Inner Blissfulness

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Inner Blissfulness

If we think our work is important, the first thing we should do is work upon our own self, so that internally we are a stable being, no matter what the situation is externally. When we are running a large business or enterprise, it's not just about us. Often, there are another thousand people involved with us. So, how we handle a situation not only impacts our life, but another thousand lives. Once we grow, the challenges also naturally grow; there is no question about it. But if we want to get into a jockey's place where we want to handle the horse, if we want to handle a situation, no matter how large, the first thing we must do, is equip yourself. There is a way with which we can create a stable and blissful chemistry within our own selves, our ability to deal with all the variety of ups and downs in life can be greatly enhanced. How? With yoga and meditation.

Yoga-meditation gives us this possibility that if we simply sit here, there is a little space between us and our body, there is a little space between us and our mind, and there is a little space between us and the world. Once we create this space within us, once we know what is the self and what isn't, that is the end of suffering. When there is no fear of suffering, we will be able to look at everything with utmost clarity and address every issue to the best of our intelligence and capability. Situations will never overwhelm us.

When we say yoga-meditation, it does not mean yoga in a studio in Mumbai or LA or on television. Yoga- be meditation must be approached in a comprehensive way. Yoga offers a systematic way of working upon our inner well-being through various yogasanas in which we can address our immediate and ultimate wellbeing. We should take guidance of a yoga master to do those asanas which will help us in our inner journey. It is an entire science and technology. If we invest 30-40 minutes a day, we can ensure that in terms of vitality in our body and mind, we will be at least 10 years younger in the next six months. And our ability to create and manage things will be such that what we can do right now in 8 hours, we will very easily do it in 4-5 hours. If we are sleeping 8 hours a day, very easily we can bring it down to 5-6 hours a day without stressing the body. So, 40 minutes of investment will give us extra time, extra clarity, extra possibility, and extra peace of mind!

In other words, yoga is the technology that lets us read the user's manual of the most sophisticated gadget – the human mechanism. If we know how to handle the human mechanism, then what about external situations? Well, some we can handle, some we cannot. But if we know how to handle ourselves, it is not really a problem. It may be a challenge, but it is not a problem.

There are only situations and more situations in life. Only those who do not know how to handle them label them as a ‘problem.’ With time we become stable in our own inner bliss and float through life as light as a feather.

Life is Uncertain

 

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Life is Uncertain

Nothing in the outside world is certain, that's a fact. It’s uncertain and that’s what makes it challenging. Uncertainty means things are changing; in other words, there is no limbo. If you are walking fast, every step is new terrain. This new terrain is what you are calling ‘uncertainty’ right now.

For those of us who are seeking opportunities, uncertainty is the best time. Those who have a vision will make it a possibility; those who don't, will look at it as a problem. But, because we are in a constant state of compulsive reaction in our mind, we are seeking certainty.

Certainty is a state of limbo. If there is certainty there is status quo. Status quo in a business, political or social situation means nothing changes; nothing evolves. By seeking certainty, ultimately, we are pitching for stagnation. If things are stagnant, we will get bored. If things are happening rapidly, then we don't have the balance to handle it. So, the problem is not with uncertainty; the problem is that we have become uncertain within ourselves. If we have to fix the whole world for us to be peaceful, that's never going to happen. What we must do instead, is fix ourselves within. What do we mean by that? It means, if our inner self is not compulsive, we will handle every situation to the best of our ability. Maybe we can't handle it like someone else, but we will handle it to the best of our ability, that's about it. We won't suffer every situation we come across simply because we are in a compulsive state of reaction.

Our inner world is a dimension by itself. It cannot be crafted according to external situations – “there is certainty in life right now, so I will have one kind of inner world.” “Now there is uncertainty, so I will have another kind of inner world.” “When people around me are sweet, I'll have one kind of inner world. When people are nasty, I will have another kind of inner world.” It doesn't work that way. It is not something we determine; it is something that is. So, how to keep it? Well, there is no way to keep it. If it is conscious, it won't be compulsive.

We came here without any investment. And we will leave without any capital in our hands. Whatever happens in-between, we are anyway on the profit side, because all that we have is the experience of life. The important thing is how we experience it.

So, if our inner world is in a non-compulsive, conscious state, then we determine our experience. With situations, we determine only part of them, the world determines a part of them. But how we experience life is one hundred percent in our own hands.

Love and Lust

 

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Love and Lust

The whole world is going through a unique kind of neurosis, which was not there in the past. This is simply because modern man has stopped using his body to a large extent. In the past, when we intensely involved ourselves in physical activity, a lot of our neurosis was worked out. Our nervous energy got spent. There are several people, especially young people, who have psychological problems, simply because they cannot expend their nervous energy due to lack of physical activity. In the past such people would just start swimming or playing some sport daily and then everything became okay. Because of enough activity, the energy was expended.

