Silent encounter with silence!

As most of our daily routines go, we would be interacting with friends, colleagues, clients, boss, family etc and for this we ofcourse use words. Otherwise, we are either hooked onto a book or a television or the internet, again a source of more words. We are so accustomed to feeding on words that we cannot even for a minute sit silently.

What prompted me to write this post is that the whole of today I have been alone with myself at home. And what normally is perceived as boring or lonely can be really a beautiful experience, a great opportunity to dive within and experience the silence within. Thanks to our Master, this is possible for me today.

If we see carefully, every word we utter is like a drain of energy. Mind you, even every word we listen to is a drain of energy. This is because, each of these words that are fed into us trigger long thought chains inside our system. These thoughts are usually external, towards the outer world and hence drain us. Now, imagine you were to just turn this entire energy inward, how energizing it would be!

In fact, Swamiji puts people into silence in ashram, sometimes for weeks. He once narrated this incident where one of His disciples was talking a lot, being overly jumpy about things, shouting and fighting with fellow disciples in the monastery. Swamiji asked him not to engage in any conversations henceforth with anyone. The dedicated disciple, without questioning a word to the master went into silence unconditionally. He didn't even question how long he had to practice this vow. After 18 months, the master says, this disciple had flowered into a new being and from then on was blessed by the master to carry the master's vak (energy behind speech/words).

Forget about being silent for 18 months! Let us at least consciously make use of the wonderful opportunities we get when we happen to be alone. If we are left by ourselves even for an hour, our mind would race all over the world and come up with ways to avoid this silence. We either switch on the TV, read some novel or find some friend to catch up with. Why? Because we are afraid of facing this silence.. because facing the silence means facing ourselves.

So how do we actually make use of these moments of being alone to experience the vibrant silence inside? First of all, let us not avoid these moments of silence. Let us treat the times when we are alone as an opportunity to introspect, contemplate and go within. Here's a beautiful technique that Paramahamsa Nithyananda gives:

When we sit alone and there is a thought or a stream of words that pops up. Our first reaction would be to give meaning to these words. We take the words too seriously and go after the meaning. Instead, if we just watch them in a relaxed and detached manner without bothering about what they mean, we would gradually be transported to the space from where words arise. Ironically words arise from silence!

As Swamiji says, words are a call from consciousness. They happen in us simply to remind ourselves to look into the source. They are just calling us to that space. Let us take the call seriously and not the words itself!

I leave you with a related video by Swamiji. N!joy!

Let us do our bit...

In the last couple of months, there have been two major natural disasters - a cyclone in Myanmar and an earthquake in China. Thousands of people perished, thousands were left homeless and thousands are still missing or unaccounted for in these disasters.

When such events or things like wars etc. occur, we who are sitting at home question - why this suffering? We don't stop at that question. We go on. We hold different people and even nature responsible for all the suffering. We curse the nature, we curse different people. We continuously abuse them.

We blame everyone and everything else for all these events in Universe. We sit in one corner of the world and comment on Existence. But we must understand one thing -

We are a part of the same Existence. Each of our thoughts, each of our words adds to the collective positivity or negativity.

All these natural disasters are nothing but the collective negativity of our own selves. All our negative thoughts, all our negativities come out as such natural disasters.

There have been experiments conducted in various places in the world where the crime rates decreased when people started group meditations. In U.S, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi's group performed group transcendental meditation (TM) and there are records which showed the crime rates decreased during those months. Recently, Vedic rituals called Mahasaptyagam were performed by disciples of Paramahamsa Nithyananda in various cities in India. This ritual involves 1008 people performing a fire ritual in a meditative state. It was found that again the crime rate reduced during those months in places like Chennai.

In one of our earlier post we discussed about Dr. Emoto's messages from water where thoughts like love and gratitude created wonderful crystals and thoughts like hatred generated ugly crystals. In our previous post on world peace, we also talked about a Hawaiin therapist who just with his thoughts filled with love cured criminally insane patients. That is the power of our own thoughts.

We think someone else is responsible for these natural disasters. We keep questioning, 'why God why? Why did you bring such calamity?' We simply don't realize that we are ones who are responsible for these events. We have been abusing the Nature not only with our actions but our thoughts also and now we blame someone else.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says beautifully, 'We think each one of us is an island. We think we are individuals. Once we realize that all of us related to each other in the Universal Consciousness, all our negativities drop.'

Now that is the powerful statement... Why do we have negativities? Our negative thoughts are a result of our ego, our belief that each one of us is at a superior position than others. Each one of us thinks that we are a separate entity from others. An enlightened master or being sees things in a different perspective. He sees everything, all living and non-living as one Universal Consciousness or Existential Energy. He sees everyone around as a part of Him. Our Master keeps telling us, 'try to see the other person in front of you as a part of your own self.' When we do that, we see that we cannot have anything negativity towards the other person because the other is also a part of us.

It is high time that we cleanse our inner space to cleanse our outer place. Constantly purifying and watching our own thoughts through meditation or other means can actually prevent a natural calamity that is waiting to happen. Let us do our bit... after all every drop makes an ocean...

Let me leave you with a video of our Master giving the significance of Kumbha Mela which is an event to create collective positivity at one place.

The Fig Tree

Over the last few days I have been watching a fig tree in our University campus. It is a huge 'sea fig' tree with a huge trunk and long, bulky branches; with its roots criss-crossing the near-by area like snakes crawling all over :) It has a thick canopy with beautiful long, flat, green leaves. All these branches and the trunk are filled with figs (some biological specialty, I heard). During afternoons, I have to take my internal shuttle bus and the bus stop is right below this tree. Thanks to its thick canopy, it is amazingly cool standing below it though our dear Sun in Singapore has been pretty harsh to people over the last few weeks. Not only humans, other species of fauna like birds and squirrels also spend quite a bit of time under the cool shade of the tree. They have figs also to feed on, you see.

Anyways, over the last one week, I saw that more sun rays were hitting me and the ground below the tree was filled with more leaves. And to my surprise, last weekend, I saw the tree completely bald. I mean there were no leaves at all on the tree; no leaves, no figs, nothing!! And so no birds, no squirrels and no humans also...

But today morning, I saw a beautiful sight. There were tender, light green leaves smiling like small babies filling all the branches of the fig tree. It was awesome; just seeing the tree covered in a light green carpet was breathtaking. I saw that the birds and squirrels were returning back to the tree, slowly but steadily.

Now, why I am telling all this... firstly it was beautiful to see that almost dead looking tree turn into a lovely and lively model and I wanted to share it. Secondly, I wanted to share something which I observed while this whole episode was going on. Whatever was happening to the leaves, the figs etc. etc., the trunk of the tree was still and steady. Whether the outer periphery of the branches was active and alive with action from animals and birds or whether it was completely deserted, the trunk was least affected. It enjoyed the presence of the leaves, the animals, the birds, the nests etc. but it also enjoyed the silence when they were gone.

Now imagine happening this to us. We are in an amazing job, have an amazing family. Everything is going great for us. We are all happy. In anyone of these is taken away from us that's it, we enter in a depression. In fact nobody has to take anything away, the very fear of losing what we hold keeps us in a state of continuous depression even if nothing has really happened.

