Satchidananda is not delusion or illusion or imagination. Satchidananda, living Satchitananda is possible. That is the first statement I want to give about Living Advaitha.

Second: The understandings you need, understandings you need for the spiritual possibility, understandings you need for the spiritual possibility, listen, the understandings you need for the spiritual possibility is “Jnana”, Sacred Knowledge.

Sacred Sentiments you need to have, you need certain kind of emotional strength when you go through the transformation. When you start living Advaitha, certain emotional strength is required, and the intensity of the passion and emotion can be used to explode into Living Advaitha to take you to the next, next, next levels.

Understand, never a person has taken a decision, to live sannyas, intellectually, after intellectual conclusion, after intellectual analysis and conclusion. No! Anybody who has taken sannyas after intellectual analysis and conclusion was never successful; only a person who used his emotional passion and depth has been successful. Your emotion is a pure power which can just transmit you from one space to another space. Only the people who used that power, that strength, the pure emotion and power of devotion, and took the decision of sannyas were successful. Only they were successful! I am telling you, after seeing thousands and thousands of sannyasis of different religions, and after being respected, revered by so many sannyasis, and after respecting, revering so many sannyasis – understand, I have also revered, respected, bowed down to thousands of sannyasis, and thousands have bowed down to me – with all this experience I am telling you, only people who use the strength and power of emotion, devotion, are successful sannyasis, never the intellectual analysis.

See, if I am living in one corner of the Himalayas, on the banks of the Ganga, in a small hut, having a small garden just for food, and living in that Himalayan hut, and if you are given a chance, only one person is going to be there, and that is you, who will say ‘No’? No one is going to say ‘No’! That is intellectually analyzing and taking decision. ‘Wow! Only Swamiji! Nobody else! I can have Swamiji all for myself!’ That is intellectual decision. You will never be successful in sannyas with intellectual decision. If you understand this Sangha is a Ganga, and still I am sitting, not in some remote corner of Himalayas, I am sitting actually in a remote corner of Kailasa, still you are ready to live Advaitha with the Sangha, that, that really is the strength! That can happen only if you use your emotional and devotional strength. That is Life.

I am telling you, I think many are still floating in visualization of them being alone with Swamiji in Himalayan hut! Yet to come back (from the visualization)! HAHAHA! Settle down! Settle down! This Sangha is the Ganga, and the strength of your pure devotion….. See, when you have that pure devotion, you are always alone with your Master. No one else will be there. Only when the devotion comes down, you will see others. Just like only when flood comes down you will see the rocks on the banks. If it is flooding, you won’t see any rock, tree, anything. So, when that devotion strength is flooding you, you won’t see anybody around you. You know it is only you and the Master; nothing else; nobody else exists. Only when the devotion comes down, you will see, ‘Oh, why is she all the time shouting at me? Why is he looking at me like that? Why is he trying to snatch my pencil? Why is he taking away my laptop? He is not talking to me properly. No, all that starts, when the devotion comes down. All that starts when the devotion comes down!

Understand, the necessary sacred sentiments for you to experience Living Advaitha is “Bhakthi”. And the necessary cognitions, that means, beyond doubt there are some basic understandings.

When I started listening to some of these stories from my grandfather, Markandeya’s story, and Kannappa’s story, all these great saints’, saintly figures’ stories, Prahlada’s story, somehow it became part of my cognition that Mahadeva is available to you, Mahadeva is available to you. I used to go and sit with Annamalai Swamigal. In his presence they will read Ribhu Gita sometimes. When I heard that Ribhu Gita, many of the verses automatically became part of my cognition. Same way when I read the Upanishads first, they just became part of my cognition. Understand, reading spiritual books or listening to the satsanghs is allowing the possibility of having spiritual cognition. Please understand, if you listen to ten ideas from the Master’s mouth, two ideas you may be debating, but suddenly four or five will just go inside and sit in your cognition and it will become unshakeable cognition! Even you will forget to question them! Whatever you forgot to doubt, hate, deny…… See, when your SDHD – Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-Denial – was busy in fighting with two-three ideas, other three-four ideas will just go and sit inside your being. Satsangh is always for that purpose. Satsangh is actually for that purpose. I will be throwing some twenty ideas. Your logic is not capable of fighting with all those twenty ideas. Your SDHD, your Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-Denial, it will be fighting in two-three fronts with four-five ideas. ‘Oh, what is there? For Swamiji, enlightenment happened at the age of twelve. He had great Masters like Annamalai Swamigal, Isakki Swamigal, Raghupathi Yogi. They were all, all the time with him. He was all the time with them. He had it (enlightenment). What can we do?’ Yes, your Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-Denial will be doing all this drama; I am not saying no. But it can be doing this drama only with a few concepts and thoughts; not with all. By the time it does this drama, the other two-thousand ideas, two-thousand truths which I am giving, will become part of your cognition. That is the purpose of satsangh. Raising your spiritual cognition higher and higher and higher every day, beyond your SDHD, is the purpose of satsangh. Listen! Raising your cognition, spiritual cognition every day, beyond your SDHD, is the purpose of satsangh.

The main theme of the Upanishads is to make you live Advaitha by giving you the “Jnana” – Sacred Knowledge, understandings, and Sacred Sentiments, emotional strength, Sacred Cognition – “Vijnana”. Sacred Sentiment is “Bhakthi”, Sacred Cognition is “Vijnana”.

Listen! Truths, Sacred Sentiments, Sacred Cognitions. Once, actually, I landed upon a very deep, strong, Sacred Cognition in my life, that, ‘I cannot be hurt. I cannot have any pain. I am the Atma. Atma cannot have any pain, suffering, nothing. It is pure space.’ It was so powerful and so strong, I went and took a knife and cut my thigh to check! A child will not have the guts to take a knife and cut himself to check. Understand, I tell you, the power of the cognition was so much, I could not control myself from testing it on me, because I was too excited. Of course, I needed a few more understandings. See, when I am the Atma, Soul, I am not the body, and I cannot be destroyed, I don’t have pain, I am beyond suffering, then I should have tested that ON MY ATMA, not on my body. But I have tested it on my body, on something which I am not. See, the experience is sitting on the Atma, the cognition is sitting on the consciousness, but the experiment I am doing it on my body! That understanding I gathered a little later. But, that cognition was so powerful, even when there was pain in the body, I did not feel bad about what I did, I did not feel bad about testing it. It was such an ecstasy! ‘Wow! Aaaah! Like a long journey is over! Now I don’t need to run around here and there! I am That!’ That rest, that restful awareness, that cognition was such an ecstasy! Gathering these cognitions into your being is what I call “Living Advaitha”. Living Advaitha!

आत्मौपम्येन सर्वत्र समं पश्यति योऽर्जुन । सुखं वा यदि वा दुःखं स योगी परमो मतः ॥६- ३२॥

Athmaupamyena sarvathra samam pashyathi yo ’rjuna | Sukham va yadhi va dukham sa yogi paramo mathah ||

He who, through the likeness of the Self, O Arjuna, sees equality everywhere, Be it pleasure or pain, he is regarded as the highest Yogi. (6th Chapter, 32nd Verse of the Bhagavad Gita)