Today, people have become physically inactive like never before. They could not afford to be so physically inactive earlier, as they had to do so many things physically, just to survive. They have become more neurotic than in the past. As a general phenomenon, there were neurotic people then also but not in these numbers. Today, it has become a common phenomenon in society that everybody is in some level of neurosis. This is simply because our energy is not worked out. It is trapped. We have not transcended our madness and at the same time, we are not working it out. The therapy also is not there. If we went out and chopped wood for the whole day – if we chopped a hundred logs a day – a lot of our energy would be spent, and life would be peaceful. But today it is not like that. We are not using our body the way it used to be utilised, so we go on generating all kinds of diseases, like never before.

This builds up into our system over a period of time. Then our physical and emotional energy needs some outlet. That is how bars, clubs and discotheques have come into place. People have to work out their neurosis somewhere, somehow. These discos look like madness, we cannot even breathe inside. They are full of smoke and sweat, but people just go wild in there. We cannot even dance, everybody is bumping into everybody else, but it does not matter, we have to work it out. Otherwise, we will go crazy. So, on Saturday, we go to work out our neurosis for the week. Then the piling up starts once more and once again the Saturday night fever comes.

There is another way to drop this madness and go ahead – completely leaving it behind and going ahead where we are no more a part of it. This is what meditation is all about. Now, if we dance, we simply dance for the joy of it, and not because there is something to work out. If we are dancing to work out something, maybe it is therapeutic. It is good therapy alright, but there is a certain ugliness about it. It is filled with lust. We cannot dance out of love. We can only dance out of lust.

Lust is a strong need. Love is not a need. When we love, we settle down, nothing more is needed. We can just sit here for a lifetime. With lust we cannot sit anywhere. We either get into some mad action, or we are bound to go crazy. When there is a certain neurosis, a certain madness within ourselves, we can only be in lust. Our lust can be for sex, for food or for some particular activity or some hobby; it does not matter what it is, but we develop lust for something. Without that lust we cannot live. Even our work is an effective way of throwing out our lust. It is just that it is the most popular and accepted way in the world. Today people just go on working, working and working. Not because they are creating something fantastic, but simply because they have to work. Otherwise, they don’t know what to do with themselves.

We have to guard that madness cautiously. Nobody ever knows that we have this within ourselves and we ourselves would like to forget it. We do everything possible to forget it. All the entertainment in the world has come just to hide our madness. If we were perfectly sane, we would not need entertainment. We need entertainment just to cover our madness. If we take away our entertainment, we will go crazy. 

We need entertainment simply to hide our madness. If we were perfectly sane, we would not need entertainment. We could just sit and watch the bamboo grow. We would not really need entertainment.

Liberation – Ultimate Freedom - 2

 

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Liberation – Ultimate Freedom - 2

Concluding post.

Imagination is a renewed past. We are twisting the past into various shapes and get excited about it. Nothing completely new can ever happen in our imagination – it is permutations and combinations of the past – so many that every time, it looks new and exciting to us. When we were children, we made our own kaleidoscope with three pieces of mirror and bits of broken bangles in different colours. We can spend days looking at it. Every time, there is a new design and a new possibility, but it is the same old pieces of bangles, rearranging themselves in many ways to excite our childish mind. The same thing is happening with life – it’s a kaleidoscope.

We are always building our own kaleidoscopes. This is okay for our entertainment, not for finding the ultimate nature of life. Non-existence means to become that which is neither this nor that. This is how far language can go. Since language is a product of our mind, beyond a certain point, it won’t make sense to describe something that is beyond the mind. So, to come back to the issue, “Will I make it in this lifetime?” Realisation is not an achievement, not a race to win, not an attainment. Realisation means to see what was already there.

It is not self-achievement, self-attainment, or self-victory – it is self-realisation. We do not invent anything; we do not achieve anything; we do not climb and stand on a peak. We just realise the stupidity of being right here and not seeing the obvious nature of life. That is why when someone realises, they generally withdraw, because they feel blissfully ashamed. When we don’t know that we are stupid, we can be proud and brave with the world. The moment we realise our stupidity, we are embarrassed, but the whole world wants to worship us – it’s an awkward situation.

Don’t worry about moksha. When we are young and we want to do acrobatics – we should do it. When we mature a little more and a Guru finds us, just leave it to the Guru. In 2007 Swamiji had said, “I will say it – this is the last birth for all of us, everyone will attain moksha. On what basis am I saying this? Not in front of you, not because of you. What is your relationship with me, I know that, you don't - that's why, with that very faith. So, I want you to know that relationship. Hey! God! If I had to attain liberation, I would have done it 30-35 years ago. Why would I come here? After reaching there, I have come back to show you the way!” (Madhuchaitanya - AMJ 2007).

Swamiji will make sure that we all attain a state of moksha, but we must leave it to Swamiji right now, if not now, then at least when we start shaking with age. But if we place it in His hands right now, He can help us hang on at the last rung of life and enjoy it. If we like your own circus, do it for a while. When we are done with the circus, many of us will turn around. The sooner the better.

