Art of learning

 

Learning is inevitable. By doing things right you learn and by doing things wrong you also learn. From every situation, from everybody, you learn either what to do or what not to do. Either by making mistakes or by doing things correctly, you can only learn. 

Learning is inevitable. It is only when you sleep that you do not learn. And if you are asleep in your life, there is neither pain nor pleasure nor learning. Most people are in such deep slumber. That is why many people do not even make an effort to get out of their pain.

What it means to "love" someone

What is love? When love glows, it is bliss When it flows, it is compassion When it blows, it is anger. When it ferments, it is jealousy. When it is all ‘‘no’s,” it is hatred. When it acts, it is perfection. When love knows, it is me.

To love someone you do not like, means you have learned a lesson in life. 

To love someone who blames you for no reason shows that you have learned the art of living.

Silence is the answer you need

 

Some questions can only be answered in silence. Silence is the goal of all answers. If an answer does not silence the mind, it is no answer. 

Thoughts are not the goal in themselves. Their goal is silence. When you ask the question “Who am I?” You get no answer, there is only silence. That is the real answer. Your soul is solidified silence and this solidified silence is wisdom, knowledge. 

The easy way to silence thoughts is to arouse feelings, for only through feelings will peace, joy and love dawn. They are all your very nature. 

To the question “Who am I?” the only relevant answer is silence. You need to discard all answers in words, including “I’m nothing” or “I’m the cosmic self” or “I’m the self”. Just remain with the question “Who am I?” All other answers are just thoughts and thoughts can never be complete. Only silence is complete. 

Experiencing infinity

 

Time and space are infinite. Grains of sand are countless. Atoms in the universe are innumerable, as are the stars and the galaxies. The same is true with life on this planet. 

There is neither a beginning nor an end because everything is spherical. A sphere has no beginning and no end, no goal or direction. Truth has no direction, no goal. Truth itself is the goal, and truth is infinite. 

Feeling and experiencing infinity within this finite body, living in timelessness within the time span of life, uncovering bliss within misery, this is what you are here for. When wisdom dawns, it gives rise to celebration. But in celebration you may lose your focus or awareness. The ancient rishis knew this, so to maintain awareness amidst the gaiety of celebration, they brought sacredness and puja to every event. 

Finding the abode of the Divine

 

Ra in Sanskrit means that which is radiant and ma means myself. That which shines forth within me is Rama. That which is radiant in every particle of the being is Rama. 

Lord Rama was born to Dasharatha and Kaushalya. Dasharatha means ‘the ten-charioted one’ in Sanskrit. It signifies the five sense organs and the five organs of action. Kaushalya is Sanskrit for ‘skilled’. The skillful driver of the ten chariots can give birth to Rama. When the five sense organs and the five organs of action are used skillfully, radiance is born within. Rama was born in Ayodhya, which in Sanskrit means “the place where no war can happen”. When there is no conflict in our mind, then radiance can dawn. 

Lakshmana, the brother of Rama, was born of Sumitra, the good friend. When the five sense organs and five organs of action are cooperating within you, awareness is born. Often we try to look within for radiance. Just realise that you are radiant. 

Often people say, “Be the same outside as you are inside”. But I ask you, how is this possible? Inside you are a vast ocean, an infinite sky. Outside you are finite – just a small limited form, a normal stupid person. All that you are inside the love, the beauty, the compassion, the Divinity, does not show up fully outside. What shows outside is only the crust of behaviours. Ask yourself, am I really my behavioural patterns? Am I really this limited body-mind complex? No. You are not the same inside as outside. 

Do not mistake the outer crust for what you are inside. And do not show your infinite lordship outside, for Divinity is not easily understood. Let there be some mystery. When knowledge is lodged in you as wisdom, it will never leave you. Wisdom lodges itself in your heart. Make the divine your valentine, your sweet beloved. This is the first thing to do and the last thing to do. Keep your heart in a safe place, it is too delicate. Events and small things make strong impressions on it. You cannot find a better place than the divine to keep your heart safe and your mind safe. 

When you keep your heart in the divine, moving time and events will not be able to touch it, they will not create a scar. A precious stone needs a gold or silver setting around it to hold it. Wisdom and knowledge are the setting around the heart that will hold it in the divine. Make the divine your valentine. Just be and know that you are beloved. That is beloved. Make your home God’s home and there will be light, love and abundance. Make your body God’s abode and there will be peace and bliss. Feel your mind is a toy of God and you will watch and enjoy all its games. See this world as a play and as a display of God Himself and you will repose in the non-dual self.

Blessings come to you in many forms. If you are generous, blessing comes to you as abundance. If you are hard-working, blessing comes to you as happiness. If you are lazy, blessing comes to you as hard work. If you are pleasure-loving, blessing comes to you as dispassion. If you are dispassionate, blessing comes to you as knowledge of the Self.

What is the nature of consciousness?

