Tag / Devotion

by Sri

Stopping the effect immediately and rewinding it back to the cause, and the effect merging into the cause is Completion.

One of the great disciples of Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita asks him, ‘Swamiji, if I come with you what will you teach me? What will you give me?’ Vivekananda says, ‘I will teach you how to face death.’ That is the ultimate teaching. Here, Kṛṣṇa is giving that ultimate teaching. In these verses, He is saying something very strange:

janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ I

tvaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna II 4.9

It means: if you understand the secret of My birth and death, you will be liberated from birth and death, Arjuna.

How? Let us see the secret of the birth and death of Kṛṣṇa, how we all go through the birth and death cycle. Now, just as Kṛṣṇa made the statement, ‘I tell you this because you are my devotee and friend’, now I have to make the same statement to you all again. Here I am going to speak on something, which is beyond logic. It is pure experience. Before speaking, I take an oath: With integrity and authenticity, whatever I speak is the truth.

Continue reading →
by Sri

When thousands worship you, why do you bow down so much in front of the deities?

Now let’s experience Kailaasa’s length, breadth, depth, time, space. 

Understand. This can happen only by the tremendous surrender to Mahasadasiva. You can’t enter into His home by any demand. No! No Aushadha can work. He’s not a serpent, you put some medicine and herb and He will listen to you. No. He’s Nageshwara, He’s not Naga.

Understand. It is deep surrender and devotion and reverence, humbleness requesting – Mahadeva, please grace us. Please grace us. It is only with the tremendous humbleness and surrender, with tremendous respect, reverence, devotion. Continue reading →

by Sri

Between every incoming and outgoing breath, the Self shines through, the Truth reveals itself!

Total Duration: 21 minutes

This technique is to be done with a feeling of deep devotion. You may feel deep devotion to someone, you may feel deeply connected to someone in your life like god, master, parent, friend, teacher, a leader who inspired you, a person who contributed something memorable to your life. You can remember more than one person as well, even two or three people who mean a lot to you like your beautiful mother, your wonderful master, your favorite god or your beloved friend. Continue reading →

by Sri

When people ask me whether I am god, I tell them it depends on you!

This is an incident from the days of my spiritual journey.

One morning, a master was talking to all of his disciples in the angle of feeling connected to the whole of the Himalayas. The master was loving and caring enough to allow me also into their morning session. He was asking the disciples one by one, ‘Did you practice this technique?’ It seems a few days earlier he had initiated them into the technique of feeling connected to the Himalayas. They were supposed to constantly internalize that the Himalayan mountains was a part of their body. Continue reading →

by Sri

When you live the master’s body language you live enlightenment!

I had mentioned about my deep spiritual experience where I felt one with Existence and had a 360 degree vision of everything around me. There are so many people practicing so many different meditation techniques. What is the difference, what is the reason why the experience happened to a small boy?

I can say that one important reason is that my whole inner space was ripe, ready for this small technique to awaken and open it. Constantly I used to be in that high frequency of the masters without even my conscious awareness.

See, especially in the young age, whoever inspires or impresses you becomes the hero of your inner space. These great masters impressed me so much that in every situation I would think, ‘How would these great masters behave?’ For example, if I had some fear, I would remember, ‘How will Annamalai Swamigal face this fear? He won’t bother. He is enlightened. Let me also be like that.’ The inner space was so inspired and impressed by these great masters, that before every step I took in my life I would think, ‘How will he behave? Let me also do that.’ The inner space was so pure also at the young age and I had no heroes other than the masters. At every step I used to think, ‘How will he behave? Let me behave like that. How he will do? Let me do like that.’

I used to go for a circumambulation of the Arunachala hill. It is more than twelve kilometers around the hill. I used to go late at night. When I had a little fear I used to say, ‘How will Annamalai Swamigal behave? He won’t bother about fear. Then let me also be like that.’

Let me tell you about one incident. Continue reading →

by Sri

You have an independent intelligence in your system which runs your life without your interference!

Please understand, energy is compassion, energy is intelligence, and energy is bliss. Energy, compassion, intelligence and bliss are four sides of the same pillar. If all four are present, it is super-consciousness. If any one is missing it is unconsciousness. When the energy manifests itself through the head, it is intelligence. When energy manifests itself through the heart, it is compassion. When energy manifests itself through the being it is pure energy. When energy does not manifest outside but remains inside, it is bliss!

