Spirit + Ritual = Spirituality

========================= THOUGHT PROCESS 1=========================

Lets go through this questionaire:

(1) What are our first thoughts when we wake up in the morning on a Monday morning?
(2) What are our first thoughts when we wake up in the morning on any weekday?
(3) How do we feel when it is Friday?


The answers are (for most of us...):

(1) Oh God! Its monday again...
(2) Let me sleep for some more time... or let me go a bit later.. or should I take the day off ...
(3) TGIF (thank God, its friday)


========================= THOUGHT PROCESS 2=========================


Each of us want to live happily. We work because we want to make money and we intend to live happily. We think that working hard or studying hard will give us the happiness that we are looking for. We think getting a promotion in job, getting a higher degree in university, getting a better post will help us live happily, will help us lead a successful life.


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Aren't the two thought processes that we go through totally contradictory? We want all the wealth in the world; we want to live happily; we want a big post, a big name in the society. We want everything but we are unwilling to put in what it needs to get those. Given an option, most of the times, we want to relax and enjoy but when we are given an option to relax, we are scared about our future, we get frightened to be left behind in the race to the top.


Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, "As a human being, we are gifted with two things - freedom and will. We exercise our freedom in every possible way but we do not exercise our will. We use our freedom to postpone things and relax but we do not have the will to actually sit and work towards what we want."

This is so true. We procrastinate and postpone even our sources of enjoyment. We want everything and we have all the freedom in the world to work towards getting those. But what is missing is our will to actually for it.

We are not intense in whatever we do, that is the problem. At work, which we believe brings us money, name and happiness, we are not intense. We are not enthused enough to really go and work. At the same time, when we are given an opportunity to take a break, we are not intense even to enjoy that. At work, when we go for coffee or tea, how many of us really enjoy that cup of tea and relax completely?

We do not have the will, the intensity and the enthusiasm for anything. Nithyananda says, "Your own lack of intensity and awareness is the main reason for all our stress, worry and all your emotional problems. We blame the external world for everything but the problem really lies inside us."

Nithyananda says beautifully,

"A ritual is a mechanical process till you add spirit to it; then it
becomes a meditation. Similarly, spirituality is all about adding spirit to
life. For most of us life is a mechanical process or a ritual. All we need to
add is spirit to life; then the ritual becomes spirituality."

The meditation and yoga programs like Life Bliss Program (LBP1) and Nithya Yoga, teach only this - adding intensity and awareness, just to enjoy every moment of life. They are not about some mystical stuff labeled as 'spirituality'. They are life solutions to explode in 360 degrees.

Come, enjoy life... enjoy spirituality...

Intensity + Awareness + Enthusiasm = Beauty + Grace

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'Beauty and grace happens in us because of three things - intensity, enthusiasm and awareness.'

And we can clearly see that in His body language. One thought that 99% of the people get when we see Him (either we are seeing Him for the first time or we have seen Him hundreds of times) is, 'What a beauty and grace?' Not just with Paramahamsa Nithyananda, the same happens with Masters like Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Sharada Devi, Lahiri Mahashaya. If you see the videos of Ramana Maharashi in youtube, you just fall in love with His silent grace. The pictures of Ramakrishna show that beauty of devotion; the pictures and words of Vivekananda show His strength; the potraits of Sharada Devi show that simplicity and the smile of Lahiri Mahashaya and Yogananda are worth thousands. In every movement of Paramahamsa Nithyananda who walks and talks to us in flesh and blood, we see that beauty and grace pouring out.

Why is that so? Simply because they are/were aware of every single movement, every single thought and every single breath that they used to take. We on the other hand are hardly aware of what we are doing. We move our hands, legs and body every where without even being aware of them. We would have done thousands of things in a day but in the darkness of unawareness (most of the times).

We do things, we speak, we move or rather we live not with intensity and enthusiasm but in the shackles of our engrave memories (engrams) or samskaras or past experiences and emotions. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'We keep doing the same things over and over again. We keep making the same mistakes again and again. In fact, we have the same thought patterns at specific times of the day even when the situations are different on different days.' This is simply because most of the times we operate mechanically.

Everything that we do is either because of our fears or because of our greed for wanting more and more. These two just take the beauty away from what we are doing. That awareness brings that beauty to our movements, thoughts and actions. If we see Paramahamsa Nithyananda in His discourses, every movement of His is hand is graceful. There is a sheer beauty that radiates from every movement of His. There is no unnecessary or violent movement or word.

He is blissful inside and hence the beauty, grace and bliss on the outside. The blissful smile of Lahiri Mahasaya and Yogananda is an expression of their bliss inside. The thousand watt gaze of Vivekananda is a manifestation of His strength of bliss inside. Meditation techniques and Nithya Yoga that Paramahamsa Nithyanada keeps talking about in all His discourses are meant for us to build that intensity, awareness and enthusiasm so as to realize and radiate our true nature - bliss.