He was there yesterday, exists today and will exist tomorrow – I knew this from birth. Paramatma is no human, it has no form – it is universal consciousness, it was there yesterday, it is there today and it will be present tomorrow. No (physical) body can be like this. There must be some medium of Paramatma who will be able to take one into a state of void. The body is there, but does realise that if any medium becomes a void, then such a medium can make you experience this universal consciousness, this divine energy; with that feeling I reached that place which was not limited by space, time, religion, border, language. I just wanted water to quench the thirst – the water could come from anywhere – a lake, a river, a stream, a waterfall, the sea, etc. I just had an urge, a thirst of the soul within me and then I got Shiv Baba in my life. Break all those boundaries and then a person like Shiv Baba will come in your life. Even while knowing that he was an ordinary person I accepted him as Paramatma, I selected him as Paramatma and then he became Paramatma for me. The highest feeling, the ultimate feeling is to attain Paramatma, our birth has taken place just for that. We keep searching all over, the search for Paramatma ends with self-realisation. A peace envelops you after the experience of self-realisation. After that the chitta which is running all over looking for Paramatma – all that stops and then it turns inwards, and goes deeper and deeper within. And then I experienced Paramatma within. He is seated within you, it is necessary for you to take your chitta inwards. It is not easy, we need a medium to take us within – a medium who has already done that. 

Then when such a medium comes into our life, it becomes possible. It doesn’t start till such a medium comes into our life. After he comes, then the internal experience starts.
Imagine that you are in a train at Vapi, you will meet people going to Mumbai, as Mumbai has attractions, lots of people, no one comes to Dandi which is a small village. You get attracted by a crowd and go to Mumbai, your efforts are good but your direction is wrong. Stop at Vapi and think about where you have to go. Introspect – who am I? From where have I come? Where am I headed? What is the purpose of my life? – introspect – there is no hurry! It is better not to start the run if you do not know the direction. After deciding the direction you will realise that I wanted to go to Dandi, good I stopped and did not go to Mumbai. Then you will move towards Dandi. So you will also have to meet with public acceptance of this – your relatives, friends, companions will all oppose you. What difference are you making? Everybody thinks that it is their job. You have attained a thoughtless state and are staying in such a state – you have become different from society. All of society, friends, and relatives stay under the control of the body. Their life is under the body’s control – if you have given importance to the soul and to feelings, then you have become different from society, relatives, and friends and you are also doing different. In society people have wrong notions about meditation – they think that meditation means becoming an ascetic, going  to the jungle, sacrificing everything and going into seclusion – this is what people understand. In society this is what meditation means! It is very strange that those who have reached a very high state in meditation, a void, he has become different from society and hence the route to the Himalayas is one way traffic – there is a path to go there but no return path. Whichever Rishi, Monk goes there, he goes so deep that he never returns to society. They destroy all the routes, paths as they do not want to return. When they leave society and attain finality, the state of void, they do not return to society, and hence society thinks that meditation means leaving society, sacrificing society and going into uninhabited places.

