Mental Poise and Courage

 

Photo credit: His Holiness Sudhanshuji Maharaj

Mental Poise and Courage

Many times, in life we are faced with situations which require tremendous mental strength and courage. Sometimes we find the strength and courage and sometimes we don’t, and when we don’t, we face a lot of trauma and loss – it could be emotional, material or financial or a combination of all the three. In school and college, we either face bullies or get cowed down and bullied for the rest of our term in school and college. One way to face these bullies is to become personally strong and learn to fight. But always remember, if you take the violent path, there will always be a stronger person who comes along to knock down your pride sooner or later.

If you do become a good fighter, then your ego will make you strut around wherever you go, you will want to put your fighting skills on display, show off even. The best way is to learn these skills for defence, like Bruce Lee once did – your aura itself should put people off from taking you on.

The best way to defend yourself is with your own mental poise and courage. Why will anyone want to beat you up? Think about it, anybody wanting to harm you may be only because you had said something or done something to such person or his family sometime in the past, isn’t it! If you can recollect any such incident, the better way is to swallow your ego and apologise to that person. Say sorry, make him your friend instead.

If you are really innocent, then you will easily be able to send out a beautiful innocent vibration. He may then come near you but forget to attack you! I remember an incident when I had just started with meditation. I was driving down to the mediation centre from my office in the evening amidst heavy traffic. When I was approaching a bridge from the extreme left (close to the footpath), a motorbike squeezed through at great speed and suddenly braked right in front of me. I must have been doing 15-20 kmph and I too braked hard, and my car’s fender just touched the rear of his bike. Nothing happened, other than that the biker who was a Muslim got off his bike and started banging on the driver’s window.

I lowered the window and asked him what’s wrong – and he started abusing me, raised his fist to hit me. I was totally calm and relaxed, as if Swamiji was talking and not the usual me (who was very short tempered), I told him such small incidents keep happening, and it was you who came from the left in front of me and braked suddenly, if you feel hitting me will make you feel good, please do so. Maybe the calmness of my voice and my demeanour put him off, and he suddenly turned and left without a word.

So, the best defence is to keep a clean and serene mind; smile at him. If he still wants to come and hit you, you should have the courage to say, “Yes, if you like to do it and if you think that you are going to enjoy it, do it. I am ready to make you happy. Is that what you want? Do it.” He will never touch you then.

Yoga and Mindfulness

 

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Yoga and Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be defined as the ability to be completely aware of everything around and within us. It is that quality which lets us know who we are, what we do and what is around us, while not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by everything. In simple terms – it is being completely conscious.

All of us have this ability and use it and exhibit it unconsciously in our day-to-day life. We need to nurture this and cultivate it as a conscious habit. There are many ways by which one can do this and many spiritual and yoga Masters teach this – prayer, pranayama, bandhas, mudras, asanas such as shavasana, and meditation.

The act of simply being aware of one’s thoughts and feelings is mindfulness, rather than spontaneously acting on them. It is not possible to learn this in a few days, it requires regular practice of certain yoga-asanas which helps in increasing one’s awareness. Certain asanas require the practitioner to focus, keep their attention on their breath and relax into the posture. This naturally brings one’s awareness to the body, mind and breath, thus making one mindful.

The practice of yoga helps one become focused and single-pointed. The modern world requires multi-tasking and segregated focus where one’s attention is focused for barely a few moments, in this scenario mindfulness brings peace and balance into our busy and chaotic lives.

Pranayama, breathing techniques, such as Nadi Shuddhi, Kapalabhati and Bhrastika involve bringing control over breathing in and out. Regulating one’s breathing helps calm the mind and channelise the flow of prana (life-force energy).

Being introversive and practising internal mindfulness constantly is a form of meditation which one can do on an ongoing basis. There are several yoga-asanas such as Padmasana, Vajrasana, Siddhasana, Sukhasana which are very conducive for the mind to go inwards, as they help in keeping the spine erect and direct the life-force energy in the upper part of the body. Internally it improves our perception, focus and emotive understanding, it improves our consciousness to such an extent that it helps us in noticing and discarding habits which are not good for our mind and body.

Mindfulness helps us focus on the present moment, thereby refining the constitution of both our body and mind. Regular practice makes it easier to train the mind to achieve the level of consistency required to achieve this level of consciousness, though initially it appears to be difficult. But with time and regular practise it becomes easier.

Let us end with a quote by Sri M – “If you can be mindful of your thoughts, of your actions, of your meditation, of your breath and so on, that is called total mindfulness.”

Religion – an Inner Science

 

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Religion – an Inner Science

India is a multi-religion cauldron with all the world’s major religions having found a home here. There are countless stories of how people of different faiths who were being persecuted and exterminated in their own countries found shelter in India and then later flourished and found a home here like the Jews and Parsis to name two.

The Sanatana Dharma for the Hindus of India denotes the ‘eternal’ truth and teachings of Hinduism. It can also be translated as the natural and eternal way to live. The Sanatana Dharma is based on science which the ancients of India studied and which was then practised through knowledge imparted by sages to their students.

