The marriage of service and spirituality

 

A person without emotions is like wood without any juice. You need to make yourself interesting to make people be with you. This will happen when you nurture yourself with music, prayer and service.  

The way to expand from individual to universal consciousness is to share others’ sorrow and joy. As you grow, your consciousness should also grow. When you expand in knowledge with time then depression is not possible.

The way to overcome personal misery is to share universal misery. The way to expand personal joy is to share universal joy. Instead of thinking, “What about me and what can I gain from this world?”, think, “What can I do for the world?”  

Silence heals and rejuvenates. Silence gives you depth and stability and brings creativity. Service (seva) leads to the dynamic experience of heart. It creates a sense of belongingness. Lack of service can land a person in depression.

Pain is physical. Suffering is mental. If you are not sensitive to others’ pain, then you are not a human being. That is why you need to serve. Service alone can bring contentment in life, but service without silence tires you.

Service without spirituality will be shallow and cannot be sustained for a long period. The deeper the silence, the more dynamic the outer activity. Both are essential in life. When you bring some relief or freedom to someone through seva, good vibrations and blessings come to you. Seva brings merit, merit allows you to go deep in meditation, meditation brings back your smile. When you sing and pray from your heart, your emotions are nourished and you become lively.

The art of creative silence

 

Creativity brings a new beginning to “time.” When you are creative, you break the monotony of time. Everything becomes fresh and alive. Creativity brings along with it a new round of enthusiasm. 

Both creative and procreative impulses in nature are associated with enthusiasm. When you are enthusiastic, you are closer to the creative principle of existence. 

Deep silence is the mother of creativity. No creativity can come out of one who is too busy, worried, over-ambitious or lethargic. Balanced activity, rest and yoga can kindle skills and creativity in you.

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. 

We need celebration that is spiritual

 

Celebration is the nature of the spirit. But, any celebration must be spiritual. A celebration without spirituality has no depth. 

Silence gives depth to celebration. Some people think being silent is spirituality. Many meditators feel that laughing, singing and dancing are not spiritual. Some people think only celebration is spirituality. 

In some parts of the world - rural India or Africa - celebration means loud music, there is no silence at all. Spirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration, as well as inner silence and outer celebration. 

Dealing with skeptics

 

Ignorance is being a skeptic and not knowing that you are one. If you think you are a skeptic, you are no longer a skeptic. You already have a clue of something beyond. So, in reality, you can never know if you are a skeptic or not. 

A skeptic is stuck in a paradigm, closing all other possibilities. But this creation has all possibilities. As one understands how paradigms shift, skepticism is dropped. A real scientist can never afford to be a skeptic because skepticism will not probe into unknown areas of existence. Skepticism is an “I know it all” attitude, and such an attitude is unscientific. Skepticism is dispelled by knowledge.

Do not recognize someone’s skepticism and try to argue. Arguments only strengthen skepticism. Fear of losing one’s freedom brings more resistance and causes more skepticism. Deep inside every human being there is faith and love. Skepticism is only a thin layer. If you hold in your mind, "This person is a skeptic", you only empower his or her skepticism.

Your silence and the smile from your heart will dispel any skepticism. There is nothing better than silence to break it. Silence means a quality of consciousness, not just keeping your lips tight. Skepticism comes only in people who walk with boundaries. Children have no skepticism. They live in their fantasy worlds, worlds of many possibilities. Their worlds are of innocence, joy, beauty, and love.

Handling negativity

 

Negativity cannot remain without a support. Positivity and happiness can exist without any reason. 

The mind goes on trying to find a support for its negativity. It looks for a hook on which to hang its negativity, if not this person, then that thing or that person. This perpetuates maya. The creeping vine of negativity needs support in order to grow. But negativity or aversion for even one person can guarantee a one-way ticket to hell, you need nothing else.

All negativity is an indicator for you to move to your centre and to broaden your vision to cosmic intelligence. Instead of focusing your attention on a support for your negativity, look at the seed of the negativity. 

With meditation, silence and Sudarshan Kriya, the source of negativity is nipped at the root.

Meditation and its many meanings

Meditation is not an act; it is the art of doing nothing. The rest in meditation is deeper than the deepest sleep that you can ever have. When the mind becomes free from agitation, becomes calm and serene and is at peace, meditation happens. When the mind is engaged in some activity, it gets tired.

So any type of concentration, contemplation or any activity in the mind can drain your system. Meditation is that which doesn’t drain you, but just gives you deep rest and we withdraw from all sensory activities like seeing, listening, smelling, tasting. It is almost like sleep, but not exactly sleep.