All this is because our state of being is governed by the outer periphery. Unlike the fig tree, we get upset if the outer periphery is deserted. We enter into such a state that it takes a long time to fully recover from it and sometimes we can't even come back out of it. The trunk of the fig tree is not affected because it is happy unto itself. Its happiness is not because of them but despite of them. It is rock solid.

However, in our case, our trunk or our core is not centered at all in the first place. If someone says something positive today, we feel happy; if something good according to our ideas happens today, we feel happy and God forbid, if something, even one thing goes against our plan, that's all our whole foundation of happiness is shaken.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'Meditation makes your core strong and steady. It teaches you to be blissful irrespective of what is happen around you and that is spirituality.' When the core is blissful, nothing, not even death can affect us (please watch this video by a professor from Carnegie Melon University who spoke about himself in Oprah).

That fig tree is living its life, it is living true spirituality and what about you...

Haven't we taken our toys too seriously?

Most of us have our lives centered around our family, career, money, house, friends, spouse, children, their education, our health, parents' health etc. If we just peek into a gathering of friends or relatives anywhere in the world, you will find them all talking about these same things with minor variations. Our inner space is like a tape recorder that continuously plays thoughts related to one of these in a fixed pattern, day in and day out.

But there are times when all this seems meaningless! This could happen when we enter into places with high spiritual energy like temples or quiet ashrams. Something deep down tells us that this deep peace which we experience in those places is where we actually came from, and where we should be. Suddenly the whole life seems to be a drama. We start to see the insignificance of our so called problems, our so called worries.

Recently my aunt after visiting the ashram at Bidadi said to me 'It was such an amazing experience! I have now realized how I have been wasting my time and energy all these years. From now I have decided I will put in my entire life into spiritual upliftment etc.' Then what happens after we go back home? We cling back to our old routine, old thought patterns, old sources of pleasure and what not.

Why does this happen? Ramakrishna says beautifully: When a child is engrossed in the toys given to it, the mother is relaxed doing her chores in the kitchen, because she knows the child is alright, enjoying. But after a while when the child gets bored of the toys, it starts to look this side and that side. It suddenly wants the mother beside it. Then it starts to cry - first softly. Then begins to wail. Now, the mother cannot bear to see the child crying. So she comes running to puts the child in her arms.

Does this sound familiar? This is exactly the game we play in our lives with our toys. Till such time we are busily playing with our toys, the cosmic mother Parashakti waits patiently. Only when we realize the futility of the whole thing and cry for her earnestly, she responds!

Swamiji quotes this beautiful story that will further throw light on this. There were two little boys building sand castles at the beach. In the process, one of them got into a quarrel with the other and kicked the sand castle of the other in anger. Now this other boy went and complained to the king, for which the king laughed and said "Why are you crying for such a trivial thing? After all they are just sand castles". For this the minister said "Dear king, how different is this from you crying over your stone castles?"

So, when we are young, we cry for toy cars. When we grow up we cry for bigger toy cars! That's all. No difference!

There is nothing wrong with playing with the toys as long as we know we are only playing with toys! The problem is that we start to take the toys too seriously and forget that we have our mother waiting for us. All we need to do is to cry for her, she will come running to embrace us!

Courage to experiment

Paramahamsa Nithyananda recalls one of His childhood memories in His biograph and many discourses. Very briefly, He was just 9 years old when he went for a discourse that was being given by an enlightened master named Annamalai Swami, a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. He says, 'That night Annamalai Swami was talking about how we are not body, we are not disturbed or we do not have pains. We are beyond body. We are beyond sufferings... All these high Vedantic ideas. I was surprised to hear those words. So I went home and took a knife and cut my thigh. Of course I had pain; I was taken to doctor and also got two from mother.

'After few days, I went back to Annamalai Swami and asked Him, 'What did you teach me? I tried this after listening to you and now I have pain.' Annamalai Swami says, 'Son, don't bother about the pain. Try to see where that thought is coming.' He taught me a technique to find the source of thoughts and finally said, 'The very courage to experiment with the truth will liberate you. Don't bother about anything else.'

The whole point of having so many of His discourses on youtube is to inspire and encourage people to experiment with the truths He is talking about. All enlightened masters had one thing in common. They were daring enough to experiment with the truth. Paramahamsa Yogananda in His Autobiography of a Yogi also talks about how He used to experiment with the ideas of intention or sankalpa. Similarly, another enlightened master Nisargadatta Maharaj comtemplated on the idea of 'I am' that was given to Him by His master as an experiment and eventually it became a meditation for Him.

Most of us read, listen or watch some discourse of Nithyananda or any other master and we either forget about it or brush it aside for the time being. As long as we listen to the discourse, we say, 'wow, this is awesome; this is so true.' Once the discourse is done, all the enthusiasm also goes down. We are back to our normal lifestyle with the same tensions, same worries and same stress.

Why do we do this? If the discourse was so awesome and answered our problems, why don't we practice them? The simple answer is we do not have the courage and strength to experiment and go against our engraved memories and emotions. We choose to be in the same state. That's the word - choose. We choose to be in the luxury of the known worries, tensions and stresses. The great truths by enlightened masters seem like unknown territories and we dare not to venture into those areas.

We forget one thing in this choosing process that what we think as unknown and what we are scared of is actually leading to our own self, the bliss of realizing our own true potential.

Simple techniques like watching breath or laughing out, being in a blissful mood etc. should be experimented; only then we see the truth behind them. In our meditation courses, we keep reminding people, please go back and experiment and know for yourself.

Nobody can force anyone to do a meditation. Only when one experiments with himself, can he really see the true potential of the great truths from the master. Let me end this post with our Masters own words in this video titled: The courage to experiment.

Relaxing in the present moment

'What is our idea of relaxation? After work, we generally say, 'let me go and relax.' What do we generally do to relax?', I asked these to a group of people who came for an introductory talk on meditation. Some answers were: sleeping, doing nothing, watching TV, gardening ...

Different kinds of answers but everyone agreed on one thing, 'when we are not working, we try to relax...'

Now the question is, 'are we really relaxing?'

General notion of relaxation is comparative, i.e. if I am an accountant, during the office hours I am busy looking at accounts, some numbers etc. After the office hours, I go back home and sit in front of a TV and spend some time watching something. I call this after-work process where I am not doing any accounts, relaxing. If the same evening, I spend meeting some client and discuss accounts, that again is work and not relaxation.

So if we are not working on something which we associate it with our profession, we call that relaxation.

The point that I am trying to put forth is - we are simply changing our object of thought process from one to the other but our mind is still busy with thousands of thoughts. At office, our mind was busy fiddling with thoughts about accounts, at home our mind is busy absorbing and working on horror and action that comes on TV.

What is relaxation supposed to do? Why would we want to relax? So that we are rejuvenated. Relaxation should refresh us. It should boost us with energy.

But after so-called relaxing by watching TV or by going for a movie or by partying, are we really energized and rejuvenated? The answer most of the times is - no.

All we are doing is just changing the place and object; that's all! Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'when you are at office and thinking, you call it work; when you are sitting on a beach and thinking, you call it vacation.' If we are thinking everywhere and everything, where is the relaxation happening?