But we are not here to talk about the Sanatana Dharma but the true religion of human beings. Like science, there can be only one true religion. We do have Christian physics, Islamic physics, Jewish physics, Hindu physics and so on – it is just physics, else it would be nonsense. But that’s exactly what the religious leaders have done to their religions – they have made the world a madhouse – the greatest number of people killed and their human rights violated have been in the name of religion!

Our true religion is our inner religion which is based on the science of consciousness. This is still an evolving ‘science’ and only those Enlightened Masters or Satgurus know its true value as they are the ones who have experienced it. These Masters, today, are sharing their knowledge with their followers and helping them turn inwards and learn about their true religion. That religion is nothing but humanity which is aroused on self-realisation and experiencing one’s inner consciousness.

Albert Einstein who was arguably the world’s greatest scientist spoke about the unknowable, that which will never be known. Nothing can be done about it because the ultimate mystery cannot be reduced to knowledge. We are a part of existence – how can we know existence’s ultimate mystery?

We live, we breathe, we exist with existence – we cannot separate ourselves from it. The moment we are separated, we are dead. And without being separate, just being a witness with no involvement, no attachment, we cannot know the ultimate mystery. Even after reaching advanced states of meditation, there is always something which is still unknown, the journey into the infinite continues, you can feel it, maybe even experience it – but you cannot know it, definitely not like knowledge! 

When the mind knows, we call it knowledge; when the heart knows, we call it love; and when the being knows, we call it meditation. But all three speak different languages which are not translatable into each other. And the deeper you go, that much more difficult it is to translate; because at the very centre of your being is silence, nothing but profound silence. How does one translate silence into sound? Because the moment you do so, you destroy the silence!

State of Inner Freedom

 

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State of Inner Freedom

About ten years ago a friend of mine told me that he was being implicated by his bosses in a case of corporate mis-governance. He was just and employee and his bosses were owner-directors in that company. He was stressed to such an extent during the summons by the investigative authorities when he told me that even if he goes to jail, it’s alright, maybe the Guru-energies are sending me there to do propagation work in jail. The moment he got that thought, his mind became stress-free and he relaxed and thereafter the questioning and grilling sessions just sailed through.

Whatever situations one comes across in life are due to one’s own acts and as we all know actions have consequences – how we face the consequences and move on impacts our life.

To attain that state of inner freedom we have to move from the state of body consciousness to soul consciousness. Once that state is reached, you could be free anywhere – chained, in a jail, you can be free and you may not have that same freedom even in your own home – externally you will appear to be absolutely free, but inside you will be a prisoner if your consciousness is not free.

Swamiji tells us that even after so many years we have not reached a karma-free state, some sadhaks have reached that state and He keeps encouraging us in many different ways to meditate, exude love, stay in a good, positive collectivity and progress, always progress.

Meditation should be your passion, something you look forward to every morning regularly, without fail – you should get the sense that even if you miss a single session, you feel that you have lost big time, it is then that you are likely to progress inwards successfully. That inner freedom is to become pure, innocent and blissful in that consciousness – that is the ultimate experience of life. There is nothing higher than that.

Out of this free state many flowers begin to blossom in you. Love, selfless love, is the flowering of your freedom. Compassion is another flower that blooms within. Kindness and caring towards one and all - a different flower. If you observe in nature – flowers are delicate and beautiful – they give off a fragrance to one and all. All that is valuable in life blooms in the innocent, natural state of being.

That is why it is extremely important to lose all baggage and become as innocent as a child. Once you manage to become like a child you will have reached that state of inner freedom which is nothing but utter silence, serenity, beauty and bliss!

Not the Body, Not the Mind

 

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Not the Body, Not the Mind

I am sure that we have heard in several discourses by Masters that we are neither the body, nor the mind, we are just the soul, the pure witness. But when we try to think of such profound statements at our level all we see is a physical body in a mirror which is identified by the mind as ‘my body’ through the visual medium of the physical eyes.

When one says, “I am not the body,” it is the mind saying so; again, when one says, “I am not the mind,” it is still the mind expressing it! The first layer in this complex creation of the human body is the physical body. One gets identified with the physical body – the body has certain looks, a religion gets attached to it and it has a name too - but all these are temporal, momentary.

The body is in a state of continuous flux, like a flowing river – continuously changing, moving. It has nothing in it that is eternal. Every moment the body is changing – in fact cells are dying every moment and new cells are being born. The moment the cell death rate is more than the cell birth rate we are moving towards the end of the physical body. We are actually moving towards physical death – death in fact is a long process, it is not an event which just happens! If you identify yourself with the physical body, then fear of death is a natural corollary – that fear will always exist. But then one cannot live life fully in fear, can one?

The second layer is the mind which is more temporal and fleeting than the body. The mind too is continuously disintegrating. The mind is the inner part of the body and the body is the outer part of the mind. These are not two things. ‘Mind and body’ is not a correct expression, the right expression would be mind-body. The body is the gross mind and the mind is the subtle body – two sides of the same coin – one outer, the other inner.