An important thing to understand which may shock you is, you have an independent intelligence in your system which runs your life without your interference. Right now, you think you need to interfere with your intelligence in order to run your life happily. But the truth is the intelligence with which you came down to planet earth, the intelligence which created your very body, can run your life beautifully for you. The intelligence or the energy based on which you created your body at birth, is called your bio-memory. Continue reading →

by Sri

What is the greatest service one can do to the world ?

The boundaries between these three (Self, world, God) exist only as long as the not accepting or the fighting ego exists. The moment non-acceptance disappears, acceptance happens and ego disappears. Suddenly only celebration remains. Some people ask me, ‘How do we express our deep gratitude to you?’ I tell them that the only way to express their gratitude is to live enlightenment the way I have just described it to you. That is the best you can do for me and that I can do for you.

The reason why you feel so much gratitude towards me is because only when an enlightened master happens in your life do you start knowing what gratitude is!

Until then, gratitude remains just a social habit from your periphery. When the master happens, when the transformation starts, you start feeling a movement inside you, a deep joy… an inexplicable feeling not from your periphery but from your being. That feeling is gratitude. That is what is called devotion. You cannot express it with words. That is the beauty of real gratitude. Just relax into it and allow it to transform you. It will transform you from your being. That is enough. Then the work of the master is done! Continue reading →

by Sri

Seeking is the love letter from your Beloved who is living in your heart forever!

18th verse last day on Isavasya Upanishad. I wanted to give the essence of this Upanishad, through all the 18 verses, what they are trying to convey to us, they conveyed in the last verse, the essence.

agne naya supathā rāye asmān viśvāni deva vayunāni vidvān |

yuyodhy asmaj juhurāṇam eno bhūyiṣṭhāṁ te nama-uktiṁ vidhema || 18 ||

“O Agni, the Fire God! Knower of all our actions and all that is worth knowing, You must take us along the righteous and auspicious path of completion, leading us to experience the Supreme Consciousness, the original space of Complete Completion. O God, Consciousness! May you remove all our incompletions that are obstacles on our good path of completion, beyond coming and going, birth and death. Onto You we surrender with many reverential words, bowing down again and again.”

Listen. If I squeeze this whole 18 verses, the essence I see is intense seeking.

Seeking is the way God in you wakes up.

Understand, Seeking is the way God in you wakes up.

In the early morning sometimes you feel, you yourself will feel that you are dreaming. That is the way you wake up. How many of you have experienced the state that I am describing? Same way, listen. Seeking is the way you wake up to your reality. Don’t fall asleep, don’t turn away when the Seeking is awakened in you. Understand. After remembering you are dreaming, you just pull up your blanket and turn and sleep, how stupid you are. Same way, after just having seeking, after smelling seeking in your life, after tasting seeking in your life, if you just turn and loose that intensity in seeking that is the most stupid thing that can happen to you in your life. Continue reading →

by Sri

The moment you open your mouth, if all your exaggeration is moving around either towards your God or Guru, you are one of the richest beings in the Planet Earth!

The Advaitha, please listen, Oneness becomes your reality with the Love Current of Mahadeva. Please understand, when you authentically experience Love Current of Mahadeva, the Oneness you experience will continue to keep you retain the juice of celebrating Mahadeva, understand? Today, I wanted to expand on some of the most subtle points.

यस्मिन् सर्वाणि भूतान्यात्मैवाभूद् विजानतः ।
तत्र को मॊहः कः शॊक एकत्वमनुपश्यतः ॥
Yasmin SarvaaNi Bhoothaani Aathmaivaabhoodh Vijaanathaha |
Tathra Ko Mohaha Kah Shoka Ekathvam Anupashyathaha ||

“In one who has cognized the reality, all existing beings become the very Self. Then what delusion, what sorrow of incompletion can there be for that Seer living in the space of Oneness, Living Advaitha?”

Listen! The Love Current of Mahadeva leads you to Oneness experience. After that, after the experience of Oneness, the way you live will be the Love Current of Mahadeva, understand? Love is not just a path for experiencing Oneness. After experience the Oneness, the utility value of life itself is Love. If you start practicing love now, meditating on Love Current of Mahadeva, you will experience Oneness, and after experiencing Oneness, the way you operate, the way you cognize, the way you move, the way you live, the way you exist, the whole thing will be same Love in a different dimension.