We should do it when Swamiji is still there, we should attain a state of liberation or moksha and fulfil Swamiji’s promise made to our souls 800 years ago.

Liberation – Ultimate Freedom - 1

 

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Liberation – Ultimate Freedom - 1

This post is in two parts.

Swamiji has introduced us to the concept of moksha or liberation. Birth and death are two phases of life. There are various dimensions between birth and death – infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. A dimension has proportions, something that can be defined, described, grasped, and understood. What we are referring to as moksha is dimensionless – it cannot be defined, described, or grasped. “Will I attain moksha?” Never! Nobody will. When we cease to be any dimension – not physical, not metaphysical, not this, not that, nothing – when we become dimensionless, that’s moksha.

Dimension means there is a boundary. Moksha means there is no boundary, no bondage. This is all negative terminology, but it is a very positive possibility. Moksha is non-existence. Shiva means non-existence – that which is not. Moksha means to become like that. It is wrong to even refer to Shiva as “him” or “her,” because gender is a dimension. Shiva is dimensionless non-existence. Non-existence does not mean it is not there at all. Right now, our experience of anything in existence is as a certain dimension – this or that. Dimensionless-ness means there is no this or that. What is neither this nor that is not a neuter – it is beyond. There is no way to grasp or understand moksha – the only way is to become that. But we should not aspire to become that. We cannot aspire to become something that is not yet in our experience, perception, or understanding.

The only thing we can do is keep cutting down whatever binds us. If everything that binds us is cut down, if nothing binds us – neither life nor death, neither this nor that, neither god nor devil, neither heaven nor hell – that is moksha. We should not seek moksha – only seek how to be free from every kind of bondage. If we want to fly in the sky, we don’t have to know much about the sky – we just have to know what is holding us on the ground. It is the understanding of gravity that allows us to fly, not our understanding of the sky. It is not a question of how to grasp the sky but how to beat gravity. So, we should not try to grasp moksha. We should not even aspire for it, because that will lead to hallucinations.

The mind is fickle and it cannot remain in a state of “I do not know.” Either it has to know, or it will make assumptions about what it does not know. If we make moksha a dimension in our mind, it will unnecessarily take us round in circles. We should keep chipping away at things that bind us. One day, when we see there is nothing more to chip, what has to happen will happen. There is no need to aspire for it, because if we aspire, we will imagine. 

All imagination comes from an exaggerated memory, which is not good, because we will be projecting the past into the future. Maybe in a different form, in a different colour, but still our imagination is supported by our memory, and memory is past.

To be continued…..

Memory – a Doorway

 

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Memory – a Doorway

Human memory is a fabulous thing; it's because of this ability to remember we have science, we have technology, we have a civilization, we have information technology; it's all about memory, isn't it? But at the same time, it's human memory which is the source of all bondage. What we call as karma is just memory on different levels of life. Memory is like a doorway; a doorway can open but also it can close.

In our life if doors are opening for us wherever we go, we see door as a very wonderful thing but if it's always slamming in our face, door becomes a horrible thing. Memory is just like this. Memory is what has given us the ability to be informed; it is because we are capable of making ourselves informed about various things, many beautiful things have happened in our lives. The very basis of civilization is memory. Today what goes as learning is simply memory.

Memory transmitted from generation to generation; that is how if one’s father knew how to do one stitch, we learnt how to make the second stitch and our children learnt the third stitch; this is how things have happened. But if we did not remember the first stitch, reinventing the wheel all the time, nothing would have happened! Just intelligence would not have led to civilization; memory is important. At the same time memory also makes our life repetitive, not receptive, simply repetitive. When we carry a certain volume of memory within us, life becomes repetitive, automatic.

All sense of being human, all the possibilities of being spontaneous, all the possibility of exploring new terrain in one’s life gets obliterated because of memory. It's like a doorway. It all depends whether it's opening for us or closing for us. When people try to learn by sheer memory many things happen and lot of so-called culture and civilization is a product of that - sheer memory, not much intelligence in it. Together they are a deadly combination. Just memory is simply a repetitiveness.

Information that travels from generation to generation gets stored in different ways and so much distortion takes place and now we can't look at anything straight - the way it is supposed to be. Minds get so deeply conditioned that we can't look at anything straight anymore.

So, what we call as culture is just memory; what we call as civilization is just memory; memory is not useless, memory is useful but if we do not know how to keep it aside that becomes our biggest bondage because life becomes repetitive. When we are repetitive, we cannot be receptive.

Fear of Falling Sick

 

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Fear of Falling Sick

Everybody wants to be healthy. At the same time, we must understand that once we assume a body, illness, old age, and death are natural processes of life. Taking good care of the body is definitely our business, but once we have a physical body, we know that illness may happen at any moment. However, if we are paranoid about ill health or death, we will not take good care of the body. The very anxiety of what may happen will destroy the body. If we become excessively concerned about illness or health, that itself becomes an illness. An illness is something that restricts our life. That is why we don't like it. But just the fear of illness also restricts our life.

