Tag / Innocence

by Sri

Innocence is keeping the consciousness at the level of the heart, not allowing it to settle in the head!

We always think children are immature. We think that the grown ups who cry are immature. We are conditioned to believe that expression of any emotion is immature. Expressing the emotions in an unfiltered way is a sign of innocence. The cunning ones edit even their emotions. Once in a while it is good to cry in front of people. What is wrong with it? What are you trying to hide? By crying you are only expressing your true feelings. What is there to hide?

The problem is that society has always taught us to hide our true nature and show only our projected personality. That is why with time we forget what our nature is. We forget how to be innocent.

One teacher told the parent during the parent teacher meeting, ‘Your daughter is very good in all her activities. She is just a little emotionally immature. But she will be alright.’

The parent looked at her in a puzzled way and asked, ‘At three, how else do you expect her to be?’ Continue reading →

by Sri

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

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! Continue reading →

by Sri

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

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. Continue reading →

by Sri

Like all other creations of Existence you have your own beautiful fragrance. It is the fragrance of sahaja, your natural spontaneous state that is unique to you!

Some people tell me, ‘Whatever you say is right, but please make me do whatever you say.’ What do you mean? Should I have two or three people continuously watch you and make you do things? Drop your cunning game, then automatically you will start doing what I say. Cunningness is a pure hide and seek game that you play with yourself. You can’t play it with me. I straightaway know where all you are hiding. I don’t need to come to you to find you. So understand that you are just playing with yourself. Just take a strong decision to be completely sincere and authentic to yourself. Only then you can drop your cunningness. When cunningness dissolves, authenticity and sincerity happen and you will enlighten quickly. Also, with authenticity you will not indulge in any kind of gossip.

Gossip is a pure expression of cunningness. When you are so cunning that you can’t tell a person anything on his face, you talk behind his back.

Intelligence plus innocence is spontaneity. Intelligence plus cunningness is calculation. Spontaneity is nothing but a flowing expression of your innocence.

When I tell people that they need to become tired of cunningness to come out of it, they ask me, ‘How come I know and yet I don’t know? How come I can’t stop being cunning?’   Continue reading →

by Sri

Swamiji, ‘‘Whatever you are saying is correct, but…’. The moment you say ‘but’ to Me, you have missed!

When I told the story of Satyakama to a group of people, one person asked me, ‘Maybe these techniques are for highly evolved souls. In that story, the disciple gets enlightened when the master just blesses him. He must have been a highly evolved soul for that to happen. I told that person, ‘No, it is not for highly evolved souls. It is for highly innocent souls!’ Understand this. Highly evolved people don’t need techniques. It is like how I was telling you the other day.

You can be either cunning or intelligent, never both at the same time

In sage Patanjali’s teaching of Ashtanga yoga, the eight techniques described are to be practiced all at once. It is not that if you finish the first technique you are one step higher and ready for the second one. No! Even the first technique is so strong that if you are able to master it and move to the second, you don’t even need the second because you are already done! The first step is yama, which is about codes of behavior. If you are able to master this alone, then you don’t need the remaining steps. You don’t need any further yoga or breath control! So understand this. All eight techniques are individually fulfilling techniques for the sincere seeker. They are not sequential steps. Similarly, techniques such as those given to Satyakama are given to innocent people who are tired of being cunning. Continue reading →

by Sri

Devalaya (temple) is a space where you connect and relax in the lap of Existence and pay obeisance to the cosmic force which is mightier than the intellect!

There is a famous saying, ‘If you worry, then you didn’t pray. If you prayed, then don’t worry.’

In today’s world of science and knowledge, the call of the being needs to be addressed compassionately and immediately. Spirituality is the way.

Spirituality is a straight path to surrender worry and be free. It is a tremendous relief for the modern day man. It is a proven science. In today’s world of science and knowledge, the call of the being needs to be addressed compassionately and immediately. Spirituality is the way. Spirituality restores the cosmos with its sanctity and mysticism. It reminds man that he is not the greatest creature on the planet. It reminds him of the powerful Existential energy that pervades the universe. It creates not-knowing and innocent surrender in the mind. Spirituality is not a ritual. It is the science of merging with Existence. Continue reading →

by Sri

Existence flows through Enlightened Masters like air flowing through hollow bamboo creating music, that is why they are so beautiful!

Enlightened master’s grace is the grace of the whole of Existence. They are the only utterly innocent beings on planet earth.

Trust is an attitude. It is not a substitute for appropriate action. The spirit of trust is the essence of the very life. It leads to innocence, surrender, relaxation and bliss. If it is followed out of complete understanding, there is nothing to lose in its path. Until then, you are still on the path to trust.

All great enlightened beings are eternally blissful because they have surrendered their very body to Existence with trust. Existence flows through them like air flowing through hollow bamboo creating music. That is why they are so beautiful. When Existence flows through, the expression is divine. Enlightened master’s grace is the grace of the whole of Existence. They are the only utterly innocent beings on planet earth. Enlightened masters are established in the knowing that nothing is impossible in the space of Existence. They are living embodiments of trust. Their bliss is an expression of this. They have access to all the knowledge of the world but are yet utterly innocent. They know that their knowledge is the knowledge of Existence. Their knowledge is not knowledge but a flowing experience of the truth of the moment. Continue reading →

by Sri

Acceptance is the deep humility towards the profound Existence that takes care of everything including you

Immense trust leads to surrender. Surrender is simplicity of the heart. It is the knowing that you do not have to decide about the Truth, that you just have to go by it. When you awaken to the powerful presence of the Truth, surrender happens.