In the Himalayas people are in such place of which you cannot even imagine. They reach there because there is no safer place than the Himalayas. An aura of saints already exists there; once you reach there you automatically get that state. But to reach there you need to be in a good state. All monks have secured their sphere of influence with their aura and hence no person can go enter there without their permission. This happened for years – this opposition is there because society has seen this for years. One will have to get out of this perspective, this pure work to change this perspective was done by Shiv Baba by sending a medium into society to give self-realisation. With that noble and pure objective, all saints, ascetics, monks, rishis have given their support so that this medium goes into society to help millions attain self-realisation. Looking at this every ascetic/rishi/saint has helped. Hence all rishis/saints/monks said that your vessel is very large. By vessel they mean your medium, millions of souls are going to get self-realisation through you. Each rishi/monk had the desire but nobody could do it. With their desire not to allow people to come inside their aura it was not possible – hence they supported the medium. After self-realisation I reached permanence, a state of finality, a void state that I have attained Paramatma. The ultimate state – when you realise this, your inner journey will begin. When you start the inner journey, all the relatives, friends will oppose you, so maintain secrecy for some time. When someone puts a stamp on you like creating tattoos on the body – self-realisation is not like that, it is not something to be displayed. If you do not tell anybody, no one will know. When you start displaying and talking, you are telling people who oppose you, people who think you are talking about something which is not there in society – thoughts are attacking them, they cannot stop the thoughts, and you are talking about thoughtlessness to such people! It is like talking about laddoos (an Indian sweet) to a hungry person. If you tell such people then their negative chitta will come on you. Whatever you say, their negative attention will not let you progress. Your soul will get self-realisation, not your body – that soul has got it which did penance, spiritual practice and had the desire for it in the last birth. Why should one exhibit it? Do not display – everything should be natural, normal, you have got Brahmagyan (inner knowledge) – keep it to yourself.

With the help of that experience go deeper and deeper within. When your root chakra becomes pure, then you will become strong, stable. When the sacral chakra becomes pure, then you will remain thoughtless, wherever you are. You will not be affected wherever you are – you will in fact affect the others who are in and around you. When the navel (nabhi) chakra becomes develops then you will get the feeling of distributing to others whatever you have received – when this happens then naturally that effect will be good, you will not have any bad effect. When you have progressed/developed till the nabhi chakra then this feeling comes from within, it comes out from within you naturally, there is no physical role; but when it is not coming naturally when your three chakras are not developed, then its effect falls on you and then you feel bad as you are explaining at the physical level. Do not propagate physically, strengthen your state first before doing any prachar (propagation/promotion). You are propagating physically then the centre (meditation) will not develop. This is the sphere of the soul, you are doing things physically, how much effort I am putting – the expectation creates impurity. Stay thoughtless for half an hour for that Paramatma who has given you 24 hours in a day. You should not sleep if you do not give that half an hour. You are investing half an hour which will come to your aid in your final moments. When you do the inner journey, your soul becomes strong. They are so surprised, today it is 22 years since we started – it has taken 22 years to reach this state. We are present in so many countries – during the Anushthan I knew where all it (Anushthan) was taking place. I have done good work always; that work gives the soul happiness, and the soul kept becoming stronger and stronger and I did all this selflessly.

This is not my sphere – give a diamond to every person – whether the person preserves the diamond or not, my work in either case is done. Self-realisation is that permanent diamond which will stay with you permanently. Whatever knowledge you get, if you don’t practise it will go. If doctors do not practice their skill goes – all this is impermanent knowledge, typing, etc any study is physical. Inner knowledge is permanent, not only it will be useful in this birth but also in the next. Self-realisation is your mother, it will never leave you. It does not matter whether you practice or not, it will be with you. If you practice then the soul will become strong – do it selflessly by being a soul, then that expectation, greed will not be there – expectation, greed, etc are physical. The soul is beyond all this. When you do work with inner spiritual practice then you get a thoughtless state, and after you get a thoughtless state your energy which gets destroyed by thoughts of the past and the future stops getting destroyed, it gets accumulated and gets spent in the work you do. As you practice spirituality you will come into your natural state. You become like a kid, kids do not lie (bacche mann ke sacche) – children have pure minds as they have primacy of soul and the nature of the soul is to naturally speak the truth. But as they grow up, they see their parents and neighbours lying, and they also see the immediate benefit of lying – they see that and its effect also falls on the kids. And then they too start lying. The root state of the soul is to be truthful. As you start inner spiritual practice (atma sadhana), the root nature gets developed. Non-violent drivers say that  they brake automatically when someone comes in front of the car. Train drivers say that ‘I tried to save the person on the track’ when a person dies under the train. An inner battle takes place – the body is not violent nor should your speech be violent. As you go deeper into the influence of the soul, the quality of the soul develops, - patience is one, capacity to be patient – there is no effect on your peace of mind. This is necessary in today’s world. Levels of tolerance have reduced because the inner feeling has reduced. Nobody has the patience to listen to anything. As intellect is developing more and more the feelings are also going down to that extent. The effect of lack of patience affects the pregnant ladies at the time of delivery. They do not have the patience to go through the labour pains and they cannot bear the pain and as a consequence they ask the doctors to operate. One cannot get this level of patience/tolerance suddenly. The doctors say that we are ready to wait, the patient is not! This cannot come to you instantly. It is necessary to perform inner spiritual practice, the more you do it the physical feelings reduce to that extent. Your knees are paining but you do not realise it because you are under the influence of the soul. All problems in society exist because of the primacy/importance given to the feelings of the physical body. If you perform inner spiritual practice your level of patience/tolerance will grow. Your capacity to receive will increase with inner spiritual practice as there is far more capacity in the soul to receive than the body. The greater your capacity to receive the more you will start receiving all good points. Your nature will become like that of a bee, which goes on gathering honey – you will gather only good points. This receiving can only develop your soul. This will not happen in a day, in a moment.