There are so many people whose fear of illness becomes very strong once they cross forty or forty-five years of age. When they were young, they didn't have this fear because they thought they were immortal! It is only as we grow older that the fact that we are mortal comes to us. Our fear is not of illness, our fear is of dying. Illness is the passage – the first step towards death. We are still not addressing death directly, but we are addressing illness because we know that if illness comes, the other one will follow.

Generally, in social situations, people have been going about convincing us that fear of death is natural. Unfortunately, people think that whatever the majority is doing is natural. If most people were smoking cigarettes, people would say smoking is a natural thing. They were saying that a few years ago. Certain groups of people still say, “What's wrong with smoking? It is only natural.” A human being is not made to smoke. We are not automobiles! Similarly, the fear of death has been made natural by social situations, but it is not so.

If life happens, death is a natural process. Being afraid of a natural process is unnatural. This fear has come because of a certain sense of ignorance and unawareness. We are not in touch with reality and we have gotten deeply identified with this body. This has happened because we have not explored other dimensions. If we had explored and established ourselves in other dimensions of experience, the body would not be such a big issue. But now our whole experience of life is limited to this body. No matter what kind of teachings other people give us, whether somebody tells us that we are Atma, Paramatma or whatever else, our experience is limited to the physical body. So, the fear of losing it is natural. But if we establish ourselves in other dimensions of experience, the body becomes an easy thing to handle. Life or death won't make such a big difference.

Through regular meditation we realise that we are not the body, we are the soul and in time our health itself becomes a non-issue as soul consciousness takes over and body consciousness is left far behind.

Creating an Exciting Future

 

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Creating an Exciting Future

For the kind of possibilities human beings hold, life is a brief amount of time. Only for people who do not explore the full depth and dimension of who they are, for those who are miserable and depressed, life is long. This is because time is a relative experience. If we keep ourselves vibrant, exuberant, and joyful, life appears to be brief. There is no point in dwelling on yesterday, as long as we did our best. The important thing is that what we thought was the best we could do yesterday should not be good enough to us today. What we are doing today should be much better. That means we are growing.

If we act to the best of our ability and intelligence, every day will be an explosion of possibilities. If we are driving fast, there is no time to look back. Only those who are living in a parked car keep looking in the rearview mirror, because they are not going anywhere. There is no point in doing postmortem about yesterday. Creating tomorrow is what is important. To create an exciting future, we need to be at our best. Growth means to make ourselves the way we want to be. And how we want to be may change as we mature. Determine what the highest levels for us are in terms of body, mind, and emotions. That is what we should go for.

We do not have to be better than someone else, but we should not be anything less than what we can be. If we think our life is worthwhile, we must be at our best – anything less than that is wasted life. If we live exuberantly, life is fantastic. If we are half alive, everything is miserable. In a way, it is a preparation for hell. If we make ourselves wonderful, wherever we are, we will be fine. Otherwise, we may be in heaven but turn it into hell. If we want to create a future, it is important that we use our past as a stepping stone, not as a load. The more miserable our past was, the wiser and more mature we should become, sooner than others. When things happen to us, either we can become wise or wounded. This is the choice we have. Do not sit in a corner, hoping nothing bad will happen to us – life does not work that way. Whatever happens in our life, we can turn it to our advantage.

What life throws at us, what kind of situations come our way is not always in our hands. But what we make out of it is always in our hands.

Take charge of this in life – no matter what someone says, what life does to us, what the world does to us, turn it into wellbeing. For this, we need balance, and we need to function at our highest level. Indiscriminately, whoever it is, whatever we do – always give the best. Learn to look at everyone and everything with the same intensity and the same involvement. Selective involvement means being half alive. To mature into a full-fledged human being, always strive to function at the highest possible level of one’s capability, in every little thing we do.

If we are giving less than our best and someone says something about us, we will get confused as to who we are. This does not mean we should establish our way of being once and for all. Growth is a constant process. It is about building ourselves up to the highest possible level.

Most people are volatile, in the sense, one moment, they are wonderful – the next moment, they are nasty. Instead, determine what the highest level for us is currently and strive to get there. Just bring this into our life – in everything, give nothing less than the best.

Clearing the Path

 

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Clearing the Path

Spiritual process means different things to different people. A lot of people think spiritual process means to always be loving, always be grinning, to always walk gently. Others think spirituality is some kind of a disability. Another common belief is that spirituality means trying to be good. Some people think spirituality means doing something wild – smoking pot, going crazy, being irresponsible. For others, being spiritual means trying to be joyful, peaceful, or ecstatic. Being spiritual does not mean any of that. Being spiritual means becoming in some way more of a spirit and less of a body. What it means is losing one’s body consciousness while enhancing one’s soul consciousness.

There may be certain obstacles that do not allow us to experience this right now. We must know what our handicap is. It may be that we are so good that we have no sense about life around us. Or we are so crazy that we have no sense about life within and outside us. Or we are so controlled that nothing ever happens with us. 