The reason why we get tired is because we dissipate large amounts of our energy thinking about our past and future. That is when we look for relaxation. We believe that by changing the place, the object of work to another, we can stop the thought chain. We seek the help of external world to keep our attention diverted from something that we believe is taxing us. But the next object that we take up, the next place that we go to comes with its own set of thoughts and our mind is happy again. It has food to eat though we think we are relaxing and calming the mind.

Sleeping is another activity which we believe relaxes us. It is true to an extent but not always. Even after sleeping, we continue our thinking process through our dreams. And if we notice carefully, we feel tired and sick after we wake up dreaming all night. There are few moments of deep sleep (without dreams) that we enter into which helps us to relax and energize.

So the question still remains, 'how do we relax?' Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'Get a break from the inner chatter and experience deep relaxation.' Only when we are in the present moment, when we are completely within ourselves, we can be completely relaxed. Total relaxation is not obtained by changing the external environment like the work or the place. It can be obtained by changing the internal environment. Even while working, we can be in complete relaxation only if we are in the present moment and enjoying the moment to its fullest and with extreme enthusiasm. That is the reason why there are many people who feel relaxed and fresh after gardening and such activities because they enjoy every moment and where they focus only on gardening and nothing else.

Meditation helps us to experience great sense of relaxation in a conscious manner. It helps us to fall into the present moment and thus into low-thoughts zone in a conscious way, i.e we go into that state of relaxation being completely aware of it. The number of thoughts decrease drastically at the end of the meditation. When the thoughts decrease, the energy dissipation also decreases and we relax. In Nithyananda's monastery in India, we undergo hours of meditation and get hardly two or three hours of sleep but throughout the day, we are fresh and energized.

Meditation is the greatest tool for real relaxation. Try it and see for yourself :)

Ashram... spiritual laboratory

Recently one of my friends decided to join Swami Nithyananda's ashram (monastery). This decision of his became quite a bit of news amongst his relatives and friends. Many people ask a common question, 'why do we have to join the ashram to grow spiritually? Can't we progress by staying out?'

A very valid question indeed and a debatable one also... Anyways let me jot down some points what Swami Nithyananda says about this. First of all we must understand what the purpose of an ashram is. Only then can we really see the reason for someone joining it.

As soon as we step out of our house, or even inside the house when we switch on the TV, we are continuously filled with three base emotions - fear, greed and lust. Everywhere around us, the society tries to instill one of these three emotions inside us. If we see carefully, even the ideas of peace and love that the society promotes is based on fear and greed. Every hoarding, every advertisement, everything that happens and exists outside us constantly feeds us with these emotions.

With these around us, our unconscious mind that works million times faster than our conscious mind picks up all these without even we knowing. We think we are not getting affected or influenced by any of these but the truth is our unconscious has already registered it. We are constantly adding ourselves with these three emotions knowingly or unknowingly (most of the times).

Swami Nithyananda says, 'Ashram is an energy center, a spiritual incubator, where inner science can be studied, experimented with and experienced.' An ashram provides conducive environment for one to fill oneself with love and peace and nothing else. That is the purpose of an ashram... to help one be in the constant thought of enlightenment, in the continuous contemplation of the truth.

This is the reason why an ashram is ideal place for spiritual growth.

Now, coming to the next question, 'Can't we progress by staying out?' We can but we need to be sure that we are not affected by these emotions that surround us in our day to day life outside. We need to answer to ourselves honestly, 'are we totally unaffected by the society and its conditionings?' If the answer is true, then we can very well be living outside and progress in our spiritual journey. Unfortunately, for most of us, the answer is in the negative...

And the second question we have to answer to ourselves is, 'can we maintain the intensity of seeking while staying out? Can the quest of seeking the truth be constantly intensified in us?' Swami Nithyananda says, 'when the question becomes a quest, when the urge becomes urgent, enlightenment just happens...' An ashram creates the intense atmosphere for seeking the truth. If one can stay out and keep the quest burn constantly in oneself, he/she is truly exceptional...

We sit outside and pass judgments about people in there; we evaluate them... All I am saying we have no right to comment on them or talk about them because they are more courageous and bolder than us to go in there for the truth and enlightenment...

Before ending, I would like to say that I am not asking everyone to go an ashram. That is not the point. Infact Swami Nithyananda turns down many requests of joining ashram because He knows when a person is really ready to enter an ashram. All I want to convey is we are in no position to question or doubt or evaluate or talk about people who have taken the gutsy step going all out for the Ultimate...

Hats off to them...

Surrender? Err.. What is that?

The last two days, all healers in Singapore had a great opportunity to attend a 2 day program called - Living in Ananda Gandha. Apart from the many discussions and meditations related to the great gift of initiation by the Master, the much awaited discussion about "surrender" finally happened.

Each of us was asked for what we think is 'surrender'. Some said 'total acceptance', some said 'leaving it all to existence', some others 'doing whatever Swamiji says'. At the end of this, a deep understanding set within me about this subject.

What does it mean to surrender? Is it important whom you surrender to? Does surrender mean giving up what you hold dear in your life?

In one of the early discourses given by Paramahamsa Nithyananda, He says surrender does not mean renouncing what you have, it means simply renouncing what you don't have. What does this really mean? Let us take the example of a mother giving birth to a child. Along with the child comes the attachment to it, a baggage of worries and fears about the child's health, education etc, then a whole load of expectations from the child. If we see, only the child has physical and real existence, the rest is all created in our minds. They are a product of our ego - arising out of this solid identity with this body-mind entity. It is these we need to give up to live in reality.

Swamiji also says that it doesn't matter whom we surrender to - it could even be a stone or a metal statue! Now, how is this possible? Let us see what exactly happens when we surrender to someone. We should understand that in this whole process of surrendering, the person to whom we are surrendering actually is not even being affected. The matter really lies with us. How can we say so? It is because through the act of surrendering, we are actually liberating ourselves from those things that bind us.

The very readiness to give up something is enough, we do not really need to give it up. If I am able to live with my wealth, house, spouse, career etc with the attitude that I would remain the same even if they are taken away from me, then it means I have truly surrendered them all to the feet of existence.

Actually, however ironical it may sound, surrender and liberation are one and the same! One may think that by surrendering we are becoming a slave. It is the other way around. It is because of the fact that we are slaves of our desires that we cannot surrender them. They bind us so much so that our entire happiness/sorrow is ruled by them. We are not able to let go. They make us their slave. When we surrender them, we just let go - a total liberation!

How can it be so simple???

'Simple' is a word that has become quite alien us. Take anything, we want to make it look sophisticated and complex. If someone asks us questions that are simple, we just cannot answer them but we can answer all the complex questions.

Many a times during my under-graduation, I would bump into situations where I simply cannot explain the basic questions but I would explain anything complex. E.g. how the transistor works was not clear but I could explain how an amplifier consisting of some ten transistors works. I am sure many of you might have come across such situations. We can explain all complex scenarios but when we are faced with simple questions, we are stumped; a big question mark can be seen on our face :)

The problem is we have stopped thinking simple. We want to think complex things without even answering the simple questions or understanding the simple statements.

We, in the name of science and technology, are developing complex theories and systems but we haven't answered the simple questions - what is life and what is death - through complex intellect.

