Those who worship avidyā, the ignorance that veils the true knowledge of truth, Consciousness, enter into blinding darkness, but into greater darkness of ignorance than that enter they who, considering themselves as learned, are engaged in vidyā, the incomplete knowledge acquired for vested interests, characterized by impure truth about Consciousness.

Listen. I will explain step by step. Listen. I will explain the key point in this verse directly: now all of you have done Vaakyartha Sadas for last so many days, what is Consciousness? What is All-pervasiveness? What is without coming and going? What is muscle-less, woundless, all these you would have done. At one point, you will feel stuck, it is natural. At that moment, if you decide, “it’s ok, but I will continue to dig”, you are Living Enlightenment. At that moment, you think, “ah, whatever I learned, with that, let me make whatever I need in life, like comforts, name and fame, who knows, leave it,” then, that is avidya.

When your brain associates itself with Consciousness as That itself, it will start cognizing, taking actions, decisions, everything based on That. Literally your whole brain will lit up; your whole heart will lit up; your whole body will lit up! Maybe that is why it is called Enlightenment! The whole thing will be lit up!

Digging out more and more and more and more, exploring more and more and more, makes you Live Enlightenment. For any reason you are stuck and do not want to move further out of tiredness, boredom, laziness or thinking, “okay, with this I will manage my neighbors, after all, I just have to be a little more than my neighbors, that’s all my life’s purpose.” Two lawyers saw a bear in the forest. One fellow started running, the other fellow shouted, “What you think you can escape the bear?” The other said, “No, I just have to run faster than you!” But life is not like that. If you are just able to excel little more than people around you, life doesn’t end there! The tiredness and boredom which will come to you when you excel little more than the people around you, if you are stuck there, that is what Upanishad describes…

andhaṁ tamaḥ praviśanti ye’avidyām upāsate |
tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u vidyāyāṁ ratāḥ || 9 ||

Over! Over. Everything is over. Please understand, the tiredness and boredom is hell fire! With the boredom and tiredness you can’t even peacefully sleep; you may be lying on the bed but you will be rolling over. If you lie down, after real sincerely exhausting whatever you want to do and fall into the bed, you will be so powerful and fall asleep! But just out of boredom and tiredness, you will be so powerless you will not be able to fall asleep.

Understand, entertaining boredom in your Life is hell fire. You can see, many days, out of boredom and rejection when you lie on your bed, you can’t even fall asleep, you will just be rolling, tossing; that is hell fire, understand. That is hell fire.

Align your body and intellect straight, make your life strong, make yourself as much as possible useful to yourself and to the world. And, continue to explore the subtle and subtle truths described by Upanishads as Consciousness, understand.

Subtle and subtle truths described by Upanishads as Consciousness. Actually, meditating on those concepts grows an extra intra-organ in your system, what I call Third-eye or Buddhi.

You are not born with it, you have to grow it. The vegetarian food, and continuous contemplation, everything used in the Shaivite lifestyle directly connects to awakening and building of Buddhi. Man whose buddhi is awakened will never entertain boredom in the life. One of the biggest problems of the future humanity is going to face is boredom, because no more you can make people feel excited about life with basic needs like food, shelter, clothes, but humanity doesn’t know how to lead ourselves to the next level. Political leaders, social leaders, religious leaders, all of them are stuck, because you can’t make people excited, you can’t keep people excited any more just with this food, clothes, shelter, it’s all over. I am telling you, that is why so much of depression and boredom is settling in, all psychiatric disorder, that phobia, this fear, depression, deeeeep pression, any number of name you can give. Depression, deep pression, suppression, whatever name you want you can go on giving, this disorder, bipolar, four-polar, six-polar, whatever name you can give, you can do everything, but all mental disorders boils down to one word: boredom, that’s all. Boredom, that’s all. Nothing else. Just boredom.