If you observe your pet dog, you will find that even if you cheat him once in a while, he will come back to you with utmost trust. His trust is absolute and innocent. The trust comes with no reason. He has no questions, so no answers need to be given. He sees no utility in anything. He just exists like an open book, that’s all.

Two gold fish were in a water tank. One asked the other, ‘Do you trust in god?’ The other replied, ‘But of course. Who do you think changes our water everyday?’

It is only innocence that is capable of taking the leap into trust and surrender. Knowledge somehow sees utility in everything. It looks for reason in everything. Surrender and reason are mutually exclusive. Surrender is to do with trust. Surrender is possible only out of innocence, because out of innocence arises trust. With trust arises acceptance as well. Continue reading →

by Sri

When your being is completely open with a deep ‘yes’ to Existence, the darshan of Avatar will leave a deep impression of truth in your being!

When you are innocent, you are vulnerable to everything that Existence wants to teach you! If you are closed, you create a wall around you. The wall neither allows fresh breeze to touch your being nor does it allow you to step out and touch the cool breeze. Vulnerability is breaking the wall and inviting the cool breeze to touch your very being every time it blows. Vulnerability is allowing everything to touch your being. The entire cosmos comes to you when you are vulnerable. Vulnerability is not weakness. The wall when broken will not cause you danger. The wall itself was built out of a deep fear of exposing your reality. Your reality is your vulnerability and you are so afraid of opening it to the cosmos. You know deep down that if you let go and open up, you will simply be swept away in innocence. So you close yourself up. But it is suffocating to be in there because it is the same air that is circulating. You experience the same patterns that the mind knows. Then of what use is the wall?  When the wall is broken, you will realize that nothing leaves you. Instead, you only gain one thing, freshness of life.

Two astrologers met on the road on a beautiful autumn day. One of them commented, ‘Beautiful autumn. It is something we have never seen earlier.’ The other replied, ‘True. I am reminded of the autumn of 2070.’ When you are vulnerable, you experience everything at the being level. Otherwise, it becomes an experience through the head. The being is poetry, the head is prose. And poetry is life. Continue reading →

by Sri

If we nurture the being and cause the doing to happen from the quality of the being, then we don’t have to work so much for the having

There are three important states: being, doing and having.

Right now, we move from doing to having. We continuously ‘do’ things. We learn and we put the learning into useful action. We then ‘have’ what we want: money, relationships, comfort, and what not. Then we want to have better things or have more things and so we continue doing. We are all the time between doing and having. In the process, the being is forgotten. Our real restfulness lies only in the state of being. Because of this, however much we do and have, we still search for restfulness. This feeling is the ‘call of the being’.

If we nurture the being and cause the doing to happen from the quality of the being, then we don’t have to work so much for the having. That will simply happen as a byproduct. This is the secret of Existence. But this is not seen as a direct utility to society by the universities. That is the problem. But this is what gives the real utility of every individual, not only to society but to the whole of the cosmos. We should always be concerned about the Whole. Continue reading →

by Sri

An Enlightened Master is an overflowing expression of Existence, when He speaks there is a beautiful silence, which is his undercurrent. If you are open you can feel it touching you!

Paramahamsa Yogananda says, ‘Daytime is the devil’s playground.’ In daytime, we continuously feed our mind with words. Actually if you observe, words come in the way of learning. For example, now you are sitting in front of me. Many of you don’t understand what I am saying because I am talking a foreign language to you. You feel sad. But you are the most fortunate in the group! It is not possible to learn from me through words. I talk only to make you silent. If I don’t talk, you start talking inside you. So I talk. But you can learn a lot from me only through silence.

It is in the gaps between my words that the real teaching lies.

In silence there is innocence. In words there is intellect. Intellect can never receive the truth, only innocence can. Just sit here with innocence, that is enough. Then you will receive the ultimate understanding. It is in the gaps between my words that the real teaching lies. The master is sheer poetry, the poetry of Existence. His expression is an overflowing of Existence. The master speaks because you want to hear. As he speaks there is a beautiful silence, which is his undercurrent. If you are open you can feel it touching you. Continue reading →

by Sri

If there is implicit openness and innocence the learning can be received from the Avatar who imparts learning every moment

The word upanishad means ‘sitting at the feet of the master’.

In ancient India, there was the gurukul tradition of masters and disciples. Children were left with the master at the age of seven and they grew up centering beautifully in their consciousness. Masters are living embodiments of the scriptural truths. Their thoughts, words and deeds stem from the ultimate Truth. Disciples pick up the truth just by living around them. Swami Sri Yukteshwar Giri , an enlightened master from India says, ‘Sitting with the master is not merely being in his physical presence, but keeping him in your heart, being one with him in principle and tuning yourself to him.’ This is the whole technique of upanishad.

The master is superconscious energy. When you tune to him, you tune to that energy. You can tune only through innocence, openness. Openness is emptiness. Let not knowledge fill you. Knowledge is but a mere tool, not your substance. Reject all knowledge as ‘not this’, ‘not this’. When I say reject, I mean don’t settle for any intermediate knowledge except the ultimate Truth. Because when you drop everything that continuously arises in you, then you have no other go. You are thrown back into yourself and it is there you will find the ultimate Truth. It is then you are ready to be filled with the Truth. Then alone can you make upanishad happen. Continue reading →