Always there is a conflict between Advaithis and Bhakthas. Always Advaithis declare these Bhakthas as “Leelavaadhis”: ‘All the time talking about devotion, devotion; they never experience the Oneness.’ And, always these Bhakthas go on criticizing these Advaithis as “Mayavaadhis”, delusionists: ‘They don’t celebrate devotion and love.’ And there is also a subtle deep fear that if you experience Oneness, you may lose the devotion; it may all become all “Me”, “Me”, “Me”, “Me”. From the side of devotees, they feel, ‘Oh, if we experience Oneness, it will all become “Me”, “Me”, “Me”. Devotion will be lost.’ From the Advaithis, ‘Oh, if I experience devotion, that is all! The state I am in, I may lose it! I will fall into duality!’ It is such a stupid misunderstanding! Continue reading →

by Sri

Seeking!

I will continue to expand on Ishavasya Upanishad. Please recite along with me.

hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitaṁ mukhaṁ |
tat tvaṁ pūṣann-apāvṛṇu satya-dharmāya dṛṣṭaye || 15 ||

 The Truthful, Effulgent, Eternal Being is the ultimate sustainer, nourisher and protector of all that exists! You are the embodiment of the imperishable Truth and Reality. Your Divine face of Truth is concealed by the blinding dazzling upturned pot, which has golden orb of effulgence. This radiant golden pot conceals your glorious face of Truth from my view. O Pūṣan, O Sun, O Complete One, do reveal Yourself by removing that glaring veil, for I, on the path of Truth, am eager to have your Divine vision.

Understand, there are tons of things you need to understand to understand this verse.

First of all, when the human beings started seeking. Please understand, origin of seeking is from Sarasvati-Ganges civilization. Just recently some of the western historians jointly gave a statement – the Greece civilization is a complete hoax created to put down the Ganges-Saravati civilization, just to distort the history because they do not want the credit to go to Ganges civilization. So the hoax called Greece civilization was invented. Seeking started in Ganges civilization. Understand, when the seeking started how human beings responded, how human beings reacted, how they expressed when the seeking started expressing in them; when the experience of seeking started in them. Continue reading →

by Sri

Extreme harshness of reality or extreme pleasantness of reality leads to your awakening!

Before entering into the verse, I want to explain some basic truth about Seeking, which is explained in these verses.

See if I explain the basic concepts, the truth expressed in this verse will be more experiential for all of you. When you are tired of dreaming or you can’t handle dreaming anymore, you decide to wake up. If there is a nightmare, if there is a fantasy dream, where the dream becomes too sweet, or too harsh to handle, then you wake up. Same way, the waking state, if you make it too sweet or too harsh, you will become awakened.

Making it too harsh, becoming awakened, is the lifestyle of renunciation.

Making it too sweet and waking up, is lifestyle of devotion.

Listen, I will repeat. In the dream state, if you see two tigers are chasing you or two snakes are chasing you. If it’s harsh to handle, you will wake up. Same way, if it is too fantastic, exactly the same place you always want it to be is there, the same person with whom you want to be is there, you will suddenly wake up. If it is too sweet, you will wake up, too harsh, you will wake up. So that dream state is sustained in the struggle, not in the extreme, listen, only in the struggle, the dream continues, not in the extreme. 

Same way, in the waking state, if it is extreme sweetness, you will wake up or extreme harshness, you will wake up. But as long as there is a struggle between these two, the struggle between the extreme sweetness and harshness, greed and fear is what your incompletions. As long as there is a struggle you will continue to maintain this waking state. This state you will continue to maintain. If any one takes over, it’s all over.

Allowing the lifestyle of extreme harshness and awakening, getting awakened is the lifestyle of renunciation, A Naga, Aghori. Allowing the extreme sweetness and awakening is the lifestyle of devotion, a Shaivite. Using both of process and getting awakened is the lifestyle of Nithyanandite.

I use all available, possible methods, process, kriyas to help you into awakening whether it is nightmare or fantasy dream, you will wake up. You will wake up. You will wake up.

Understand, neither fantasy dream nor nightmare will let you continue sleep. Same way, neither extreme harshness nor the extreme sweetness will help you to continue your waking state. It will lead to awakening, it will lead to awakening.

I tell you, if life itself brings the harshness and awakens you, if life itself brings that sweetness and awakens you, you will be wasting a lot of time. You voluntarily getting into that state, cooperating for your awakening is what I call Seeking. It is not that every night you wake up with the nightmare or fantasy dream. Many nights you wake up because you are too tired. 

Understand, same way in your life also, it is not that all the time you can get the extreme harsh dream, harsh reality or extreme pleasant reality. Creating either extreme harshness of reality or extreme pleasantness of reality leads to your awakening. Cooperating with the life to create the extreme harshness or extreme pleasantness is Seeking.