Meditation is not concentration; it is de-concentration, letting go. When can you rest? Rest is possible when you have stopped all activities. When you stop moving around, stop working, talking, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking—then you get rest or sleep. In sleep you are left with only involuntary activities like breathing, heartbeat, food digestion, blood-circulation, etc. 

But this is not total rest. When the mind settles down, only then total rest or meditation happens. There are three modes to our consciousness: waking, dreaming and sleeping; and a fourth mode is the meditative state. That is, you are aware from within and yet fully in a deep state of rest. Meditation calms the mind and gives it deep rest.

What happens in your mind when you have to wait for something? Do you notice the time passing by? In waiting, you observe every moment that is passing by and this very waiting can take you into meditation. When you have to wait, you can either be frustrated or meditative. Feeling time is meditation.

Meditation is that journey from sound to silence, from movement to stillness. It complements activity, though it appears to be completely opposite. For a layman, we can categorize the whole thing in seven layers of existence: body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego and the reference point of change which we call the “self.”

You know in life, we notice everything is changing. And how do we know the change, if there is no reference in the mind? There is something in us that is not changing. That something that has been with us, we call it the Self or the non-changing aspect of our consciousness. So, meditation is a journey to the non-changing reference of our Self, the consciousness.

Now, many people ask how to quiet the mind in meditation or how to get into a deeper meditation? So I would say, first accept the noise and not fight it. You fight with it and feel that you should not have this noise. The more you want to get rid of it, the more it will stick to you. The principle of consciousness or mind is such that resistance does not eliminate it but makes it grow. So first you have to let go and not resist it.

Second focus on the five different ways of getting into meditation. Breathing will help you get rid of the noise. Proper food can also make an impact on meditation. Exercise, posture and refined emotions, good understanding, all of these will aid meditation. 

Satsang

 

Satsang means the company of reality, being in touch with the truth. It is not just singing some complicated songs which you don’t understand. Music is one part of it. The second part is understanding the logic. The third part is reposing in deep meditation and being with yourself. 

So, which is the right company? That which makes you feel light, which makes you feel the problem is very trivial as compared to what you thought. If company makes you perceive the problem as being bigger than it is, that is not satsang. Satsang is where you can drop what people think about you and be authentic.

Usually, people who are in celebration don’t go into the depth, while people who experience silence, don’t usually celebrate. However, satsang is when we value both silence and celebration. The purpose of music is to create silence deep within you and the purpose of silence is to create dynamism in life.

Music is laya yoga; laya is dissolving. This is the highest form of samadhi (unity with the divine). Sound is a form of energy. Your whole body is made up of atoms. When you sing bhajans, the sound vibrations get absorbed into every particle of your body. Just like a microphone absorbs sound and converts it into electricity, the body absorbs the vibrations and transforms it into consciousness.

If you are sitting and listening to gossip or loud jarring music, then that gets absorbed by your body and does not give a nice feeling. When you hear knowledge, or chant with all your heart, that elevates your consciousness. Being with this truth kindles the energy in you and awakens the consciousness because the sound energy very easily penetrates into the mind.

The body is made up of five elements – earth, water, air, fire and ether. The ether element is associated with sound. And sound unites. Sound reverberates in your body. Our mind and consciousness are ancient. When you dive into different layers of consciousness, there are different languages that are present there. The most ancient layer of our consciousness can understand the most ancient language of the world – sanskrit.

When we are sitting, thinking or talking then every mind thinks differently, no one thinks alike. But when we sing or chant sanskrit bhajans, then the mind which is so ancient identifies the impressions of all these old bhajans, our consciousness begins to unite and somewhere deep inside sharing happens. And the bhajans or mantras make deep impressions in the mind where they remain for a long period. It is like a brush. Each bristle joined together can clear all the knots in mind.

That is why even though we don’t know the meaning of some of the words, we simply chant them because just chanting them has a positive effect. It is not the meaning that is important. So when we sing, we don’t have to see how well we sing, and where we are singing. Just close your eyes and be one with the music, the sound. You dissolve into the space that is, through bhajan.

We usually think bhajan is just singing songs. Bhajan means sharing. Divine is love and when you blossom in that love, you share the love. Divine is compassion, and when you are compassionate, you are in bhajan. When the mind is split into one hundred parts, there is misery. And the same minds when they all get together, becomes one unit, then there is joy.

Nourishing your emotions

 

A person without emotions is like wood without any juice. You need to make yourself interesting to inspire people to be with you. This will happen when you nurture yourself with music, prayer and service. The way to expand from individual to universal consciousness is to share others’ sorrow and joy. As you grow, your consciousness should also grow.