Real life is beyond both body and mind. You are both in the body and the mind, but you are neither. The body is your outer shell, the mind is your inner shell, but you are beyond both. Once you get this insight, real life begins – that is what meditation is all about.

Start witnessing – sometimes the body is healthy, sometimes it is not – just watch and one day you will suddenly get the feeling that you are not the body. The body is ill, it is pain, but you do not feel the illness or the pain. You become the watcher, bound to the body but identified with the body, not rooted in the body, but always going beyond, transcending!

Both the body and mind remain, but far away when you become a witness. Suddenly you are there – no body, no mind…. Just a pure consciousness, sheer purity, innocence, a mirror. Now, for the first time you know who you are, earlier you were fast asleep dreaming – now you are. And when you are, there is no death – because you realise that you will be witnessing your own death also.

Ref: Osho Talks

Sannyasa in Modern Times

 

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Sannyasa in Modern Times

We, in India, are all aware of the meaning of Sannyasa which is the final life stage renunciation in Hindu philosophy, the other three stages being Brahmacharya (bachelor student), Grihastha (householder) and Vanaprastha (forest dweller, retired). Sannyasa is a form of ascetism which is marked by renunciation of material desires and prejudices, represented by a state of disinterest and detachment from material life and has the purpose of spending one’s life in peaceful, love-inspired, simple spiritual life.

When we talk of becoming a Sannyasi or ascetic in modern times we do not mean a person who renounces everything and goes into the forest or to the Himalayas. The question is can one become a sannyasi and still live in society following all the rules of the society in which one lives? Swamiji has given his own example and said that one can be a householder, have a family and at the same time attain to spiritual heights and attain a state of moksha or liberation.

The traditional behavioural characteristics of a sannyasi apart from renunciation include non-violence, non-anger even if under abuse, disarmament (no weapons), chastity, bachelorhood (no marriage), poverty, self-restraint, truthfulness and honesty, kindness to all creatures, non-stealing, non-acceptance of gifts, non-possessiveness and purity of speech and mind. These behavioural traits were made sacrosanct by asking the sannyasi to take vows before entering the monastic order.

Today, even though there are several ashrams spread all over the country and the traditional form of ascetism is practised in those ashrams, there are several spiritual Masters who explain that one does not have to become an ascetic to become spiritual or to attain a state of moksha. So, in this context, I feel a sannyasi in modern times could be a householder living a normal life who does his own spiritual practise through yoga and meditation under the guidance of his/her spiritual Master.

Such a person lives a simple life based on his/her stature in society – the trick here I feel, is that having taken this path one has to live as an honest member of society, witnessing life as it happens, meditating and living in the moment, enjoying every moment of life, spreading love and harmony while following the rules of society.

One need not get attached to anything or anyone, live and let live in complete freedom, do not consciously or unconsciously hurt anyone or anything, live free from karma by surrendering all your good deeds to the Guru-energies and by making your own aura so powerful that no bad deeds happen through you. Then in my view you are a sannyasi in modern times who is on the way to liberation.

Know Your Own Path

 

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Know Your Own Path

In spirituality there are two ways by which you can reach the ultimate truth – the path of Truth and the path of Love. In the end both these paths converge – duality ends and thereafter there is only merging with universal consciousness.

We have been coming and going, assuming different bodies over several births, in some we have experienced poverty, in some wealth, in some an average life and so on, but in every birth, we have experienced hardship as well as good times. We have also been led onto the spiritual path, we have done penance and spiritual practise – all of us have a bank locker filled with these past life experiences. These are hidden deep below in our subconscious mind and in this birth, we have accumulated impressions – both good and bad of this birth itself – so what is hidden in the bank locker stays hidden.

You can find the key to this locker by following the path of truth, viz. attaining the state of a sakshi or witness through regular meditation under the guidance of a spiritual Master or Satguru. This path requires tremendous self-discipline and a level of awareness which transcends the normal – that is why it is considered difficult. But like Swamiji says that if you treat meditation as a hobby, something you love for its own sake, like watching football or tennis, then it does not become something ‘to do’. Because the moment it becomes a ‘to do’, your ego comes into play, the moment your ego comes into play you lose your way.

Meditation – if it becomes an activity in your calendar, then there is no way you will progress on the path – the mind will play tricks and you will continue to live in an illusory world and just end up fooling yourself. But if in your heart you feel this is your path, then that is the way to go.

Swamiji has mentioned ‘Love’ to be the easier path to liberation. If in your heart of hearts, you feel that this is so, then follow this path. Fill yourself with so much love that only love energy flows from whatever you do. All your words and actions will be filled with love for all beings – sentient and non-sentient – and that selfless love will ultimately ensure that you hear the music of your soul.

Remember - nothing is easy, it is how we behave and act and condition ourselves that will let us know whether we will reach our goal in this birth or not. Swamiji is there to take us across – from this shore to the other. He is only a bridge – His one hand is holding our hand on this shore and the other hand is held by Paramatma on the other side. It is up to us to ensure that we choose our own path and use the connection provided by Swamiji to reach the other shore.