Either with the concept of Shiva you can make every moment of your life extremely pleasant. You know this is the place Sadashiva walked, this is the very air He breathed, this is the very forest He and Devi spent so much of time. Every tree here is the descendent of the trees which had the fortune of having darshan of Sadashiva. Still the moon and the sun is a living witnesses. You can go on cherishing this and get into the extreme pleasantness that will lead to awakening or you can deny everything including your own existence and that will lead to extreme harshness, again you will be awakened.

Use any one, cooperate with any one. Allow the awakening to happen. That’s all is essence of life. That’s all is essence of life. 

Your self-doubt, self-hatred, self-denial neither allows you to experience extreme harshness or extreme pleasantness.If you go through pleasantness, you doubt it. “No, no, no. This cannot be permanent or eternal.” If you go through harshness, you build a hope, “No, no. I will get out of it and I will have pleasantness, joy one day.” The hope stops you going through the extreme harshness. Doubt stops you going through the extreme pleasantness. When you don’t allow both, continue to enjoy your struggling state, incompletion; because only that will maintain your ordinary waking state. 

Sleep is the base material out of which the dreams can be dream. Confusion is the base material out of which this waking state can be perceived. Only when you are in the state of sleep, you can dream. Only when you are in the state of confusion, you can see this waking state. 

Understand, that is why confusion is very precious investment for you. It is one of the most precious investment. Most precious investment! But I tell you, let confusion not become your most precious investment. In every step, every line, every inch of your life, if confusion becomes your basic stand, basic foundation, then imagine the amount of time you are wasting, energy you are destroying.

There is a beautiful verse in the Taitirriya Upanishad:

anando brahmeti vyajānāt (3.6) 

Bliss is God, don’t waste it. 

You may think, what do they mean by don’t waste it. Don’t waste it by attributing it to your confusion. If you think confusion is bliss, if you maintain the stand that confusion is bliss, you are wasting your life, destroying your life. You are wasting the bliss, destroying bliss. anando brahmeti vyajānāt. 

See your day-to-day habits get recorded in your muscle memory. Your lifestyle patterns, like what you feel about you, all that, gets recorded in your bio-memory. Cleaning up your muscle memory can be done by building good habits, nut cleaning up your bio-memory – what do you feel about you consciously, can be done only by awakening the Seeking. Awakening the seeking. 

Listen carefully to this statement, to this truth. Seeking either leads you into extreme pleasantness or extreme harshness of the Reality. In both ways, it awakens you. Whether you get into completing your individual existence or whether you get into expanding your individual existence into cosmic existence.

If your individual existence becoming cosmic existence by devotion it is called Upāsanā. If your individual existence becomes nothing by allowing the cosmic existence, it is called Vipāssanā. In both extreme, you are awakened. Whether Upāsanā or Vipāssanā, you will be awakened. But go through any one extreme, only then, you will be awakened. Don’t continue to play in the field of confusion you will continue to be just in this dilemma – waking state. Dilemma destroys your dignity; takes away your respect for yourself. Dilemma destroys your dignity; takes away your respect for yourself.

 

by Sri

Discovering the context of Imperishable for all the major decisions of your life is Living Enlightenment

I will expand on Isavasya Upanishad. Usually when I come to Varanasi I speak on Kathopanishad. This time I decided I will continue on Isavasya Upanishad because last time we couldn’t spend much time on Kathopanishad. I was expanding on 14th verse of Isavasya Upanishad. 

sambḥutiṁ ca vināśaṁ ca..

Actually I am uttering only one word. One word easily you all can recite. Listen and repeat. You don’t have to feel intimidated, ‘Oh Sanskrit. I don’t know.’ I am not giving you long words. Please understand, these sounds are very powerful, they can sit inside your inner space, go on purifying on. They are like powerful inner purifiers. So listen and recite.

sambḥutiṁ ca vināśaṁ ca yastad vedobhayaṁ saha |

vināśena mṛtyuṁ tīrtvā sambhūtyāmṛtam aśnute || 14 || 

Just recite. It’s the 14th verse of Isavasya Upanishad. I will give you the translation.

One who cognizes the pure essence of these both—the imperishable consciousness, the cause of manifestation and the destructible, the perishable, manifested entities, simultaneously—such a person completes with the fear of death and transcends death by worshiping or by knowledge of the perishable entities; and reaches the imperishable consciousness; celebrates the nectar of immortality and bliss, the eternal space of oneness.

Now listen. It’s the literal translation I have read out. The key word in this whole Upanishad, you need to understand. What Upanishad is trying to convey it to you. Listen. Continue reading →