When you expand in knowledge with time, then depression is not possible. The way to overcome personal misery is to share universal misery. The way to expand personal joy is to share universal joy. Instead of thinking, “what about me?” and “what can I gain from this world?” think, “what can I do for the world?” Service leads to the dynamic experience of heart. It creates a sense of belongingness.

Lack of service can lead a person to depression. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Pain is physical. Suffering is mental. If you are not sensitive to others’ pain, then you are not a human being. That is why you need to serve. Service alone can bring contentment in life, but service without silence tires you.

Service without spirituality will be shallow and cannot be sustained for a long period. The deeper the silence, the more dynamic will be the outer activity. Both are essential in life. When you bring some relief or freedom to someone through seva, good vibrations and blessings come to you.

Seva brings merit; merit allows you to go deep in meditation; meditation brings back your smile. When you sing and pray from your heart, your emotions are nourished and you become lively.

Let time celebrate your presence

 

“Sound stretched is Music…

Movement stretched is dance…

Mind stretched is meditation…

LIFE stretched is celebration”

A poor man celebrates the New Year once a year. A rich man celebrates each day. But the richest man celebrates every moment. You don’t need money to celebrate life. If you just have the trust and faith that you will be provided what you need tomorrow, you start celebrating every moment. That’s the real sign of prosperity.

If you don’t know you are loved by the Divine, you will not be able to celebrate life. You will live in insecurity. With insecurity, greed comes. With greed, selfishness becomes strong. And with that comes anger.  With anger comes lust.  And with that comes all sorts of sadness, miseries one behind the other, like a chain.

Turn back and remember the whole year that has gone by. Do not run away from anything. Do not reject anything. Do not go away from anything.

At the same time, let your attention be on the self. This is a delicate balance. That balance is yoga. That balance is spirituality. Some people think being silent is spirituality. Some people think only celebration is spirituality. Spirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration, and also inner silence and outer celebration!

The celebration that comes out of silence is real celebration. Celebration is the nature of the spirit. Any celebration has to be spiritual. A celebration without spirituality has no depth. Silence gives depth to celebration.

Every excuse to celebrate is good. In celebration, you are not just having a party, you remind yourself of the wisdom. If sacredness is attached to a celebration, that celebration is total, complete. It’s not just body and mind but also the spirit that celebrates.

The year 2022 was fortunate because you were living at that time! Let time celebrate your presence. You keep smiling as ever. When you let time celebrate you, you are a witness amid celebration. The heart always longs for the old, the mind for the new. Life is a combination of both.

Allow the space for creativity to dawn. The year that has gone has taught us many lessons; what we should do and what we should not do. Every pain that we went through in 2022 brought us some depth, and all the joy and pleasure gave us a new vision of life and hope the future.

“The year gone by saw plenty of rainy days. In 2023, let there be sunshine—both in our lives and in society. Let us all have a determination to create a violence-free, stress-free society. May your life be filled with peace, joy and happiness!

Keep having fun!

 

Have fun!

Take life lightly and seriously too. If you take life all serious, it is very boring. If you take it as all fun, it becomes frivolous, superficial.

You should have depth. Life should be silence and celebration, a combination of both.

Be dispassionate and totally passionate to bring transformation. Passion for transformation and dispassion for momentary pleasure – these two can make you a very, very deep person.

If you walk this path, you will have no dearth for anything, all will happen at the right time.

True prayer happens with devotion and faith

 

Prayer is a vital tool to improve your life. When you feel the obstacle is too much to handle, deep prayer can work miracles. Whatever you do, know that the higher power has the final say and you can tap that power through your prayers because prayer is the cry of a soul. It happens when you feel utterly helpless or when you feel totally grateful. Both are authentic and always get fulfilled.

Praying doesn’t mean just sitting and chanting some words. It is about being in that serene, calm, meditative state. Whereas religion puts words to prayer, and adds symbols and rituals to it, prayer itself transcends them. It happens in the subtle level of feelings and the feelings transcend words and religion. This silence is one step beyond the barriers of language. It is that which the whole universe can understand. That is why, in the Vedic tradition, before and after prayers, there is meditation.

When the mind is focused, prayer becomes far more powerful. You have to connect to yourself because all powers are hidden within the Self. Then everything will manifest. It is like using the cell phone. If you keep on pressing numbers but there is no SIM card inside, will it work? Similarly, some of our prayers are not getting connected. You haven’t put in the SIM card. Now if you have the SIM card and no range, will it work? Or, if the range and SIM card are there, but battery is not charged, will it work? You need a SIM card, charge and range and only then you can call anyone, anywhere.