Attachment and Detachment

 

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Attachment and Detachment

Attachment is defined as the ‘inability to practice or embrace detachment’ – in spirituality this is viewed as the main obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life. Detachment or non-attachment, is a state in which a person overcomes their attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective. Detachment is considered a virtue and is promoted widely in the East.

According to the Bhagwad Gita (5.10) – “One who performs his duty without attachment, surrendering the results unto the Supreme Lord, is unaffected by sinful action, as the lotus is untouched by muddy water.” This actually means living life free from encumbrances and the attractions and distractions that life has to offer, not passively by running away from them, but actively by developing equanimity and self-awareness.

Attachment means holding on to things dearly as if you cannot live without them or as if your very happiness and existence depend upon them. These are the mental bonds you develop with things and objects you believe are important for you and your happiness. They are the invisible strings that tie you to the external world and its myriad attractions through your sense organs. Your attachments are part of your consciousness. They bind you to the sensory world and limit your vision, knowledge and awareness. They determine your actions, reactions and inactions, your joys and sorrows and your successes and failures. When you attached to things, they take control of your life, your body, mind and senses and define your life, personality and destiny. They also limit your freedom and awareness.

Contact with sense objects results in attachment. From attachment arises desires and from desires come anger. Anger leads to delusion. Delusion causes confusion of memories, and it ultimately leads to loss of discrimination. When we do not have right discrimination, we lose the ability to choose wisely, which results in the consequences of karma that bind us to this world and to the cycle of births and deaths. Influenced by our attachments and desires, we come under the influence of our sense organs and distract ourselves from the real purpose of life by seeking and accumulating things. We live and act as if our lives depend upon fulfilling our desires and building defences against pain and suffering. We desperately strive to secure our lives against the vagaries of life through our possessions and relationships. This thinking and attitude become so ingrained in our consciousness that we begin to accumulate things even when we do not actually need them, a situation most religions recognise as a serious problem responsible for our suffering and our bondage to the cycle of births and deaths. 

Meditation helps us develop the perspective of what I call detached attachment. In this way we remain internally disconnected while showing our friends and relatives that we care and are a part of their lives.

A Satguru is Your Doorway

 

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A Satguru is Your Doorway

Swamiji has spoken about the ‘dasham dwara’ (tenth doorway) also known as the ‘Gurudwara’ (a Gurudwara is the Sikh place of worship) – as Swamiji has explained the region just below the Sahastrara or crown chakra is the Gurudwara or the entrance or doorway to liberation. For uninitiated individuals it is impossible to open the tenth doorway in a single birth and required rigorous spiritual practice over several births to attain that state. But if one is initiated as a disciple of a Satguru then the Satguru helps in showing the path to opening of this doorway.

A Satguru is only an instrument, a means, a doorway to the beyond. Why is this called a doorway? What do you think a doorway is? It could have been called anything – but a doorway even in the physical sense is nothing but empty space – you open the door and you go from this side to the other literally through empty space, isn’t it! Hence, when a doorway opens and you see what is beyond, the doorway becomes important to you because it is through the frame of the doorway that you see. The Satguru is only important because of what is beyond him. The door is important because it gives you access to the beyond. If you are locked in a room, then the door is the possibility to the beyond.

Swamiji keeps telling us not to look at his physical body, not to be attracted to his physical body, his radiance, his presence, but to look beyond, look at what he really is; and if through your spiritual practice you do ‘see’, then what you see is literally ‘nothing’ – you see a void and a golden-pink light around that void. Swamiji has attained that state of nothingness and therefore it would be best to look beyond Swamiji’s physical body and get a taste of what is beyond that. Once you do that, it is possible that your own doorway to the beyond will open.

No Satguru gives you self-realisation, but only instils the seed into you, it is your own spiritual practice that germinates the seed and gives you self-realisation. The Satguru removes all the obstacles to it. The Self is always realised, though our physical body lives in ignorance of it.

A Satguru only takes you to the doorway of self-realisation – your human ‘freewill’ demands that you take the final step alone. This is the most critical part of the journey. This is the time when the ego tries every way it knows to distract you from the path.

Whether one chooses to follow a Satguru or ‘go alone’, eventually all have to return home to the Source. Ultimately, you have to reach the Guru within you, viz. the soul, and all Satgurus do nothing but hold the mirror to try and show you who you really are. 

The Light we see in these Divine Beings is a reflection of our own Light. You cannot surrender or bow to any external Satguru, without first bowing to your own Self. The pause in the journey happens after we rediscover the Enlightened Guru that is none other than one’s own Self. There after the unending journey continues in its blissful glory.

A Satguru Shows You Your Self

 

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A Satguru Shows You Your Self

We are all aware that the relationship between a Guru and his disciple is a spiritual one. It is a quest for one’s own identity, the ultimate quest of self-discovery. One knowingly or unknowingly seeks out a Spiritual Master, a Satguru, but rest assured it is not you who has found the Master, it is always the Master who finds you. When the time is right you will be led right up to him or her.

One invariably starts seeking a Guru when one is in a dark space filled with stress and problems, when one has achieved everything in life but there is still discontent, when one feels the urge to find out who we really are and why we have taken birth. All these and many more questions for which we have no answers, make us set out to find a Master who can give us the answers and show us the path to inner peace.

