Tag: awareness

Meditation technique to increase awareness

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Normally we don’t chew and eat food, we just gulp it down our throats. We hardly taste the food.

Now whenever you eat, eat with awareness. Taste it completely. Become the taste.

When you really feel the sweetness of the food, you can feel it not only in the mouth but also in your entire body.

While drinking water, feel the coolness of the water as it goes down your throat and into your stomach. Close your eyes and drink it slowly, enjoying every sip. Feel the coolness intensely, not only in the mouth but also in the entire body.

source: Living Enlightenment

Technique to bring Awareness of the neutral space while moving the body

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Total Duration: 30 minutes

Sit straight, preferably on the ground. Close your eyes. Inhale and exhale as slowly as possible, as deeply as possible.

Step 1: Duration: 3 minutes

Slowly, very slowly, put your attention only on the incoming breath. Be aware of the incoming breath. Read More

Western science has just started exploring the vast dimensions of the effects and benefits of meditation that the inner scientists of the East have researched and lived for thousands of years

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Science is just now getting glimpses of the tremendous power of meditation to completely change the entire body-mind structure itself. The benefits of meditation are countless and across all planes – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Meditation can simply change the very quality of life.

Until recently, it was believed that in the brain, the connections among the brain nerve cells were fixed in childhood and did not change, so the brain growth stopped early in life. Now scientists are finding that the brain actually grows and forms new connections all throughout life. Scientists call this ability neuroplasticity. Read More

Bringing yourself completely out of the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states, is what I call being in meditation!

.Reading time 12 minutes.

Many people think meditation involves blindly believing in something. People fear this. They come and tell me, ‘I am afraid that I might get too attached to meditation.’ Understand, meditation itself is nothing but removing your attachment! So you can’t get too attached to it.

Meditation is all about changing the inner software.

People are also afraid that their desires, fears and whatever else they think of as their life will be taken away from them if they start meditating. In a way this is true! Once you start meditating, whatever you thought of as your life until then, will no longer be important to you! The real truths will start revealing themselves to you. All the illusions you were holding until then will start leaving you. All the time you are trying to protect yourself from the basic truths only because you are afraid of losing your illusions about life. Read More

Only when you have a clear understanding about the self (jeeva), world (jagat) and god (ishwara), you can meditate. Until then, any technique that you try, will seem to fail at some point in time.

.Reading time 11 minutes.

In the beginning you have to practice meditation in life. You have to consciously introduce meditation into your lifestyle. Choose a technique, practice for half an hour or one hour a day. See how you feel. If you enjoy a technique, stick to it for at least ten days without expecting results. If a technique has touched you, there is no way it cannot transform you in some way. Sometimes the transformation will be subtle, and sometimes others may see it better than you do.

The understanding that is able to give you a completely restful feeling, through which you are able to solve all your problems, through which you are able to find your own life solutions, is called psychological revolution Read More

When awareness is present, your ego can’t exist. When your ego exists, awareness can’t be present!

.Reading time 12 minutes.

You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are completely healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, ninety- nine per cent of those who do not have the ‘self-healing clarity’ in their system are never able to maintain even physical health. When I say ‘self-healing clarity’, I mean the clarity and understanding to bring yourself out of depression whenever it tries to grip your consciousness.

As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame. That is the real you

Just a year ago, I did a small research study. I selected one group of people who had been through some meditation programs and had done some spiritual study. I asked them to write for just twenty minutes whatever came into their mind without editing. Then I also asked another group of people who had never been exposed to spirituality to also write down whatever came into their minds without editing for the same twenty minutes. The results of my study were shocking. Read More

What meditation can do and why meditation needs to be practiced ?

.Reading time 9 minutes.

We experience two states of mind in our day-to-day life, one is with thoughts, the other is without thoughts. We know we have thoughts when we are awake. In deep sleep, do we have thoughts? No. So there are two states of mind: with thoughts and without thoughts. Read More

When you realize Master’s ferociousness is not a hit, but a blessing out of sheer compassion for you to grow, you will realize the beauty of it and welcome it even more

.Reading time 11 minutes.