We boast of knowing everything around us but the fact is we do not know our own self. If we know everything, then why do we get stressed out; why do we give power to emotions like anger, frustrations, tension, worry and fear to rule us?

The answer is simple - we do not know ourselves. We do not have clue as to we have inside us. We do not know the unconscious baggage that we have within us. Even modern science proves that 90% of our decision making and actions are rule by our unconscious. Only 10% goes through a conscious process.

If that is the case, what are we boasting about knowing everything around us? We are being simply stupid by thinking we are all-powerful; there are no bigger fools than us if we think we rule our life.

Such simple understandings can revolutionize the way we look at everything. One such simple understanding that all enlightened masters including Paramahamsa Nithyananda makes is, 'You are God.' Our convoluted intellect and mind simply cannot take this because it is too simple. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'you are enlightened. Just the acceptance of this statement completely will make you enlightened. Getting enlightened is so simple...'

But no! We cannot accept that the concept of God and enlightenment is so simple. Our so-called sophisticated and well-developed mind cannot even accept and experiment with such simple statements.

If we scan through the lives of most enlightened masters, they were simple people and they got enlightened while they were in deep relaxation. When they dropped the idea that enlightenment is complex, they got enlightened.

Meditation is a tool to understand these simple truths. If we just keep our complex minds aside for a while and meditate, we can experience some of the simple truths that all enlightened masters speak of... it is that simple :)

Blissful Morning

Anywhere in the world, the first thing that comes on TV in the morning is news. The newspaper boy comes and delivers it early in the morning. Infact in many countries, some kind of abridged version of the newspaper is given free to people in public transport like buses and subways.

That is the first thing that we generally do.. get ourselves updated with news from around the world. And that is the reason why so many channels, whether they are news channels or entertainment channels, show news only during the morning time slots.

Now coming to the contents of what we receive during the morning hours... war in some country.. so many people killed.. petrol prices rising.. inflation rates rising.. economy slowing.. more unemployment.. so and so defeated someone to get rank 1.. etc. etc.

If we carefully analyze the news, most news if not all, continuously adds to our negative feelings. If there is an act of terrorism somewhere, we start feeling hatred to that group. If someone defeats someone else, we get angry about the defeat. If inflation rate, property prices, petrol prices are rising, there is an immediate sense of sadness, fear or anger in us. Whether or not our feeling like that affects the concerned party, I don't know but one thing is for certain - we are continuously feeding ourselves with negativities.

Let me tell you something really scientific. It has been proven scientifically that there is continuous electrical activity that happens in our brain and different kinds of brain waves are generated. Of particular interest are alpha and beta waves. Beta waves are generated when we are in a state of stress, tension or in more general terms when we are in a state of continuous activity. Alpha waves demonstrate the creativity aspect of ourselves. Our ability to learn and grasp things is affected by these waves. These are the soothing waves. They bring deep peace and calmness in us. The brain wave patterns of children shows alpha waves mainly and for adults, it is beta waves. That is the reason why children are more creative and pick up creative things like music, painting, arts, languages etc. faster than adults.

Now here is the most important point - in adults, the brain wave patterns are predominantly alpha waves during morning time. It simply means that in the morning, our natural tendency is to be calm and blissful. But what do we do? We continuously feed ourselves with junk.

This precisely the reason why in Vedic culture the morning starts with a chants called Suprabhaatam. In all temples in India, the first thing that they play are these chants. As discussed in our previous post on chants, the sounds that are generated while reciting chants have tremendous effects on us. In India, especially in villages, we see temples playing these chants on loudspeakers. This is done so that early in the morning when we wake up, at least for a few minutes we can experience the deep inner peace and silence. Same goes with why simple rituals and prayers or puja are done early in the morning. All these are tools for us to enter into a deep silence and experience that bliss.

Only now science is studying the brain wave patterns. The importance of 'Brahmi muhurtam' or morning time is very well researched and described in Vedic scriptures thousands of years ago by enlightened masters and there was lifestyle that evolved on these concepts. In many parts of India, especially in villages, people still follow them and live blissfully with whatever they have.

We so called 'modern' people have the tendency to ridicule ancient practices such as this, calling them baseless, illogical and unscientific. We boast of our sophisticated city lifestyle but all this lifestyle is doing is to keep us continuously in a state of tension, stress and surround us with negativities.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes how beautifully people live in Indian villages and describes Vedic lifestyle as way to infuse life into everything we do. There is a beautiful meditation Swamiji asks us to do early in the morning. As soon as you get up, touch every part of the part, from head to toe and express love and gratitude to each and every part. Touch and tell each part - thank you and I love you. You will simply see how your body reacts especially when we do it early in the morning.

So, enjoy the blissful morning sun with peace and calmness...

Grown-up - Are we??

Last night, I saw this cute little girl, probably less than two years old, dressed up in a beautiful white frock, running around while her mom was standing nearby. I was watching her playfully running around enjoying the moonlight and after a few seconds, she cheerfully sat down and lied down completely on the road. I could clearly see that she was playing with a big grin on her face. Her mom on the other side was looking all around and started scolding her, 'you should not lie down like that here... get up .. get up ...' After a few seconds, the kid jumped up and started running all around...

Such incidents are a not new. They keep happening everywhere. The first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about or look at children is their innocence, playfulness and cheerfulness. They are full of energy (literally). They are not bothered about society. They jump, they whirl, they run, they laugh, they do everything and they are not bothered who is around, where they are, what people say.

We all were in that state and along the way of so-called 'growing-up' we have forgotten our true self. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'We have forgotten our true nature, that of innocence, that of bliss, as we grew up. Layers and layers of societal and parental conditionings have been built up on us and we forget our true nature.'

Our true nature is that of bliss. We expressed that bliss when we were kids but now if someone says one word against us, we are upset the whole day. We don't smile for weeks or don't talk to that person again for days or even years. If we look at children, they cry but just after a few minutes they start smiling.

We see a number of times how children effortlessly walk barefoot on surfaces where we can't even imagine to walk. I have seen kids running around barefoot in the ashram where some stretches have gravel and stones. When we walk, we think of the pain, the heat of sand, the piercing stones even before we walk. Children on the other hand, don't know what is pain unless you tell them what it is. You might have seen it many times; children fall but immediate get up and start running around. If they are hurt, they just point towards it but they don't cry immediately until we adults go and ask them, 'is it paining?'

We have been constantly bombarded with all kinds of negative ideas and conditionings and we do the same thing with our children. We were constantly bound by society and we bind the children also in the same way. The way we speak, the way we walk, the way we lead our life are completely dependent on how the society wants us to be but not on how we want to express ourselves. Just because we mold ourselves to fit into the society, we go through all our problems. The insecurities, fears, guilt, stress, worry and whatever emotion we can think of, even love, is because of our inability to express our true nature and our fear of being quarantined by the society.