Here is what we can do: close our eyes, look into ourself, see what our idea of spirituality is, and what needs to happen for us to be a little more spiritual, to be more sensitive to life within. Identify one main obstacle that needs to be cleared to make us more of a spirit than a body. 

Let’s look at a few common obstacles. If we feel there is rigidity or friction in the body, we can work it out by doing our yoga in the morning. This body is a machine that gets better with use. Rigidity and friction in the body mean in a way, rigor mortis is slowly setting in. Yoga does not allow that to settle into the system. When we are alive, we must be fully alive. One aspect of being alive is we do not allow rigidity to settle in. Our body, mind, and energies should be as fluid as possible. Only then will we know life in a deeper way.

Others may have the intention to do their sadhana but end up being too lazy. Not everyone has the same level of intensity, but what must happen, must happen. Like Swamiji says – “Give me your half hour every day, and I will give you a bright future”. So, all we have to do is meditate every morning – preferably same place and time – so that our energy gets established in that place, and observe the change that takes place within us. That much commitment we must have. This is not about thinking or talking spirituality. This is about practicing and living spirituality.

Physical ailments, a hyperactive mind and our past karma also create perceived obstacles which we have to overcome with Guru’s grace. With physical ailments we just have to work a little harder to achieve the desire result. When we realise that our physical ailments are an obstacle to spiritual progress, we end up doing our utmost to transcend the body.

With yoga and meditation, we end up calming the mind to an extent that it only goes where we want it to go, else it remains quiet – this gives us a great sense of peace, as the mind can otherwise create quite a nuisance.

We have to face our past birth karma – after being initiated the Guru absolves us of our current birth karma and gives us the strength and fortitude to face our past birth karma. After we pass that stage, we realise that whatever we do, we do with Guru’s grace and do not let our ego intervene, and nothing bad happens through us because meditation has made our aura strong and protective.

The most important thing in life is balance. If there is no balance, our body and mind will work against us. A stable base means a body and mind that take instructions from one’s self. We must be able to create the right kind of chemistry within the system. This is essential for our health and wellbeing. We need the skills to manage our own system. Yoga and meditation help us do that.

Giving Ourselves

 

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Giving Ourselves

Volunteering is a process of giving ourselves. It’s an opportunity to give ourself. We can simply sit here, close our eyes and give ourself to the world. It is possible but that level of awareness is not there in most human beings. Unless there is activity, people do not know how to give themselves. They need action to give themselves to something. Normally, what little work we do, calculations are there, “How much should I do? Why should I do? What will I get out of this?” In these calculations, all the beauty of doing is gone and the very process of life has become ugly. Most of the things that we are doing in our life are things that we have chosen to do. In spite of that, we are doing simple activities with so much struggle because we are unwilling to give. Somewhere we have forgotten that we started this willingly.

The whole process of Yoga is just to give ourselves. People may not know how to simply give themselves. People need some kind of means to give themselves. Whatever we may give in our life to anybody - we may give money, we may give food, we may give education. All the things that we give, actually do not belong to us, isn’t it? Whatever we have today, everything including our body, we gathered it from this earth and when we go, we have to give it back.

All that we have today with us is something we have borrowed from this planet. It is not really ours; we can use it; we can enjoy it. Though we believe we own it, we cannot really own it. We believe we own our house; we believe we own our clothes; we believe we own our children, our wife, our husband. They are here for us, we can enjoy them, but when we have to leave, we have to leave them and go.

Nothing really belongs to us. What doesn’t belong to us, we cannot give. There is really no giving. There is no value to this kind of giving but we need a means to give.

Fundamentally, the only thing that we can give is ourself but we do not know how to give ourself simply, so we give using things as a means. We are using activity as a means to give ourselves. If we are not aware of this, then giving becomes a great problem. If we do not make ourselves willing to give ourselves, it becomes a very painful process.

When we understand giving as giving only things, then naturally fear will come into us because - “If I give away everything what will happen to me?” It is because of this understanding, we fear giving. People have become stingy, miserly with their love, with their joy, simply because they only think that giving means - giving things. How much, how many things can we give?

No spiritual process will happen to any human being unless he becomes willingness. Thus, volunteering is a tremendous way for creating that willingness. This kind of willingness to start with is better when it happens in a protected atmosphere. That is why the whole process of Gurutattva is happening as volunteering to just provide us with that necessary protected atmosphere where we can be 100% willing and not be exploited.

We are always stressing on volunteering, so that we use the atmosphere to become willing. Then it will extend into our daily life also. Above all, it will permeate into our being, that we ourselves become willingness.

-Reminder of our Mortality

 

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Reminder of our Mortality

Right now, it takes a lifetime for people to understand that they are mortal. When we are young, we think we are immortal. As the body starts creaking a little bit, we start to realise that the earth is calling. This body is a loan from this planet. The very body that we are is just the food that we have eaten. The food that we ate is just the earth. So, we are just a piece of earth. The earth is calling us all the time but when we are old, we hear it very clearly.