The stronger you hold on to an ideology or to a person, the deeper will be your depression. If you hold on to a person, say your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife, your son or brother or father, you will be bound by the sway of the relationship, and you will invariably fall into depression and start blaming that person. This is how depression happens. In the same way, if you hang on to your ego or identity or ideology, again you will face depression.

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Sannyas is what softens you into real love, love towards not just one person but towards the whole of Existence. 

.Reading time 12 minutes.

Sannyas is about seeing the wonderful co-existence of everything in Existence. Sannyas is existing in relationships like a water drop on the lotus leaf. If you see the lotus leaf, the water droplet will be on the leaf but will be untouched by it. Sannyas is living in relationships while being untouched by them. A common misconception is that sannyas is renouncing relationships. No. Sannyas enriches relationships.

Awareness is bringing your consciousness to your mind and watching non-judgmentally

So many of my disciples who have embraced the path of sannyas come and tell me, ‘Swamiji, after initiation, the husband-wife understanding has flowered so beautifully. Now we are really living in tune with each other and with everything around us.’ 

With sannyas, you start watching everything. You become a witness. Because of this witnessing, a gap is created between you and the other person. That gap is misunderstood as ‘renunciation’. If you notice, the gap was not there earlier. Each one was suffocating the other. Now the gap is there. The gap is not a gap of distance but a gap of awareness. Read More

Can outside minds influence the individual’s mind and thought process ?

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Q: It has been said that an individual has control over his mind. Does this mean that outside minds can still influence an individual’s mind and thought process? How can we control this and be liberated from anger and depression?

Swamiji: Nice question. Do you have control over your mind?

Questioner: Sometimes I find it difficult… 

Swamiji: Alright. This is the answer that I get from almost everyone. The statement that an individual has control over the mind, is only said, never practiced and never experienced. Next, outside minds can influence the individual’s mind and thought process. Are you married?

Questioner: Yes! Read More

When you regain your innocence, you are called dwija, reborn, mature!

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Innocence is the way to approach life! The moment you realize that you need to regain your innocence, you are ready for the transformation. The scale of measure of regaining innocence is to watch your reaction to the little things in life. Innocence sees all little things with awe and wonder. That is why children are so wonder filled all the time. You can see it in their wide eyes. If you are able to see things in wonder, then innocence has started happening in you. It is possible that with all the knowledge of the world you can still have clear and innocent eyes. Those are the eyes of the sage.

Childlike innocence is beautiful but not enough. It has to be lost to life and regained with complete awareness and maturity

Childlike innocence discovers many things but cannot understand most of it. It enjoys it at the level of its innocence, that’s all. Whereas innocence regained not only discovers these new things, but also understands all of them. That is the difference. Childlike innocence is beautiful but not enough. It has to be lost to life and regained with complete awareness and maturity. It is said that a mad man and a mystic look alike. Both of them will be eccentric in their ways, laughing abruptly and doing things incomprehensible. But they are actually at the extreme two ends of the same spectrum! Read More

Maturity is functioning out of immense innocence and giving your whole to the moment!

.Reading time 8 minutes.

The Dhammapada says: Light the lamp within; strive hard to attain wisdom. Become pure and innocent, and live in the world of light.

When you came into the world, you came as an innocent infant. You radiated the beauty of your innocence until society gave you the mind. Now, you want to get rid of your mind and become innocent again. The regained innocence is what is called maturity. It is possible to regain it. Just believe that you were innocent once upon a time. Trust that the innocence is still within you. Then it is possible to start radiating it again. This understanding will start the process again.

Let the core of you be at ease all the time, irrespective of where you might be or what you may be doing. Then you can retain your purity.

Maturity causes us to live in totality. Totality is functioning out of immense innocence and giving your whole to the moment. There is no opinion, no judgment, no fragments within you. There is only intense enthusiasm for the moment. The openness to the moment is the innocence. Just one thing is needed to become innocent once again. Don’t hide behind false knowledge. See where all you are hiding and step out to reveal your natural self. Then you are completely open. This is the attitude for enlightenment.

Knowing that you are hiding is the first step. Taking a strong decision to come out of it is the next step. Then you will see that innocence and maturity start happening. Read More