Children on the other hand are centered. They are not bound by the society (atleast initially). They just express their energy and bliss. They can jump for hours together; can we adults do that? No! They can whirl continuously; can we adults do that? No! What is the difference? They simply do not associate themselves with the body. They don't see their body as an obstacle to express their bubbling energy. But we, so called adults, we have become more body conscious and society conscious. We simply do not know what we are. We define ourselves based on the society but they aren't like that. We so bound by society and its concepts like status, name, fame, money, caste, religion etc. ete. that most of the times we don't know who our neighbour is. Leave two children in a room; they start playing; they start interacting even if they are new to each other. Forget an unknown person, we sometimes don't even speak to our relatives and friends openly.

If you get a chance to go to the Swamiji's ashram in Bidadi, see the Gurukul kids there. They radiate bliss. They will come and serve you food, they help you get around the ashram etc. During one of the programs, I remember how beautifully they were helping us understand and do the guru puja. They simply radiate that bliss to everyone, wherever you are from.

All we have to do is break all these conditionings. All our so-called problems simply disappear with this one understanding and some of the meditation courses by Paramahamsa Nithyananda work exactly on this... Once we do that, all we are left with is nothing by eternal bliss - nithyananda. Enjoy this short 2-minute clipping on this subject by Paramahamsa Himself.

Inner Transformation - the Greatest Service

Last night one of our friends beaming with a grin was sharing with us about his parents' first meeting with Paramahamsa Nithyananda. They had just visited Bidadi to receive healing and blessings directly from Swamiji. He was telling us how touched they were by the healing presence of the Master. Now (during the month of March 2008), the Master Himself is giving free healing to thousands of people who are coming to the ashram. He is giving free discourses in the evening every day. Throughout this month, everyone morning, He sits there patiently, listening to the problems of people. He sits there without a break as long as there are people.

We keep hearing about social services by various NGOs etc. They might be doing great work but the compassion of an enlightened master cannot be matched by any person or any organization. I have heard people ask, 'all meditation programs are ok but what social service does the organization do?'

I feel compelled to tell about the social service part of the Paramahamsa Nithyananda's movement because these details never come out in the open. In the website, we see a tab 'Social Service' with one page write up but if we go slightly deeper, we see theres so much that is being done and Swamiji does not even mention about it. The fortnightly free health check up camps, free eye check up camps and free meditation programs to thousands (literally) of people for rural villages in India are just a few examples. There are one-year long courses being conducted in the ashram in India where few hundred people are undergoing spiritual training under Swamiji, completely free. They are learning the Vedic sciences without spending even a rupee on anything. There are many more ...

Anyways, one important thing, I want to highlight is Paramahamsa Nithyananda's expression of His enlightenment is like teaching a person how to fish rather than giving him fish for one meal. He is continuously on the mission of inner transformation of the individual through meditation. That is the biggest social service that someone can do. When this inner transformation happens, every individual starts to radiate that bliss and energy of the Master to everyone around; the socially perceived social service happens through each one of them. Like He says -

"Transformation of humanity and global peace happen through transformation of every individual."

Shiva: Causeless Auspicious Energy!

For the first time in our lives, Shiva Raatri was really a raatri with Shiva! We started off the evening of Shiva Raatri, 6th March 2008 with a special satsang here, where we watched Swamiji talk about 'Shiva: the Causeless Auspicious Energy'. Truly, nothing could be more auspicious than being in His energy field. The beautiful energy play during the meditation and the energy darshan that followed!!!

Totally charged and rejuvenated after the satsang, four of us headed to our place with a resolve to do a jaagaran (night out). Initially none of us thought we could pull through a full night out physically, considering we had to be back in office/work/meetings/presentations the next day. But somehow, we decided strongly "today we will not allow our mind to cause us any fatigue, sleep or boredom"... after all, what better opportunity to soak into the causeless energy!

We selected and watched a few of our favorite videos of Swamiji, interspersed it with some Ananda Natana (blissful dance...yes, at about 3 am we were dancing away to the latest breathless Nithya dance beats!) and did a beautiful darkness meditation that converted whatever trace of sleep into fresh bursts of energy! There was simply so much energy everywhere, we thought to ourselves "its not just the four of us in that house.. Swamiji was definitely with us!!"

We then went for a 'Nithya Yoga walk' at about 5 am, every step with intensity, awareness, breathing in the cool fresh prana (life energy) of braahmi muhurtam (referred to wee hours of morning, ideal for meditation). It was such a fun packed day (night!).

At the end of it, something that proved to be an interesting learning experience for us. We could clearly see the liberation and energizing process that happens when we ignore the mind (in this case, the context of lethargy or tiredness). Swami in His latest talks on Nithya Dhyaan at Bangalore speaks about a wonderful concept, that of chronic fatigue. He gives an example. When we are running, after a while, the mind says "no no, I think you are tired.. I think you need some rest..etc". If at that point, we choose to ignore the ranting of the mind and continue running, He says we suddenly feel a tremendous burst of energy. This is because the samskara of chronic fatigue would have left our system for those moments and hence the liberation.. the energy rush happens. He goes on to say that if a seeker has crossed this layer of chronic fatigue, then 90% of his spiritual journey has been covered.

What a great opportunity to internalize so many truths! Truly, a night with Shiva, a night with the Truth, a night with Nithyaaaaananda!!

Here's Paramahamsa Nithyananda's video on Shiva:

Guru's Grace

About four years ago, when words like meditation or master or spirituality were just beginning to make sense to me, my cousin gave me this book called Play of Consciousness by Swami Muktananda, and said that it is worth reading it. Apparently he was very inspired by it. When I read the following message in the third chapter on 'The Greatness of the Guru', I just closed the book with a deep sense of helplessness and thought to myself 'This is not fair!!'.

The passage read: "Realization of God is possible only through a Guru...We should acquire the sublime grace of a Guru, for until the Kundalini Shakti is awakened by the Guru's grace, our inner light does not shine, our state of bondage cannot be lifted. Just as there can be no life without prana, so without the Guru there can be no knowledge, no unfolding and growth, no destruction of darkness, no opening of third eye. The Guru is more necessary than a friend, a son, a husband or a wife. He gives a new birth to man, he gives him the experience of knowledge..."

I felt, a person who has experienced the Guru's grace can easily express his gratitude and glorify the Guru. I felt these words did not make any sense to a person like me, who was so helpless, in the dark, all alone. 'Where do I now go in search of a Guru?' I thought. I was left with sadness, with nobody to share these emotions with. I just thought I should move on.

A few days after this incident happened, I was delighted when I read in 'The Autobiography of a Yogi' that when the disciple is ready, the Guru arrives at your doorstep. Somehow, I was consoled, but even those words didn't really sink deep. I was deeply touched seeing the beautiful guru-disciple relationship that Paramahamsa Yogananda shared with his master Sri Yukteshwar. Similarly, when I first read about the relationship that Swami Vivekananda shared with his Guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, I thought to myself 'how lucky Swami Vivekananda is, to have the fortune of being a disciple of Ramakrishna'.

Now, as I sit back and recall the incidents that led me to me meeting my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda, nothing remains except tears of joy and gratitude that flood my eyes. I can now understand what each of them meant by the grace of the Guru. The sheer compassion of the master for no reason, who showers his grace on anyone who seeks refuge in Him is hard to comprehend. The deep transformation, healing and experiences of higher consciousness would never ever have been possible but for the grace of my Guru, Swamiji. In eternal gratitude to Him...