We need to celebrate and enjoy every moment of our life because life is ticking away; it does not wait for us for even a moment. Especially because we are mortal, it is extremely important that we make this into a joyful and fantastic process. If we were immortal, we could enjoy a hundred years each of depression, anxiety, madness and misery, and then on the 500th anniversary, we could become joyful. But it is not so; we are mortal and life is ticking away. There is no time for frustration, depression, anxiety or anger; there is no time for any unpleasantness in this life.

If we are constantly reminded that we are mortal, this whole life process will want to experience everything; it will become super alert. If we know we are going to die in the next one hour, we would notice every little bit of life. We will not miss anything. If every human being structures their psychological and emotional framework around the most fundamental fact of their life – their mortality, if we accept death as a process of life – constantly, moment to moment – our values of life would be completely different. Like a flower which blooms in the morning and dies in the evening, if we knew that we are also very much the same process – right now we are blooming, tomorrow morning we may be dead – then we would not miss a single flower on the road. We would become extremely life-oriented and our life will unhinge itself from the physicality and look for something beyond, naturally. The spiritual process will become a natural process of growth for us.

Living every moment like it is our last, without any desires, regrets or expectations, facing life as a witness helps us accept the final moment in a sense of void, a sense of nothingness, this ensures that re-birth does not happen with the Guru’s grace.

Life & Death in One Breath

 

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Life & Death in One Breath

The greatest calamity of the human mind is that it is against death because the moment we reject death, we also reject life. Every moment of living here, we can either refer to this process that we are going through as life, or we can refer to it as death. Death is not something that is going to happen to us. Death is not in the future. The moment we are born, one half of death has occurred. Our inhalation is life, our exhalation is death. When a child is born, the first thing the child does is one gasp of an inhalation. And if we look at our life, the last thing we will do is an exhalation.

It is strange we celebrate the day we are born as birthdays instead of death days, because with each passing year we are approaching death. In fact, we live with each inhalation and die with each exhalation – if we do not inhale after the exhalation, it is the end of the story, chapter closed!

Between life and death – life needs a certain tension; otherwise, we cannot keep it going. Death is utter relaxation. Right now, we can experiment and see, if we take one big exhalation and one big inhalation and see how our body and our mind is, we will find the exhalation to be more relaxing. In fact, whenever we get tense, when things build up too much in us, the natural mechanism in the body wants to exhale. This is what we call as a sigh. It relaxes we a little bit. If in the very process of life, we know the relaxation of death, then life is an utterly effortless process.

This is how it would have naturally been if human beings’ minds had not banished death as evil. If traditions and cultures had not taught us that death is evil – that it should be avoided – we would breathe in a completely different way. If we observe, for almost 99% of people, because their mind has rejected death, they will inhale, but exhalation does not happen totally. This is one of the reasons why, over a period of time, we build up so much tension within the system that mentally and physiologically, it reaches a point of snapping.

The best way to practice this knowing of death is through yoga nidra or death meditation as Osho says. Lie down your back on the ground, shut your eyes, keep your legs and hands loose at the side. Take your chitta to the sahastrar chakra and tweak the fingers of your feet and then lie still, sense that your feet, knees, thighs, stomach, back, chest, neck face are becoming numb and cold. Feel the energy concentrate on the crown of the head. We sense that we are in the Himalayas, feel that energy.

We stop hearing the sounds which are happening around us as we find ourselves in the divine Himalayan, energy-filled environment. Suddenly, we sense that we are non-existence and only energy is present. Nothing else.

Significance of Amavasya

 

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Significance of Amavasya

Amavasya means no moon day or new moon day. Whenever something or somebody becomes absent, through that absence, their presence always becomes more powerful. If we had a friend or a loved one who was with us, we never felt their presence so much. But the moment they disappear, we feel their presence so much – it is so powerful, isn’t it? Even on the emotional level, it is true. We do not really feel their presence when they are around. Only when they are gone, the vacuum that they have left behind has become more powerful than their presence itself. Similarly with the moon, her absence makes her more present than ever before. On any other day, even the Purnima, she is there, but on Amavasya, the presence is felt even more – that quality is even more.

The earth broods on Amavasya; the life process is slowed down on the planet and it is a great opportunity because the integration of life happens much better on this day. When a certain slowdown happens, that is when we notice our body. When everything is going well and we are busy, we do not know what is happening with the body; the body is just us. But if a little ailment comes, suddenly the body is an issue and it is something that we have to pay attention to. Only when it does not do well, we know, ‘This is not me. This is just my body giving me troubles.’ Very clearly a distance arises.

So, that is the significance of Amavasya. On that day, because a certain integration of the elements is happening, there is a slowdown of everything. If we are seeking wellbeing, Purnima is sacred. If we are seeking liberation, Amavasya is sacred. Accordingly, there are different kinds of spiritual practices for those two dimensions of life. It is a day when one can become easily aware of, ‘What is me and what is not me,’ and from there on, the journey from untruth to truth begins. From Amavasya to Purnima, every month the opportunity is created naturally. Even for those who are completely unaware, there is a natural opportunity available beginning every Amavasya and moving on.