We all need help to be able to see ourselves for who we really are. That is the job of the Satguru – he sees you as you really are – actually sees deep inside you and knows all your personal foibles from this birth as well as from the past births, of which you are completely unaware. He sees you for what you are – a holy soul, a part of universal consciousness that has got disconnected from the whole, he perceives this truth through the medium of infinite love, which he represents.

Each and every disciple loves his/her Guru, the Guru may admonish you but still those are his words of blessings and each and every disciple who has surrendered completely to the Guru accepts those words as blessings. The Guru plants the seed of self-realisation and gives a glimpse to each disciple of who they really are during collective meditation sessions. The disciple is awakened and his curiosity is aroused enough for him/her to start their own spiritual practice.

This self-realisation facilitated by the Satguru, who serves as a mirror for the disciple, reflecting the disciple’s outward as well as innermost desires, thus revealing to the disciple who they really are.

The Satguru reminds the disciples of God and his infinite love for every soul, in a way the Satguru shows the disciples that God exists within each one of them, that they are a part of the universe and the universe is a part of them – he gives them a glimpse of who they really are. This happens because the Satguru shows you the mirror, shows you your own reflection and makes you realise who you really are!

When one meets one’s Satguru, one’s approach should be open minded with a sense of humility, respect, appreciation and a sense of adventure, the Satguru can become a doorway, a magic mirror through which the disciple can walk into the realm of infinite possibilities. Ultimately you become your own Guru. 

Asking For Liberation

 

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Asking For Liberation

Swamiji is said to be the ‘Bestower of Liberation’ (Moksha-daata) of the present time. He has also said that just pray for liberation and He will hold your hand till the end. Swamiji has instilled the seed of awakening within us (his disciples) – and he has shown us the path to liberation. He has done his part – now it is up to us for doing our part. Asking or praying for liberation is not going to grant us liberation, because it is not that simple and, in a way, it is simpler than that.

Asking or praying for liberation is a non-starter because nobody can grant you liberation, it is your own spiritual practice that gives you this state. Actually, each one of us is liberated on taking birth itself, it is only that we live in ignorance of our true state, and hence we end up in the karmic cycle till we find our spiritual Master or Satguru who reminds us of our true nature and shows us the way to get out of the cycle. After He shows us the way and we start following the path, we find ourselves going within and thus renew our connection with the ‘self’.

We need to drop all our complexities, drop all our unnecessary mind games – we need to become silent and still and we will find it at the core of our being; it is there but it is still a very small voice. The noise created by our mind is cacophonic that we cannot hear it clearly – the mind has become a market place – there is so much noise that we have lost all contact with ourself; and that is why we are disconnected from God.

The inward journey, with continuous practise over time, makes us more and more relaxed, the silence starts enveloping our being and then we hear those beautiful chimes ringing within. We begin to hear that tiny voice, the voice of our soul – we have never lost it ever, not even for a single moment. It cannot be lost.

That is why all great seers of the world have insisted that Godliness is our nature. We need to become one with it – get out of the duality and see our own self for who we really are. Once we do that, we realise that we are one with existence, utterly one! Then we are nothing but a pulsation of existence itself, just a ripple in the lake of this vast, infinite consciousness.

Just because we were searching and searching, in this frantic external search we never looked within. We never looked at the treasure that we already had within us as we became too obsessed with the external world. We forgot the language of the inner, we completely forgot that there is an interior in us and that God lies within us only – we are ONE with God, one with Universal Consciousness.

Don’t ask for liberation, you are already free, just realise that you are free by going deep within and merging with your true nature – once you discover this, the bliss and joy you feel is nothing that you have ever felt before – you will become light, you will feel as if you are floating. Let us all embrace our true nature by accepting who we truly are.

God is Looking for You

 

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God is Looking for You

All of us keep looking for God outside, this search has been going on for thousands of years and it still continues. Similarly, God too is looking for you but he is looking within you. That is the difference. The day you turn inwards and start your search within, the day is not far when you will find God!

God is definitely not a person or a physical entity that we ‘find’ or ‘meet’ – God is more like a quality of godliness in existence. God is present more in the form of love, silence, joy, bliss – it is the presence of a god-like feeling that develops within you once you start delving deep inside yourself to ‘find’ God. God resides deep within you and it is your Master or Satguru who shows you the path to reach that core within yourself. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is actually your own presence. It is not meeting someone else, but uniting with your own self, after which the duality ends and we end up seeing ourselves for what we are – a part of the cosmos, a part of universal consciousness.

We offer prayers to God and when we do this there are two participants – ‘I’ who is praying and ‘thou’ that is God. Prayers are nothing but demands, an asking for something which you desire – because if you are not asking then what are you praying for?

So when I say God is looking for you, what I mean is that universal consciousness is itself waiting for you at the core within you so that once you turn introversive and look within, you will unite with ‘God’ that is your own ‘self’. After that there is nothing to look for, then life itself happens and you just witness life as it happens, you are no longer a participant in it. Whatever is now happening is happening as per His wish and you just watch it – there is nothing that is good or bad anymore, everything just ‘is’ – that is your acceptance of existence in its pure form.