Vedic Chants... Useless? Think Again.

For most so-called modern people, especially youth, when we are told the word, "chants", thats it. We immediately call it religious and useless. We dismiss the chants instantly. We do not even want to listen to them. We feel our so-called modern image does not go well with the chants. Ironically, this syndrome is seen more in Indians.

To those of us who reject chants in the name of religion or tradition, a simple question, 'have we ever wondered why so many Sanskrit chants were written in the first place? Why were they written in a particular way? Why do they sound in a particular way? Why one comes after the other? What is their significance?'
No! we do not even want to think about these questions, simply because we want to be modern, we want to be non-religious, we want to be scientific. Let me tell you, the sounds of these chants, the structure of these chants are more scientific than modern day quantum physics. Modern day scientists are currently working on the power of these chants, the effects of these chants on human mind-body system.

The people, who designed and wrote these chants, developed them in high states of consciousness. The mere sounds of these chants create vibrations, which have healing and cleansing properties; there are enough scientific evidences to prove this. Many emotional disorders and depression can be healed by the vibrations of these chants. Lifestyle diseases like diabetics, blood pressure, ulcers etc. are being tackled with these vibrations. Experiments have shown that plants that grow better amidst chants. If all this is not modern then I doubt what is?

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'Every language tires us when we speak in that language. Sanskrit is the only language which creates sounds, which creates vibrations that energizes us when we speak it. Sanskrit language is not just linguistic which was created for the sake of transmitting an idea or concept. It has phonetic importance also. The very vibrations that are generated have power on you. And being in the sound of the Vedic chants is an easy way to experience the power these vibrations.'

And we reject them just because our fast paced modern lifestyle does not think them to be cool enough for us. We are ready to listen to music in Arabic or Spanish or Chinese, languages which we don't even understand. Even worse we listen to songs with heavy music, songs where we can't even make out whether it is a music or noise, sounds which create terrible effects in our system but we cannot sit down and listen few minutes of Sanskrit chants. Simply because these chants are not modern enough; we think they are not scientific enough.

Just being in the vibrations generated by the chants can do wonders in our system. The only thing that is stopping us modern people from even trying this is our mind and ego. Drop that mind, drop our so called modern image for a few minutes, so that we can allow these sounds to work on us. Let me leave you with a beautiful video on this topic in our Master's own words.

Feeding our senses - a favorite passtime

Yesterday I went for an Indian movie titled Jodha Akbar, which shows the life of a famous Moghul emperor - Akbar and his wife Jodha. Just a few lines about Akbar and Jodha before entering the subject :) Akbar is considered one of the greatest Moghul emperors to rule India in the sixteenth century. He consolidated most of India under one administration and came up with innovative styles of governance. Akbar was a Muslim but his wife Jodha was a Hindu by religion who was a devout Krishna follower.

Now let me come to the point... Let me describe peoples' reactions to different scences in the movie theater.

Scene 1 - Battle of Panipat: There were armies fighting, clashing against each other, bloody fights, swords, sounds, screams, blood, death ...
Audience Reaction: Pin-drop silence, glued to the screen ...

Scene 2 - Sufi saints singing: Akbar was a follower of a great enlightened Sufi saint called Moinuddin Christi. Sufi saints sing a song and enter into a whirling meditation.
Audience Reaction: Loud laughter at the people dancing, mockery at the way they look, they dress up and dance...

Scene 3 - Another fight: A close aid of Akbar attacks him... a short sword fight
Audience Reaction: Pin-drop silence, glued to the screen ...

Scene 4 - Devotion of Jodha: Jodha goes and kneels down before the idol of Krishna and prays for recovery of Akbar when he gets wounded.
Audience Reaction: Loud laughter and mockery...

Scene 5 - Final battle between Akbar and his rival, shot almost like the final fight sequence in the Hollywood movie Troy.
Audience Reaction: Pin-drop silence, glued to the screen, not even blinking their eyes...

This is the state of human consciousness. We are thrilled to see a bloody battle, a fight sequence but we cannot sit for five minutes to watch heart touching devotional scene. Believe me, the Sufi song especially is heart touching rendering.

When we watch a fight sequence, our adrenaline levels start rising. We are glued when either an action scene or a lustful scene comes up on screen. These are the commercial elements of a movie or a program and we enjoy such commercial scenes. Such scenes give us sensory pleasure. When we watch an action scene, we actually start feeling so much for the protagonist that we ourselves sometimes feel like getting up and hitting the bad guy :) ... Such is the way we get involved in such scenes.

On the other hand, heartful rendition of a beautiful Sufi song or a scene showing the power of devotion, we dismiss it immediately. Simply because such scenes most often than not do not give the kind of kick that an action scene gives. Since we do not get the sensory pleasure, we do not appreciate something which comes from a deeper layer.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'we are continuously bombarded with violence and negativities throughout the day that we can now relate to such kinds of things only.'

This is true. Be it movies or television serials, everything is based on violence. If humans are not enough people invent robots, aliens, predators, big sharks, crocodiles and even cockroaches to show violence, blood and death. What is even more dangerous is how children, hardly 5 or 6 years old are glued to their playstations, X-boxes or hand held gaming consoles killing the bad guys, bombing the enemies etc.

We are simply filling ourselves with garbage. If we really see, we do not need all that. We do not need that violence. But our senses crave for it and we feed our senses obediently.

Our Master says, 'all the mass calamities like tsunamis etc. are a result of collective negativities.' Our own negativities are accumulating to an extent that such incidents occur.

Its a pity that we are becoming the cause of our own destruction. We can decide now to pull ourselves out of it, only if we wish to...

P.S: One of the meditations in the programs conducted by Paramahamsa Nithyananda includes the Sufi whirling meditation for 42 minutes.

Judging the mind or judging the master?

Last week, there were a couple of new members at our weekly wellness meet (satsang) here in Singapore. They have been in the so-called spiritual path for many years, have been with many masters. Apparently they were very touched and inspired by Swamiji's discourses on youtube; that's how they found their way to our center.

In the course of my conversation with them, one of them started remarking 'this master is like this, that master is like that, that other master should be more...' etc. Although he said great things about Swamiji, I felt uncomfortable when this kind of analysis about masters started.

As Swamiji says, one of the favorite pastimes of people who are so-called spiritual seekers is to constantly evaluate and judge various masters. Swamiji says "these professional seekers, their profession is to seek!" Not thinking about how one can benefit from the master, they are ready with their evaluation report about him, whether good or bad!

It is time we stop the evaluation outside and start the internal evaluation of ourselves. Many people ask Swamiji "With the track record of so many fake sadhus, isn't it essential we judge and evaluate first to be convinced about whom we are following?"

To that, His beautiful answer: The only test for you to follow a master is to see if you feel a deep connection, from the heart and being. If this happens, then even if the master is not enlightened, it's ok. Just follow him, you will become enlightened. If that connection does not happen, then even if he is enlightened, he cannot help you!

Many times we miss the master simply because we give more power to the mind. I cannot help but quoting Swamiji again on this. He says, "it is never a battle between you and your mind. It is a battle between me and your mind. Just decide which side you want to support". So, if we decide to be on the mind's side, even by mistake, then we know where we are headed!