The nature of Purnima is more of the Ida or the feminine. Amavasya is very raw. One day before Amavasya is known as Shivaratri because it is Shiva’s night. It is primordial in nature. When everything is pitch dark, it is like the creation is dissolved. There is a tinge of the destroyer in Amavasya. Generally, on the night of Amavasya a very feminine energy would either be disturbed because it causes certain fear and disturbance in her, or it could turn roguish and man-like.

If a person is seeking wellbeing, man can also make use of Purnima, but if he is seeking liberation or dissolution, Amavasya is better. For all those who are seeking absolute dissolution, Amavasya is great. The gravitational impact of the moon is working on our planet. So, it is pulling everything up. Whole oceans are trying to rise. Similarly, our own blood is trying to rise to the moon’s gravitation.

Whatever is our quality, it gets a little enhanced on those days because the blood is being pulled upward. So, the whole energy is being pulled upward in some way. For a spiritual sadhak who is always using every means possible to move his energies upward, these two days are like a boon from nature.

Fear of Snakes

 

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Fear of Snakes

For some, the sight of a snake strikes intense fear within. For others, snake symbols are interwoven with spiritual traditions. We have all seen snakes in our ashrams. A fork stick is always kept handy to catch the snakes and move them to the forests nearby. Of the almost 4000 species of snakes in earth only 15% are poisonous. The chances of us encountering a truly poisonous snake during our lifetime is miniscule.

More people die in car accidents than of snake bites – but we still get into cars, drive them, don’t we? So, our fear of snakes is unreasonable. Our knowledge about snakes and fear of snakes are inversely proportional. The more we know about them, the less we fear them. The less we know about them, the more we fear them.

This is the only creature in the world where even if it is in the wild, if we keep ourselves in a certain way, we can just take it in our hand – simply like that. It will come into our hand without resistance. It will not do anything to us. But if we just change our thought process, it could bite us. If we are meditative, it will just come and snuggle up to us, and there will be no problem at all. But if we are in a state of agitation, it will not be able to stand us – and this could lead it to bite us!

Most of the Indian snakes are non-poisonous. And they are among the most beautiful creatures on the planet. Most snakes do not even have fangs. They just have a saw-like cartilage which cannot bite anyone for nuts. Fear of snakes is just absurd. Except a handful of snakes, they cannot do anything to us. They are terrified of us. The moment they see us, they run. But we are terrified of them too. This fear is absurd and exaggerated.

Medical organisations often have two snakes entwined around a staff as a symbol. This is also a yogic symbol: two snakes meeting at six different places, and at the top is a symbol for Ida (Left Meridian) and Pingala (Right Meridian) going through the Sushumna (Central Meridian).

The symbolism of snakes and the spiritual process in India are deeply intertwined. It is actually so in every part of the world, because wherever people became aware, they naturally recognised the sensitivity of the snake to a certain type of energy, to meditativeness. It is just that priests and pandits have given a lot of bad press to the snake for ages.

Only if we are anti-life, we think the snake is an agent of the devil. If we are pro-life, the snake is definitely an agent of the Divine. Someone who induced life on this planet, would we call him an agent of the devil or of the Divine?

Anybody with a little sense, with some zest for life, would naturally say it must be Divine. Only somebody who is making the very life process into an evil process would make a snake into an agent of the devil.

Fear of Failure

 

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Fear of Failure

For a person who sees this life as a stepping stone for a larger purpose, for him there is no failure. Life is full of possibilities and it is important to recognise one’s own possibility very early in life.

For those who are looking at the simple events of this life itself as the goal of life, for them there is failure and success. If we are just seeing this life as a stepping stone for a larger possibility, if we have a good deal, we use that for our well-being; if we have a bad deal, we use that for our well-being. When the economy is on the boom everybody gets carried, isn't it? When there is a meltdown, it takes something else to be successful. So, when the economy was booming, we could have brought a certain dispassion towards the money that flowed in. Now the economy is down, the taps are all closed up. It's time to come, meditate, walk in the mountains; there is lots of time. When there was money, it took away our time and life. Now the taps are closed; lots of time; this is the time. So, it doesn’t matter what happens with our life, if we are seeing this life only as a stepping stone for a larger possibility then whatever the situation it is beautiful and extremely useful.

