Thursday, December 18, 2008

Do we love our nightmares too much?

Every time we conduct the Life Bliss Program, we know for certain that it is the Master who talks, we are just instruments. In one such recent LBP, it was a powerful session about the four states of consciousness that Swamiji conveys very beautifully through a diagram. To listen to the Master explain in His own words, click the video below.



I do not want to dilute what the Master has said about the four states of conscioussness by adding more words. But would like to share with you an interesting conversation that transpired after this session with one of the LBP participants. I was conveying the following point: when we are dreaming, we have no idea that we are dreaming. Only when we wake up do we realise it. Similarly till we wake up to higher consciousness, we do not know that this so-called waking state is yet another slumber. The entire room was silent as each one was intensely listening. Suddenly, one of them said to me straight "What you say is all great, perfect, sounds good.. but tell me this, I am a working father leading a stressful life in office, with deadlines to meet, bosses to please, a family to take care of.. now how does all this philosophy help me? To me, the life that I am leading is reality. How does all this help?"

The same person had melted by the end of the day and was shedding tears of gratitude to the Master for having shown some perspective on many things that lay hidden all his life till then. Anyway, the point I want to make is that we feel spirituality is a philosophy. We feel that it is something told by some Master, limited to some scripture that we place in an altar, or limited to the priests in temples. If we for a moment, believe that there is some truth about it which we can imbibe into our own lives, then we start to see miracles happening. If we are having a nightmare and are suffering as a result of that (by sweating, crying, beating the bed etc) and if someone who is watching us wakes us up out of compassion, what do we do? Ofcourse we would wake up, thank that person for getting us out of the suffering and then maybe even laugh that it was all just a dream that we took so seriously. Is it not?

In the same way, techniques given my enlightened masters are just "wake-up calls" out of compassion, to make us see reality and stop suffering in our 'dreams'. An enlightened master is blissful all the time, because He is not caught in the dream of 'samsara'. He has woken up and watching us go through the nightmare patiently. He wakes up all those who allow Him to. Some people do not want to be woken up. They love their nightmares too much. Then what to do?

A simple 'click' that whatever we see around is just another dream is something that all Masters have said in many different ways. If we trust that there is truth in this statement and contemplate on it, the deeper truths emerge to the surface on their own and show light. In a recent talk that Swamiji delivered at the Life Positive Expo @ New Delhi a few months ago, this is the only solid and crisp message He put forth - "Just constantly remind yourself that whatever you see around is a dream". When Swamiji says that this is a practical technique, not a philopshy, He means it. And we have all seen the power behind each of the techniques that He gives as - powerful weapons that we can use in our lives - and NOT just a fancy theory.

Below is a clip taken from the discourse at Life Positive Expo where this click is conveyed by the Master Himself. Enjoy!

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