A related video where Swamiji answers this issue in His own words:

Simple it sounds, yet so powerful it is!!

Yesterday during a coffee break with my colleagues, my feet accidentally touched my colleague and my immediate reaction was to say sorry (of course in an Indian style). We might have seen, especially with Indians, when something/someone comes in their way and if accidentally their legs/feet touch the person or things like books, vessels, etc. we bow down, touch the person/thing and do a little prayer.

Of course, this might seem stupid to outsiders. Why should someone pray if his/her legs touch a book or a person? Socially, our legs touching an elder shows disrespect. Again society instills fear in children saying if your legs touch books, you will not study well.

These are surely social reasons. But I was thinking there should be some deeper meaning to all this. It seems to have been present in Vedic lifestyle for a long time. Society cannot come up with a new concept. It can only twist an existing concept to suit its needs. So there should be some deeper meaning to it. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says Vedas are true knowledge and following Vedic lifestyle leads one to enlightenment. If that is the case, how does this seemingly social practice fit in the path enlightenment?

Paramahamsa Nithyananda recalling His first enlightenment experience says, 'when the experience happened, I found myself in everything around me. I was not able to eat food because in that food also I saw myself. How can I eat myself?' He says that an enlightened being sees the Divine, the Self, Himself or Herself in everything and everyone.

And this is precisely what is inculcated in children in the practice that I described above but with a twisted meaning to it :) If we remove the societal reasons to the practice, we can unearth a beautiful meaning to the whole practice of seeing God or Divine or our own Self in each and everything around. By touching them and praying we are respecting our own Self or the Divinity in them. Beautiful isn't it?

Now, people who do not understand call this stupid but once we understand what and why behind it, we see that everything that was a part Vedic lifestyle leads one to enlightenment. The whole Vedic lifestyle was such that every little action would turn the thoughts and energy towards the divine, and realizing It. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says Veda means true knowledge, that knowledge with has not been corrupted by the mind. He says, 'when we don't interfere and let the mind rest, true knowledge or Veda happens.'

Such simple things, yet so powerful and deep; our intellect does not allow us to believe that people actually get enlightened by following something as simple as that. Infact this is a powerful Shiva Sutra in which one goes beyond the limits of the body and sees everything and everyone around as the one. Let me leave you with a beautiful video where Paramahamsa Nithyananda talks about a mystical experience that He witnessed during His wandering days...

Nithya Yoga Series 6 - Body Gratitude

Demand for Plastic Surgery continues to grow in the UK
Seoul to tout Cosmetic Surgery tourism
Cosmetic Surgery sure to increase in 2008
Plastic Surgery patients want Angelina's lips ...

All the above are newspaper articles that figured in the last few weeks. The last of the articles I found the most interesting:

"Eyes like Katie Holmes, the sultry pout of Angelina Jolie and a body like Jessica Biel make the perfect woman -- at least in the opinion of plastic surgery patients in Beverly Hills.

The most requested look-alike female nose was that of "Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl, while British actress Keira Knightley was tops in the cheek department, and Paris Hilton haD the most sought-after skin. The features most desired by men were Leonardo DiCaprio's nose, soccer player David Beckham's body and the blue eyes of the latest James Bond actor, Daniel Craig. George Clooney's cheeks and Matt Damon's lips also got top billing."

Interesting, isn't it? All of us, I am sure at some point in our lives would have looked at the mirror wishing to be somebody else. After reading this, I was reminded of what Swamiji talks about the deep gap that exists between our fantasies and reality. This is so true, isn't it? Nobody seems to be happy with what they have. That is why the mad running happens in the world today, people trying to be like someone else, look like someone else, dress like someone else.

This dates back to how we were brought up. Teenagers pick up ideas from media about their role models. These ideas are fueled with ads in TVs, hoardings etc about the perfect body, perfect figure and what not. Society not only plants ideas into people, it even knows where to cash on, that is why we see the boom of slimming centers, plastic surgeries and beauty salons. The funny thing is even the so called celebrities whom people wish to be also carry this same feeling of wanting to be someone else.

The more fantasies we collect about ourselves, we have moved away from the reality. We move away from what we have and put our energies into what we want to have. Let us understand that this body itself is a gift from existence to us. And let us remember to thank the universe for it.

Can we imagine doing anything at all without this body? Starting from breathing, to eating, to walking, to talking..! The very fact that we are born in this Universe, isn't that enough proof that existence cares for us? We forget that, take everything for granted and carry a deep unhappiness and vengeance for not being born as somebody else. We have only learnt to compare and abuse this body.

When we start to develop a loving relationship with our body, the body responds in the most beautiful way! In Nithya Yoga, we do a body gratitude meditation that puts us in a state of love and gratitude for this body. We remember every part of our body for all that it does to us, offer our deepest gratitude. By and by, we start to really respect our body instead of abusing it.

Swamiji says "Try this. When you are not well, just make your body sit on a soft bed/sofa, treat it nicely and just request it to become alright. You will be shocked to see it respond! All our so called bodily illnesses simply run away"

Most of our skin diseases arise because of a deep resistance to our body. Here is a small meditation technique that Swamiji gives that can put you in tune with your body. Not only has this technique shown to cure many skin ailments, it also restores a deep love and respect for our body. Every day, when you wake up in the morning, just when you are opening your eyes, touch every part of your body lovingly, starting from head to toe and offer gratitude to it. A beautiful way to start the day!

Here is a short discourse where Swamiji gives some insights into the human body being more than just a biomechanism, it is pure intelligence that can respond to us... Enjoy!

Thank you is not enough

Yesterday, one of our friend came back from India after attending a four day meditation program with Paramahamsa Nithyananda. He was narrating to us in great detail what happened during those four days in the ashram, the way how our Master was talking, His antics, His jokes, His narrations, His mannerisms etc. We talked and talked until mid night and I am sure we could have continued even more ...

During this entire period, we didn't even know how time went by. Not just this once, every time our friends come back from ashram after meeting the Master, we await here for their encounters with the Master.

Forget people coming from India, when we read about the Master's graceful acts in emails, like how He was dancing with people on the banks of Ganga, how He was playfully throwing pebbles at people like a kid, how He was riding an golf-cart like electric car and trying to hit everyone around, even then by reading those emails we get mesmerised; we get completely drawn into Him; we feel happy for no reason at all; we experience bliss...

We have invariably seen whoever has met the Master comes back dancing, in ecstasy. They will go on and on and on... There is no end. When we listen to them, a common chord strikes, that of bliss, that of being a part of the same Existential Energy. Though we were not present at the place and time when it happened, when the narration happens, we are literally transported to a parallel universe where all those events are replayed..

If somebody wants to know the meaning of bliss, I can say the moments when we hear and talk about the beautiful divine acts of the Master, what we experience and express is bliss :)

Just some emotions pouring out ...

A glimpse from His beautiful eyes, we wait;
A motherly hug from Him, we wait;
A beating with His Zen stick, we wait;
A scolding from His energy, we wait.

When He laughs, the whole Universe laughs with Him
When He talks, the whole Universe listens to Him.
When He sings, all the planets play for Him.
When He walks, the entire cosmos moves with Him.