Consciousness moving on the surface of the body is stimulus, which causes pleasure. When consciousness shrinks then pain and suffering arise. Suffering is the shrinking or contraction of consciousness. When consciousness moves through the body in limited channels, pleasure is experienced. Repeated enjoyment of stimuli causes inertia and dullness. Often cooks do not enjoy their own food. The same piece of music heard over and over again loses its charm. People in the sex industry do not enjoy sex.

If stimuli are observed, then consciousness expands and becomes peace. With awareness the stimuli lose their significance, whether they exist or not makes no difference. When the sun is shining, it makes no difference if the candle is lit or not. To realise that all pleasures are just stimuli and that you are more than the stimuli brings freedom. Pain is nothing but consciousness wanting to expand and to become free. Freedom is liberation from the craving of stimuli. Pain is not a permanent state.

Like the insomniac who has forgotten how to sleep, most of us have forgotten how to be at peace and in bliss. Just as the natural tendency of water is to flow downward, and the natural tendency of air is not to be under pressure, the natural tendency of consciousness is to expand and be at peace.

Finding one's identity

 

You have many faces, only you do not face them. From time to time in different phases, different faces appear. When you come face to face with your faces then conflicts, confusion and chaos arise in you. As you come close to your being, all the faces melt and leave you as the space that you are. 

At the gross level, you identify yourself as someone. As you move to more subtle levels, you may identify yourself as some energy or as an incarnation of some angel, saint or prophet. When you go beyond even this identity, you are whole, holy, Brahman Purna Brahman Narayana.

Shiva is called Chandrashekhara, which means “that mind which is in Shiva and is always above the peak”. 

Buddha is not on the peak, rather the peak is beneath Buddha. One who goes up to the peak comes down, but the peak seeks the one who is stationed higher, in the inner space. People run after parties and celebrations, but for the one who does not run after them, parties and celebrations follow him wherever he goes. If you run after parties, loneliness comes to you. If you are in the solitude of the self, parties surround you. 

Three kinds of understanding

 

Your mind does not belong to you. Don’t blame it. Let the big Self, embrace it. Effort is the key in the relative, effortlessness is the key to the absolute.

There are three kinds of understanding, intellectual understanding, experiential understanding and existential realisation. Intellectual understanding says “yes”, it agrees. Experiential understanding feels, it's obvious. Existential realisation is irrefutable, it becomes your very nature. 

If you have only an intellectual understanding, you will think you know everything. Most theologians are in this category. You can know intellectually that you are hollow and empty but sitting and feeling you are hollow and empty is totally different. All that you hear will simply remain a jumble of words if there is no experiential understanding, which is more on the feeling level. When you have an experience, you want to understand more about it and so you become a seeker. 

Existential realisation contains within it both experiential and intellectual understanding and yet it is beyond both of these. How do you achieve existential realisation? There is no way to achieve it. When the fruit becomes ripe, it falls.

What is peace? It is an undivided mind.

External behaviour is not a measurement of knowledge acquired

 

Enlightenment is beyond seasons like the evergreen coconut tree. Sometimes the question arises, “What’s the use of all these Art of Living courses if someone’s behaviour has not changed?” Yet the knowledge acquired by a human being cannot be measured or judged by external behaviour. 

Someone may behave as though they have absorbed all the knowledge but internally they have not. The reverse is also true. Someone who seems not to have changed at all may have absorbed quite a lot. Oh, people just look at behaviour, but the intelligent person looks beyond it and is amazed by the play of consciousness Brahman. 

Behaviour affects relationships. Attitude affects behaviour. Knowledge or ignorance affects attitude. Grace brings forth knowledge.

On the inside you are like a tree, in some seasons barren and at other times blossoming. Enlightenment is beyond seasons like an evergreen coconut tree that yields fruit throughout the year. 

Seeing the one in many and the many in one

 

The intellect divides and synthesizes. Some creatures in the world synthesize and some divide. Ants only synthesize, they bring things together and build anthills. Monkeys cannot synthesize, they divide everything. You give them a garland and they tear it to pieces and throw it all over the place. A monkey can only divide or analyse. 

A beaver synthesizes, it brings wood together and builds a dam. Birds, such as weaver birds, also synthesize. But human beings have both abilities, they are capable of both analysis and synthesis. The intellect analyses to find the Truth. And Truth once found synthesizes everything into One. 

When the intellect becomes quiet, it brings out intelligence. Often people think that gathering information makes them intelligent. This is not so. It is samadhi that brings intelligence. An unintelligent person, though he may have all information, cannot be creative. An intelligent person, even without much information, can be creative. A sign of intelligence is to see the one in many and find the many in one. 

If you cannot see the divine in me, then open your eyes. If you see the divine in me, then you are a part of me and you cannot be away from me. If you feel a part of me, you can only see the divine in yourself. And when you see the divine in yourself, you will see the divine in everyone. 