At this point you stop going to temples, churches, synagogues, mosques and doing all kinds of things which you particular method of worship demands to satisfy ‘God’! And you have been doing this because thousands of people are doing this and you find comfort in numbers – if so many people are doing this, how can it be wrong?

But finding God cannot happen in a crowd, it happens only through meditation, on turning within under the guidance of a Master. Meditation is the experience of aloneness. Very few, courageous people enter this dimension – because truth is such a pinnacle, like Everest. Once you reach the peak there is nothing more to attain, just going deeper into more subtle realms as more dimensions keep opening in your inner journey.

Busy Lives and God

 

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Busy Lives and God

Modern day life keeps everyone so busy that it appears that we rarely find time for God. We are studying, working, playing, and in our spare time either on social media or on visual media – finding time for God does not even cross our minds!

I remember a story which Swamiji had narrated during one of his discourses – he had seen a lady sweeping the floor of her house while chanting something. Out of curiosity Swamiji asked her what she was saying and she laughed and said that I am chanting, “I am sweeping my house, I am sweeping my house”. According to her by doing this she was focusing her entire energy on the job at hand. This is a prime example of living in the moment, living in joy while doing even a mundane chore.

If we treat whatever we are doing the moment as an offering to God as a form of worship, then howsoever busy we are it really does not matter. When we are cooking food for the family if we concentrate just on the cooking while praying to God to bless the food, then what we consume is actually blessed food.

Similarly at work, however nasty or demanding the job or our boss, if we just stay in the moment and perform our duties to the best of our ability then too it is like an offering to God. If the boss gets upset, just listen to what he has to say and move on – offer an apology and say that you will do better next time. Confrontation always leads to stress – so stay focused, stay balanced and ensure that the next time the boss does not have cause for complaint.

We have not come to earth to sit and talk about God or His glory, we have come to do some work, to serve humanity, to take care of everything and everybody. In a way we are all God’s baby-sitters as each being is God’s child. Everything on earth is God’s creation – trees, rivers, oceans, animals, insects – everything and everybody. So, even our pets or street urchins or street dogs are God’s creation, all we have to do is treat them with compassion as and when we come across them, however busy we are. Just a moment of love and care – carry biscuits with you and just hand them out to the needy, they will be forever grateful.

What I mean to say is however busy we may be, we are God’s children, God resides within each one of us, so all we need to do is respect nature and behave with love and compassion to all entities on earth – that is the food for our soul, the more we nurture it, the deeper we go and connect with the God within.

Complete Freedom is Full of Love

 

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Complete Freedom is Full of Love

Osho had once said that freedom has two sides – from and for. Most of us look at freedom from only one angle – ‘freedom from’ – this could be from nationality, from a certain religious place of worship (church, temple, synagogue, mosque), from a certain race, or from a particular political ideology. This is the first part of freedom – from something – once you have attained this freedom, you will feel very good, very happy and light as if you have removed an inner burden. For the first time you start rejoicing in your own individuality because all this time your individuality was covered with all those things which you have got rid of.

This is just half the issue, then you will start feeling sad as the other half is now missing – the freedom ‘from’ is fulfilled but what about freedom ‘for’? Freedom by itself is meaningless unless it is freedom for something that could be creative like freedom to paint, sculpt, dance and so on. Unless your freedom turns into a creative realisation, you will feel sad because you will notice that you are free, the chains are broken, you are no longer in a mental prison, you are completely free under the starry night, but the question is where to go?

Just freedom in itself has no meaning unless you become creative. You could go deeper into meditation for self-realisation, or you could become creative and discover skills which were hidden under the mental fetters – you could dance, write poems, create music, then the circle is complete.

Now you are completely free, something beautiful has happened, you are filled with love, selfless love! To express this love creatively you go on to discover hitherto hidden skills that express your freedom through creativity; else the freedom is empty. Once you are completely free you will notice that you are now filled completely with a feeling of love which is so fulfilling that it keeps oozing out of your being.

This feeling of love, this energy is felt by nature – by cats, dogs, butterflies, etc as they come close to you to feel the warmth and comfort of that energy. If this energy affects other beings in this manner, imagine the impact on fellow human beings – they too will feel the warmth, the glow of this energy around you.

The aura or love energy around you will make you radiant and light up like a lamp, your friends and not so good friends will be attracted towards you and they won’t know why – this is complete freedom, filled with love. I have personally experienced this in Swamiji’s presence – love, nothing but love energy!

You Yourself are the Barrier

 

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You Yourself are the Barrier

Some of us have spiritual inclinations since childhood, some develop it later and some are literally pulled into the spiritual vortex as if by an unknown force. But once the individual embarks on the spiritual path, he/she finds his/her Master or spiritual guide who has attained a state of liberation and wishes to bestow his state to his disciples. During this process he instils the seed of spirituality within his disciples and teaches them how to meditate and go within.