Like a baby, He sleeps;
Like a baby, He complains;
Like a baby, He plays;
Like a baby, He dances...

What beauty! just indescribable...
What grace! just unimaginable...
What innocence! too much to handle..
Before Him, everything seems feeble.

1000 years more???

Whenever we talk about how we should not miss living enlightened masters, how we should strive for enlightenment in this life etc., some of us question, 'Let us flow with the Universe, the Existence. When It thinks the time is right, It will lead me to the right source. If Existence is all-compassionate, It will only help me...'

If we are still stuck with these thoughts, let me put down what one of the disciples of Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'He (Paramahamsa Nithyananda) is on fire. Catch Him and hold onto Him. If you miss Him, you will miss Him for eternity; you will take another hundred births or thousand years to meet another living Master...' And now the bomb shell ...

'Afterall, what is 1000 years in eternity...'

A thousand years is nothing for Eternity, for the Existence. The Solar system has been existing in this Universe for billions of years. The Milky Way Galaxy itself, we don't even know how long it has been existing. It takes thousands of years for a star to be born, another thousands of years for a star to exist and another thousands of years for it to die...


But in our time scale, thousand years is lot of time. In Eternity's time scale, the same thousand years is equivalent to a second or a minute. For the Universe it might be minuscule but for us it is too much. For Eternity, thousand years might be equivalent to someone blinking an eye (as Krishna says in Bhagvat Gita), but for us a thousand years is too long a time to wait.

And what else do we want the Universe to show us than to bring us in direct contact with living enlightened master. This reminds me of a story that Paramahamsa Nithyananda quotes from Sri Ramakrishna's teachings:

There was a fisherman who went out for fishing. He was a devoted man and prayed to God all the time to take care of him. He was in the middle of the ocean and his boat was hit by a storm. He started praying to God, 'God! please help me. You have to come and help me. Please God, please.' After sometime, a bigger vessel passed by that area and found this guy stuck in the storm in this little boat which could collapse any moment. They called him out to get on board their vessel. This guy said, 'No, no, no.. I am waiting for my God to help me..' They persuaded but he didn't listen and they left. After sometime a helicopter came. They too couldn't convince him. He was left stranded in the middle of the ocean and the storm was getting stronger. He prayed and prayed and finally God called out to him and said, 'You fool! You are asking me to help you; when I really came and helped you, you never accepted my help. How else do you think I can help?' Saying that God left and the fisherman was washed away by the ocean.

Even after coming in contact with a living enlightened master, if we think time is not right and Existence will make things conducive for us to tread the path, then we are no less stupid than the fisherman in the story. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'when the urge becomes urgent, when the question becomes a quest, true seeking happens.' If we are waiting for a good time and Nature's blessings for the question to become a quest, for the urge to become urgent, then we are simply wasting one more life of ours... we are simply paving the path for our own cycle of birth and death for another thousand years which by the way is very insignificant amount of time for Eternity... but is it for us?

India ... the spiritual incubator

Last week, we were in Paramahamsa Nithyananda's ashram in India for His birthday celebrations. Though indescribable, we have tried our best to give a gist of what it was like to be in the energy field of a living enlightened master for just a few days. Everyone in the ashram was blissed out totally, dancing, singing, jumping in ecstasy, completely immersed in the energy.

Anyways, after the birthday celebrations, we left the ashram to my parents' place by train. Its an overnight journey. I found myself allocated to the middle berth and on the lower berth, I found a long haired, bermuda-t-shirt clad westerner lost in his own world. As soon as he saw me, he turned his head, his attention on the book I was reading- Sri Sharada Devi - The Holy Mother. He smiled and immediately said, 'that's a nice book.'

Why am I quoting this incident? This incident brought back one of my very old questions. Why is it that any person from any part of the world comes to India in search for deeper truths? Why do seekers of the Ultimate Truth think India is the place where there is an answer? This guy is not just touring India. He is certainly come to India for something more because he knows and read about masters like Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sharada Devi.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda declares, "India is the spiritual incubator of the world." There is no doubt about it. Several enlightened masters and beings happened in India, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Sharada Devi, Ramana Maharshi, Annamalai Swami, Sai Baba, Osho, Ajja, Paramahamsa Nithyananda ... the list goes on and on. There are thousands of enlightened masters and beings sitting in remote corners of India who are not even known to common people.

India is a culmination of the energy of these enlightened masters and it is this energy that strikes a chord with the seekers from the rest of the world. Osho puts it beautifully, "India is not just a geography or history. It is not only a nation, a country, a mere piece of land. It is something more: it is a metaphor, poetry, something invisible but very tangible. It is vibrating with certain energy fields that no other country can claim."

That is India. In terms of materialistic possessions, India may be termed as developing but in spiritual possessions, India is the only developed country. The people of so-called developed countries turn to India when everything external fails to fulfill the deepest inner craving for the Ultimate Truth.

India is a metaphor for the Ultimate Truth; India is a beautiful poetry penned down by the energies of the enlightened masters; India is a colorful painting with strokes of energy made by these masters and India is a culmination of the faith, hope and trust of a billion people on this Ultimate Truth in one way or the other.

Where words fail...

Last week, this blog saw no posts for two reasons. One is that we were at Bidadi ashram for Swamiji's birthday celebrations, away from internet and secondly, we were in the space of no-words! Truly, words fail to describe the silence and the depth of it that one experiences in the energy field of Swami Nithyananda at Bidadi. Anyway, here is an attempt to share my experiences there.

The ashram at Bidadi has many layers of significance, in the physical and the metaphysical planes. My favorite spot in the ashram is the banyan tree. The 600 year old banyan tree built on an ageless cave, the samadhi on an enlightened master takes you to eternity. It is amazing to see so many creatures live in harmony there - squirrels, owls, mynas, snakes, bugs, beetles, ants, rats... As Swamiji puts it, just being at the banyan tree is meditation, one has to experience it. If you get a chance, don't miss it.

The cave at the banyan tree had a swayambhu (self formed) shiva linga, which has now been consecrated at the Anandeshwara temple. This temple whose deities have been infused with life energy by the master Himself resonates with a high frequency. The unique thing about Swami's temples is that everyone is allowed to touch and interact with the deities.

The most ironic thing was that although there were so many people who had come down for the celebrations, amidst the noise there was silence, amidst the chaos there was a strange order, amidst the diversity there was a common bond.

We all got to do 'firewalking' as part of the celebrations. It is an amazing cleansing activity and an opportunity to see how much ours fears are a projection of our minds. All of us walked on burning coal so effortlessly just because of the assurance that the master is sitting in front of us blessing us. It's amazing! no blisters, no burns, no nothing! When we offer our fears and negativities at the feet of the master, it is so liberating! Nothing can burn us then :)

There is so much that happened in that short span of a few days at ashram. A deep alchemy! It is said that there are 5 moods that one can relate with God with - that of a mother to God, a child to God, a servant to God, a friend to God and a beloved to God. It is also said that the relationship with the master is deeper than all these 5 put together! Indeed it's true - for those of us who are fortunate to taste even a bit of this deep relationship can attest to this. The master-disciple relationship is so sweet, so deep, words always fail to describe it.

In deepest gratitude to Swamiji...