The karmic cycle too is a big cycle. This question was asked a lot. What is going to or not going to happen in our lives is pre-decided – then why meditate, what benefit is there? There are two types of karma: 1) Those which you have done in this life – without enduring those bad karmas you cannot get self-realisation. 2) the second is on re-birth – the accumulated karmas of the past birth have to be faced in your life-time, but if you get a Guru’s proximity you get a collectivity , I too have faced mine, but I did not realise when they got extinguished, I stayed in the Guru’s proximity with whom the collectivity of millions of souls was connected. Each is to be experienced. Today take the Darshan of that Atmeshwar whose birth has taken place to give inner knowledge to millions of souls. Look at that souls which is present with the collectivity of millions of souls. What is the reason for millions of souls to connect, to experience that medium and get self-realisation – that is nothing but the Guru’s Grace and Guru’s Compassion. Don’t look at the soul, experience the soul – the physical eyes are not capable of looking at that, to see you need to open the inner eye, open the 3rd eye. Once you get the Darshan, you will see that there is no Guru, no disciple, everything is one, not me, not you – let us experience that state which is neither me nor you – just that state of void.

It is very difficult to get out of the karmic cycle of the body. This birth-death cycle will continue. One way to do is to get in this state during this Mahashivratri where there is nothing left – accept and seek forgiveness, forgive yourself too, ask Shiv Baba for forgiveness, forgive everyone and attain that void and have full faith in Paramatma who is an ocean of forgiveness. Ask whatever you want, you will get it – do not have any doubt. Do with full faith – he will forgive you everything. Reach a state which is free from karma, there is nothing left to achieve. Today the debit and credit will be in balance. Today everything is nullified. Do not do any good/bad karmas – do everything in Guru’s name and you won’t do bad karma and good karma will not accumulate. If you say, ‘I do – I did’ then it is karma. It happens with the infinite grace of Paramatma. You meditate in your fields; you will see Paramatma appearing from within you. The positive energy which flows from you, do it in your fields – the produce will be productive. This is the Farmer’s Year – we are holding an exhibition. The Guru Energies have given inspiration to meditate so that a protective shield is created so that no one commits suicide. Meditate in your fields for its development. This 10th Deep Meditation Practicum there is no record of all the millions of people – I am thankful to all from the bottom of my heart. Heartfelt thanks to all those who supported directly or indirectly in making this Anushthan successful! Heartfelt thanks to Guruma – she daily entered a place where eyes do not remain open – she comes for 2 hours and helps. Everything I could need is kept in different places in glass containers containing food, so that I could nourish myself. Going up is very easy, coming down is very difficult. One day I had gone very high, so high that I could not come down. That day I came down suddenly, and that day there was a thunderstorm with heavy rain.