Once the Satguru or Master does this, it is upto the disciple to practice meditation, turn inwards and find his/her own inner peace. The whole universe lies within us but we are ignorant of it. The journey within begins with the Satguru and ends with no ‘self’.

The biggest barrier to this state of void is our own self. Once our Master tells us that liberation is possible in this birth and He will ensure that we will get it while He is living, gives us the feeling – why bother, the Master will do everything, we just have to hold His hand.

This is just partially true – remember the Master is testing us at every moment in our life, He can see deep within us and He knows more than anyone else on earth about each of his disciples than the disciple or his closest family members know about him/her. When a Master says He will ensure that each disciple will be liberated, He only means to encourage you to do your spiritual practice, connect with His energy body and use His energy body to reach deep states of meditation and self-discovery. Once He moves on this will not be possible.

Our own expectations of being liberated in this birth become our barrier, we have to let go of our expectations and our ego to reach that free state known as liberation. It is very difficult to get rid of the ego as it keeps changing form to more subtle levels till finally it disappears. We get rid of our expectations through complete, unconditional surrender to the Guru-energies.

There are two ways to about this – become a witness and through selfless love. Swamiji before going into Anushthan wrote a series of daily messages on ‘love’ and how love is the easier path to liberation. Becoming a witness requires a spiritual state wherein you can step back and just watch and observe life as it happens. One does not get emotionally attached or connected to either events or people. One just observes life as it goes on – there is nothing good or bad, everything just ‘is’.

The other way is selfless love – develop the heart to such an extent that love naturally starts just flowing from within you – this love is unconditional and is towards each and every being on earth. Both these paths ultimately converge – once a state of liberation attained as a witness, unconditional love becomes that person’s true nature and when attains to liberation through unconditional love one becomes a witness to life!

Hold My Hand Tightly

 

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Hold My Hand Tightly

Every parent tells their child to hold on to their hands tightly when they are passing through crowds, crossing the roads, travelling in the dark or whenever there are any stressful situations. The idea is to provide the child with security and also do justice to the parents’ sense of duty towards their offspring.

When we move on to the spiritual path we get initiated as a disciple with a Master or Satguru. The Master gives birth to our soul and we feel born again – we feel like we have turned over a new leaf. The Satguru who gives birth to our soul is also our spiritual mother as opposed to our mother who gives birth to our physical body.

In the time in which we are living today there are many well-known Satgurus who have given birth to tens of thousands of souls – to name a few His Holiness Shivkrupanand Swamiji, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Sri M, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and so on. We are living in the age of shifting consciousness where more and more people are rising above their ‘religion’ and moving towards their core religion which is humanity. The ‘religion’ one is born into is nothing more than a method of worship which is the path to your true religion that is humanity – being a good human being!

Swamiji tells us not to let go of his hand in this lifetime, he is holding on to each and every disciple’s hand, but if we remove our hand then there is nothing that he can do about it – you will then be on your own and it is impossible to get back into the fold and catch his hand; that is because the spiritual momentum which is now unfolding is massive and more and more people are getting on board. It is just like you are on a spiritual ship and if you fall overboard, then rescuing you is impossible as the ship is moving at high speed – you just get left behind.

It is extremely important to hold on to your Master’s hand very tightly and ensure that you reach the other shore. Your spiritual practice and your sense of complete surrender towards your Master, both will help you to reach the other shore. If not in this life-time then definitely in the next, because you carry that bank of spirituality into the next birth. The idea is to cross over in this birth itself – just surrender, become a witness, practice detached attachment, fulfil your duties as a parent, friend, employee or whatever in a detached manner – do not get emotionally involved with any person to the extent that it starts hurting you – when this happens then it is affecting you and your ego. Save yourself from this predicament.

The only way you can do that is by connecting with your Master’s subtle body or energy body and ensuring that whatever you do in this birth does not become your karma – whether good or bad. If you are truly connected to your Master then no bad karma takes place and whatever meritorious karma happens, happens with his grace, you just become a medium. So, hold on tightly, don’t let go, and ensure that you reach the other shore safely.

The Journey is the Destination

 

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The Journey is the Destination

We have all heard about ‘spiritual journey’, which begins for normal persons after they meet their living Satguru or Master. This journey begins after the Master plants the seed of awakening in the disciple and the disciple nurtures this seed through his spiritual practice of yoga and meditation.

The question which bothers most people is – when will we reach our destination? This question has been asked of Swamiji many times and Swamiji has given different replies depending on the state of the disciple asking the question. Swamiji always answers based on what he ‘sees’ at that time – and the answer satiates the minds of the masses listening to the response.

The way I see it and I may be completely wrong – is that the journey itself is the destination. From whatever little I have experienced to date is that there is really no end to this journey – all it does is take you deeper and deeper into your own self, where more and more dimensions keep opening, making you go ‘aaha’ – its like Archimedes’s eureka moment – only thing here this ‘aaha’ is full of amazement, awe and wonder at what one ‘sees’ within with the opening of yet another dimension.