I tell you, my Deeksha Guru, Swami Ranganathananda, at that time he was Vice President of Ramakrishna Mission. I wanted to tell this story, later on he became President and now he has left the body, he has attained Maha Samadhi. Once, a few Sadhus and Brahmacharis were sitting at his feet. He was not very healthy, he was very fragile. His health was very fragile and he will just eat with one or two teaspoon, that’s all, teaspoon, kind of a kanchi made out of rice and few fruits, his diet was very less. We were all sitting around him. But whole day he will be always excited, joyful. Suddenly some Sadhu turned the subject towards few elderly Sadhus who were depressed in Arogya bhavan Belurmutt. In Ramakrishna muth they would have a place where all the elderly Sadhus, after they retire from their active life, they rest and do spiritual practices and prepare themselves for Enlightenment, Jivan Mukti, Videha mukti. So there were a few Sadhus, depressed, frustrated, angry, irritated, in that Arogya bhavan so the talk turned towards them.

Beautifully, Swamiji explained, Ranganathanandaji explained, he said, “when you are young, if you have built your excitement only to the level of reading the spiritual scriptures, after your eyes are gone, you can’t do that. If you built your excitement only to the level of doing japa (chanting), after certain level your body and mind will not have the stamina to be in alignment, then you won’t be able to do that. Only if you are able to sit with yourself, reflecting Pure Consciousness, you got a permanent space where you will not get into depression, bored, feeling agitated, angry, frustrated in your life.”

Especially this is a warning for all the Sadhus, understand. For Grihastas it’s a advice; for Sadhus, it’s a warning. Because for grihastas, till the end, at least a few people, family, somebody will be around them. But for Sadhus, it is only your ability to rest in Pure Consciousness which you built when your body and mind is under your control—that is the only security for your life, only on that you can rest. That is why I insist constantly on being active without falling prey to boredom. Understand, if you build the pattern of falling prey to boredom, be very clear, you are going to have the worst hell once you retire from the active life. After retiring from the active life, life will be hell if you have not built that space of ability to sit unclutched.

Still I remember, that one small but very powerful word. I actually paraphrased, from whatever he said, because it was the long conversation with few Sadhus. In that, this bit still I remember: living your whole life as a Sadhu, and then end, depressed, frustrated, angry, irritated, agitated, that is the worst thing, that’s a solid proof you wasted your life, you are stupid. So, become active now! Break this boredom pattern now, keep your body and intellect as powerful as possible, raise the Buddhi to the next level, and develop that most subtlest grooves in your brain to reflect Pure Consciousness, powerfully! That is the only safe heaven for you.

I have seen hundreds and hundreds of stupid intellectuals, pundits stuck in few words here and there they read, few techniques here and there they tried, and afterwards, nothing moves, nothing moved; they are there. Only those people are addressed by this verse, ninth verse of the Upanishad:

andhaṁ tamaḥ praviśanti ye’avidyām upāsate |
tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u vidyāyāṁ ratāḥ || 9 ||

Understand. The most powerful, most important advice Upanishad wants to give you, the most powerful sacred secret Upanishad wants to reveal in this verse:

Do not allow boredom and tiredness! Let your body be Agni, Fire! Let your mind be Light. Intensely alive! Let your Consciousness be svayam prakāśa, self-effulgent, always radiant! What you eat, what you do, what you speak, what you think, what you practice, everything be aligned to this one: how to reflect highest concept of Consciousness in your brain, how to catch the most subtlest definition of Consciousness in your brain by Upanishads.

Actually, in the Shivoham process, that’s all I do: just connecting with your brain and making it grow subtler and subtler and subtler, the subtle grooves start developing, so you simply start reflecting the concept of Consciousness. That is why the moment I say SHIVA, your body vibrates; that means your brain is catching. There are millions of people who heard SHIVA many times, their brain doesn’t catch, but in Shivoham process, the moment I utter SHIVA, so many brains and bodies catches it! So the moment you catch that experience, you associate automatically yourself with it.

Seeing God, experiencing God as you, is not two actions, it is one actually. Seeing is experiencing. The moment you see, seer and the seen and seeing will become one; then, Seer-Seeing-Seen, Seer-Seen-Seeing all these three merges into one, then you are called Seer, Rishi.

Boredom can never be justified with any reason. Spend anything in your life, do anything in your life, to get into the lifestyle and place where boredom is not entertained or engaged; boredom is never allowed—that’s the one thing never allowed inside Dhyanapeetam.

Shivoham process is nothing but awakening those most subtle grooves in your system.