We will now meditate and bring a permanence which will bring permanence, the divine energy which I have accumulated during this 45 days Deep Meditation Practicum I wish to distribute to all sadhaks. Those who are standing please sit down.
The meditation then commenced under Swamiji’s guidance by chanting, I am a pure soul, I am a pious soul’ (मै एक पवित्र आत्मा हूँ, मै एक शुद्ध आत्मा हूँ) thrice. As we went into meditation I clearly say the third eye – the eye of Shiva and within the eyeball I could see infinite space with a tinge of saffron and a huge bird circling in the sky (Garuda?!) – going higher and higher till it disappeared and then all that could be seen was the vast expanse of infinite space. My whole body was tingling with waves of cold energy. Meditation got over and Swamiji started speaking and I came out of that zone with great difficulty with the thought that I had to note down Swamiji’s words for this blog!
After I came out of that trance this is what Swamiji was saying: The manner in which a mother makes food – when she prepares food with love such a mother feels very happy when the children eat the food. My state is like that of a mother, I am happy that you all have received. Namaskar!!

After that Ramkaka announced that Swamiji would give Darshan from close as He moved in his chariot pulled by devout sadhaks. Ramkaka then requested sadhaks not to take photographs and videos of Swamiji. He told the sadhaks to be patient and remain seated and not to move around. I had shut my notebook and my eyes as I tried to focus on the subtle rather than the physical. As Swamiji’s chariot came towards us I kept up my chant silently and bowed in obeisance as the chariot passed us. As we were sitting in the central section we were thrice blessed in getting Swamiji’s Darshan. At around 9am Swamiji’s rounds were completed Rambhai then announced that first Guruma and then Swamiji would leave the ground. 


Swamiji showering energy as He gave darshan to His devotees

After they left the namaskar vidhi commenced to the singing of devotional songs. Khamankarji and I paid our obeisance and then went to freshen ourselves after which we went and stood in the line for bhojan prasad. By 10.30am we finished our lunch and I started looking for my fellow passengers. I found Revathiji, Mallikaji and Peeyush near the registration counter. In the meanwhile Khamankarji, Kamathji, Mehtaji left in Khamankarji’s car. I told them that we will catch up at Parsi Dairy Farm at Talasari. They left at 10.45. This time Deepali was missing – at around 11.15 I went looking for her and found her at the donation counter doing Guru-karya. I told her that we were leaving and she then took permission to leave and came with her bag. We left for the car and when Revathi, Deepali and I reached the car we noticed that both Peeyush and Mallika who were just behind us had disappeared. I was a bit upset as now it had crossed 11.30 so I went back looking for them. I found them just leaving the registration counter and asked them where they disappeared. They said they went to buy some herbal products. I said ok, let’s go. By the time we left it was 11.45 and on the way out we were requested to drop a sadhak at Eru circle. There was heavy traffic on the way out and a big traffic jam at Eru Circle as barriers had been put up for security reasons. We managed to go past the barriers rather quickly, then dropped our sadhak companion at the circle and left for Mumbai. We passed Khamankarji’s car somewhere near Vapi and reached the Parsi Dairy at around 1.15pm. Khamankarji and group came in about ten minutes later. We all chatted, relaxed drank lassi and then left for Mumbai. The trip back was rather uneventful – listening to Osho for some time and chatting for some time. I dropped off Deepali at Borivali around 2.45pm, then Revathi, Peeyush and Mallikaji at Andheri at 3.30pm and reached home at exactly 4pm.

All in all this was probably one of the most divine Mahashivratri festivals with the inner experiences received in His Infinite Divine Grace being the icing on the cake.

As Swamiji’s discourse was being transcribed live – I may have missed something and it may not be wholly accurate – but the essence is definitely there.  I apologize from the bottom of my heart for any inaccuracies which may have crept in.

JAI BABA SWAMI to all!!