Spiritual seekers are always in a hurry to reach the destination. Such seekers have still not dropped the ego, because it is the ego which is urging them on – and till the ego is around the destination is far away – the journey has begun but the path is lost; journey will start becoming the destination only when the ego falls away and we regain the complete innocence of our childhood.

It is the innocence of childhood that creates the wonder in our eyes and hearts when we first experience ‘Paramatma’ within. The experiences then continue with your spiritual practice – cold vibrations, fragrances, journey into the calm, cool, peaceful dark tunnel, till you see that brilliant flash of light which blinds you into opening your eyes – you are not ready for it yet. If one is ready then that brilliant light will not surprise/shock you into opening your eyes. Still some inner progress to be made till that light can be absorbed.

Our entire journey is from darkness to light – the journey itself is filled with peace, joy, indescribable love and bliss. The experiences which one gets during the journey makes it appear that the journey itself is the destination. May we all enjoy the journey and help find peace and brotherhood in this world which appears to be in turmoil!

What is Darkness?

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What is Darkness? 

It is said that there is nothing like ‘darkness’ – darkness is nothing but the absence of light. When you cannot recognise light, then you see darkness. What is dark for humans is bright as light for animals like cats, owls, tigers, bats and so on. Everything is relative. When you have one the other comes along with it – you just cannot have only one side of a coin can you?

The moment you realise that darkness is a part of the whole, then it is no longer darkness. The real darkness is your ignorance – your not knowing what it actually is! Your not knowing is the darkness – the moment you know the darkness disappears. We welcome both day and night, because without night the day is not complete – night makes the day complete.

Some people are afraid of the dark to such an extent that they need a night lamp even to just sleep. The moment you fall asleep, it is dark but there is no fear because ‘you’ are not aware of the dark after falling asleep. The mind rests and the fears disappear – now darkness does not matter – as the sleeping mind is lost in its dreams.

Similarly pleasure and pain are also two sides of the same coin. If you only want pleasure and you hate the pain, you become miserable and sad. But life is like that – one follows the other, its like surfing, we have to ride the waves – up-down, up-down, up-down, there is no let up we have to accept the upswings in life along with the downswings just as day follows night. We cannot say that we will accept only the joy but not the sadness – this is a sure-fire recipe for misery in life.

When the downswing comes you fight it, you don’t accept it, and when that happens it is your ego which taking you down the path of resistance, and with resistance God tests you even more, the journey becomes tougher and you get more pain. The dose keeps on increasing till you learn to accept that okay let’s face this and move – let whatever is happening happen. Let me leave it to God. Once that happens, you accept and the pain eases and life goes on and the upswing starts.

If someone is nice behaves nicely with you, the expectation that this person will always behave nicely with you, respect you rises in your heart. The moment this person behaves badly with you, you are let down, feel insulted and begin hating this person. Both are extreme reactions – one has to accept that every individual has a bright side and a dark side.

Love every person in totality because God has made every person unique – love the person in totality, because both the positive and the negative aspects make up the personality. Once you do this then you are in a different light, where there is no darkness at all. That’s what you call Supreme Light. That Light is not like this light that casts a shadow; that Light is a shadowless Light. Once you go into that state, you still see the light and darkness, but you respect them both.

God’s Will Always Wins

 

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God’s Will Always Wins

Each of us has our own will which we use to fulfill our desires. We may call it will power or it could also be our ego which sees that we always get our way. Many times, we succeed because our will is in sync with God’s will and we think that it has happened because of ‘my’ will!

The question we need to ask ourselves by rising above our I-sense is – can we humans do anything which is against God’s will? Everything in life happens if God wills it, otherwise it doesn’t! Howsoever much we try, the simplest of things will find huge barriers if God does not will it to happen. We end up banging our heads against the wall, try our very best and even then, things don’t happen; this leads to frustration, stress and a whole lot of tension.

We should trust completely. If we trust completely, then even if others talk negatively or have negative feelings towards us then we need not harbour any ill will towards them. In fact, we needn’t even have any negative feelings towards such people.

Remember that if anybody is harbouring negative feelings towards us, then that too is God’s will, else why would anyone have such feelings. If that is happening means there is some reason for it. Think of it as a positive feeling that is causing me pain, instead of thinking of it negatively. If anybody is causing us pain or is hurting us then it has to be God’s will, because everyone is an instrument of God. This means that whoever is causing us grief is because we deserve to face them and move on – this is the karma we have to endure. Do so with a smile and move on in life.

We get certain experiences in life or we meet people who give us a tough time just to get an education – this is God’s way of teaching us ‘acceptance’. It is another way of subduing the ego. Whatever rewards and punishments we receive in life are because of God’s will – all we need to do is accept it as such and move on with a smile.

With meditation we learn to search within and we slowly begin to see God’s plan for us. In fact, after attaining self-realisation, we realise that God is within us and we begin to see things more clearly. Our soul starts talking to us and warning us about possible pitfalls, we need to be alert enough to listen to the voice and avoid those pitfalls.

With awakening comes love – this feeling of universal love is amazing, this too is God’s will and once you get this feeling towards all beings, know that you have accepted that everything happens according to God’s will and we are just players playing or role in life’s drama!