So, during various situations in our life, either we can use them to make ourselves stronger and better or we can sit and cry. This is the choice we have. Everything; it doesn’t matter what happens; the most horrific event may happen in life - that also can be used for our growth and our well-being, if only we have clearly seen the small events of our life. Small event means our business, our marriage, our children - all those big things. All these things are just a stepping stone. This is not new to us because in this culture they have drilled this into us for centuries, for millenniums, they have told us, ‘Our life is about moksha. Our marriage, our business, our social life - these are all just means to get there. Either we go with it or we go without it… but whether we are a sanyasi or we are in householders, our only goal is moksha.’ Yes? The goal was not just for the sanyasi; for everybody it is moksha. If we walk alone, we walk alone. If we want a group going with us, we walk with the group. That’s our choice. We want to get there quickly, we walk alone. We want to go there having a picnic on the way, slowly, we go with people. Choice is ours but the important thing is whatever we are doing there is only one goal. So, if we have set this up then all the events of life, everything is beneficial. The boom is beneficial; the meltdown is even more than beneficial actually.

So, the fear of failure - failure is bad enough; fear is adding spice to it. Success happens to us not because we desire it, because we earn it. Everybody desires it. It comes only if we are capable, isn't it!

Living a Better Life

 

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Living a Better Life

Early in our career as we progress, we always get the thought about how to live a better life. At that point in time, unless we are already evolved spiritually, we always think about living a better material life.

I have seen family members staring at a well-stocked wardrobe trying to make a choice on what to wear while going out. Even after having such a wide choice there is stress on what to wear – why not just have seven pairs of clothes – one for each day of the week. Then there would be no stress.

If we can gracefully walk through the material world, it is fine. But if we are going to carry the material world on our head, possessing everything that we touch, we are not going to live better.

There is substantial scientific evidence for this. In the evolutionary process itself, only those creatures flourished that learned how to co-operate and think of each other’s wellbeing. Those which only thought, “I must survive at any cost,” did not survive. Over a period of time, they perished. If we look around, we will see, people who are thinking, “I must get this, I must get that,” they may be getting a lot of things, but we will not see joy on their faces.  

We can have a thousand things and be confused about what to wear or use today. Or, even if we have just one thing or nothing, we can be blissed out within ourselves. Which is a better way to live?

Everything we possess is dug out of the planet. Unfortunately, in today’s world, most people think living better means they have to dig up everything on the planet and carry it on their heads, where if someone breaks one window in the house their heart will break. Living better is not about digging up the planet and heaping it on our head. That happens when we go to the grave. People will put mud on our head when we are dead. When we are alive, we are supposed to walk upon the planet, not carry it on our head.

Our ideas of living better have to evolve, for our sake and the sake of the planet. To save the planet, people are saying we must use this kind of fuel, drive an electric car and all kinds of things. These are minor adjustments. If we really want an ecological transformation on the planet in this generation, we must turn the whole population into spiritual seekers.

We must understand that living better is not about what we possess but about how we are. If we understand this much and start living that way, there is no problem. 

Even if ten billion people live on this planet, which we are expecting by 2050, there will be no problem if people understand that better living is about how we are within yourself, not about the things that we possess. 

Cleanliness – it’s Significance

 

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Cleanliness – it’s Significance

The question whether cleanliness in the house and its environment has any impact on spiritual development keeps arising in people’s minds. When we were growing up our parents would always tell us to wash our hands, feet and face when we came home from play or school. We were taught to wash our hands before every meal. Were these societal requirements or is there a deeper significance which has been lost in the passage of time?

Shaucha, or cleanliness, is an important aspect of one’s spiritual development. Cleanliness is not just about the body. It is also about our surroundings. Everything that we perceive through our sense organs can either create filth or wellbeing within ourselves.

Whatever we perceive, if it is pleasant upon our senses, we experience it one way. If it is unpleasant upon our senses, that becomes filth in our experience. If our surroundings are not clean, or in other words, if our surroundings are not pleasant upon our senses, then the images that we create in our mind, the projections that happen upon the seat of our experience turn unpleasant. When we create unpleasantness like this, going into blissful states of experience and consciously generating the nature of our experience becomes difficult.

Whether we are miserable or joyful is determined essentially by what we are doing within ourselves. A spiritual process essentially means everything that we are, happens consciously – our experience of life is determined by us, ourselves. If this has to happen, it is important that our sense organs do not perceive something as unpleasant.

In every culture, we have been told at some point – if not by our parents, at least by our grandparents – about how to keep our clothes and bedclothes. In India in particular, they say that if we leave our bed clothes crumpled and unfolded, ghosts will come and gather. When we sleep, they will sleep with us and trouble us. In English there is a saying, “As you make your bed, so shall you lie upon it.” This is essentially about the forms around us. Today, scientists tell us that the whole existence is just one energy manifesting itself in a million different ways. As energy has generated forms, forms can in turn generate energy. And every form around us is generating a certain type of energy.

The kind of forms we build, the kind of forms we hold around us and the kind of structures we live in have a phenomenal impact on everything that we are. If there is a little more awareness about the way we sit, the way we arrange ourselves and the way we keep things around us, we can create the spatial arrangement in a way that is conducive to looking inwards, and which makes our spiritual process much easier.

If we want to drive from point X to point Y, we could probably drive through anything, but if a proper road is laid out, we would get there easily. In that context, if the spatial arrangement around us is organised in such a way that it is conducive for inward looking, it will happen much more easily.