Meditation is seeing God in yourself. Love is seeing God in the person next to you. Knowledge is seeing God everywhere. Expression of love is service. Expression of joy is a smile. Expression of peace is meditation. Expressing God is conscious action.

You only see the fall of water. You do not see how the ocean becomes the cloud. The ocean becoming the cloud is a secret, but the cloud becoming the ocean is obvious. In the world, only a few can notice your inner growth and height, but your outer expressions are apparent. Never brood that people do not understand you. They can only see your expression. 

Look at the water. Even the fall of water is beautiful. If a rock falls it shatters, but when water falls it generates power and beauty. Being somebody is like being a stone, being nobody is like being the water, being everybody is like being water vapour.

Don't go chasing angels

 

Infinity has diverse qualities and specific qualities assume names; they are called angels. Angels are simply rays of your big self. They are there to serve you when you are centered. Just as roots and stems come out of a seed as it sprouts, so angels manifest in your life when you are centered. 

Angels are like your extended arms. Just as all the colours are present in white sunlight, all the angels are present in your higher self. Bliss is their breath, dispassion is their abode. 

Angels rejoice in your company, but you have nothing to gain from them. They only come around those who have nothing to gain from them. 

Shiva is the bestower of dispassion. Shiva is the consciousness that is bliss, innocence and omnipresence. Krishna is the outer manifestation of Shiva. Shiva is the inner silence of Krishna.

Why human birth is a privilege

 

Among all the planets in the solar system, the Earth is privileged to host life in so many forms and among all the species, humans are the most privileged for they can host the knowledge. Among all the knowledgeable ones, you are the most privileged, guess why? The underprivileged are those who do not realize that they are privileged. 

They also host, but they host all the negativities. Again and again, remember that you are peace, you are love, you are joy and that you are hosting the creator. Like birds returning to their nests again and again, come back to your source, only there can you realise that you host the divine. 

Awareness of the Self - II

 

The five senses and the four inner faculties, mind, intellect, memory, ego, all lament when they lose sight of the self. Then the master comes and shows you that you are the tenth. Count, but never stop until you find the tenth. Finding the ever-present self, inside, makes everything truly joyful. Are you evolving? If you are evolving, you are not in the Self. But you are not out of the self, because nothing can exist out of the self.

There are 6 distortions that do not exist in the self: 

 1.Expansion - Prasarana: Expansion implies there is something into which to expand. That which expands cannot be the basis for expansion. 

2. Contraction - Akunchana: Contraction means something shrinks from something else. Self does not withdraw or shrink from anything, so contraction does not exist in the self. 

3. Evolution - Vriddhi: Evolution is the process of becoming something that does not already exist. Self is always the same, so it cannot evolve. 

4. Decay - Ksaya: There is no devolution or decay in the self, it does not get old or stale. That is why when you are close to your Self, you do not feel that you are aging. 

5. Beginning - Anaadi: Self has no beginning. If God has a beginning, then He is not God. 

6. Lack - Abhava: Self has no lack. Whatever lacks something is not complete. Self does not lack anything, it is complete. Lack indicates the existence of something outside itself that does not exist for the self. So if you feel you have not grown at all, do not worry, you are close to the self. 

When your mind is with the Self, then you do not worry about evolution. If you think about evolving, then you are stuck in the mind. Mind is part of matter, and matter evolves and decays. That is how the experience of contraction and expansion is all play and display of the mind. Mind expands and contracts. But when it expands, it comes close to the truth, which has no expansion. Are you still evolving? Good luck :).

How do you become centered? By shifting your awareness from the experience to the experiencer. All experiences are on the circumference, and they keep on changing. The unchanging experiencer is at the centre. Again and again come back to the experiencer. 

If you are frustrated, instead of spending your time on the experience of frustration ask, “Who is frustrated?”

If you are unhappy ask, “Who is unhappy ?” 

If you think you know something ask, “Who is it that knows?” 

If you think you are enlightened ask, “Who is it that is enlightened?” 

If you think you are ignorant ask, “Who is ignorant?”

If you think “poor me”, “Who is ‘poor me’?”

If you think you are highly devoted ask, “Who is it that is devoted?”

Shed all your faces and face the I. Then you have truly come to me. Life without wisdom is incomplete. Wisdom that does not give rise to feeling is incomplete. Feeling that does not translate into action is incomplete. Action that does not give rise to fulfillment is incomplete. Fulfillment is returning to the self. 

Give me not thirst if you cannot give me water. Give me not hunger if you cannot give me food. Give me not joy if I cannot share. Give me not skills if I cannot put them to good use. Give me not intelligence if I cannot perceive beyond it. Give me not knowledge if I cannot digest it. Give me not love if I cannot serve. Give me not desires if they do not lead me to you. Give me not a path if it does not take me home. Give me not prayers if You do not want to hear them. 

When the master prays, to whom does he pray? To oneself. In prayer the mind goes to its source, the self. God, the master and the self are the same.