So, sadhana is the SIM card, satsang is the charge and your faith is the range, because true prayer can’t happen without devotion and faith. The act of praying itself has the power to bring transformation. Realise that God’s protection is there for you. And if at all you have to pray for something, pray for the happiness of all the people in the world.

Be one of those who change time

 

A New Year is the time when a lot of people stumble upon the realisation, “Oh! Another year has gone by!” For a few seconds or minutes, we wonder about the current of time that flows by and then again get busy or lost in the world outside. The funny thing is that this happens nearly every year. If we go deeper into these moments of wonder, we realise that there is an aspect of us that is a witness to all the events of time. This witness inside us is unchanging and it is from here that we observe all the change that time brings.

All the events in life until this moment appear like a dream. Wisdom is becoming aware of this dream-like nature of life even as it is unfolding now. Knowing this brings tremendous strength from within and you do not get shaken by events and circumstances. At the same time, events have their own place in life. We need to learn from them and keep moving.

In the past year, how many days were you in sanyas? How many days were you struggling, being caught in maya? Turn back and remember the entire year. Do not run away from anything. Do not reject anything. At the same time, let your attention be on the self. This is a delicate balance. This balance is yoga. This balance is spirituality. Some people think it is about being silent. Some people think it is only celebration. However, spirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration, and also inner silence and outer celebration.

This year has been very challenging for the entire world. But we need to keep making efforts to make it better for everyone around. This is possible when we are established within ourselves. In you, there is an actor and there is a witness. As you go inwards, the witness aspect grows in you and you remain untouched by events. And as you go outwards, the actor in you becomes more skilful in responding to situations. These two entirely opposite aspects of our being are nurtured by meditation. When you come closer to the Self, your action becomes powerful in the world and right action in the world brings you closer to the Self.

The year that is going by has taught us many lessons; what we should be doing and what we should not be doing. Every pain that we went through brought us some depth, and all the joy and pleasure gave us a new vision of life and hope for the future.

The year gone by saw plenty of rainy days. This New Year let there be sunshine – both in our lives and in society. Let us all have a determination to create a violence-free, stress-free society. Let us resolve to be unshakable within and move towards a better world. Time changes people but there are people who change the time. May you be one of them. Happy New Year!

On Guru Purnima 2021

 

Guru Purnima is celebrated with this idea in mind that you do a revision of your own wisdom, knowledge in your life - how much life is filled with wisdom and how much it is not, where we have integrated the wisdom in life, and how we have not. Do an assessment of how far you have progressed in life.

Now don't be scared, what appears to be a failure is not a failure at all but every failure is a step towards success and success is just nothing, it is just a concept. In the big picture you will see that life is much more than what you consider as success. You know you think something is success because you find yourself small, life is smaller than your achievement. So any time you feel that you have succeeded know that you have much bigger potential, you are much bigger than anything that you have done or you have achieved, because your being, your self, your life, yourself is much more powerful than anything else.

You just have to recollect these words and think several times, sometimes it may just go above the head. Oh, why is Gurudev saying success is nothing? When you realize your potential every success appears to be very small and if you are proud of your success that simply means you are not aware of your potential. The master is a part of you and you are a part of the Master, this is what you have to know, realize--like the air within the body is part of the air all around you, like our body is part of this earth, you are part of your mother, you are part of  your father.

Similarly wisdom, your consciousness, is a part of the big mind. Our small eye is part of the big eye that encompasses the whole existence and that is what the Guru principle is, a Master is. A Master is ekum (the only one), nityam (eternal), vimalam (pure), achalam (unshakeable), sarvadhi saakshi bhutam (a witness to all types of thoughts, all types of emotions, all types of intellects), i.e. it is much more than just thoughts, concepts, emotions, concepts like right or wrong, good or bad, it's much beyond all that is relative and even beyond that, that is pure consciousness.

That is what consciousness is. That is what I am and that is what you are and this is when you realize I am not just this little mind which has cravings, aversions, likes, dislikes and all sorts of things, I am much more than this. I am part of the universal consciousness - thou art that - that is the ultimate wisdom. You are that consciousness, you are that infinite potential and that is what a Guru is and that is what you are.

So on Guru Purnima day a student or disciple does not feel he is separate from the Guru, he is a part of the Guru and he makes life a celebration, only then can life become a celebration. In Sanskrit there is a proverb that says there is no joy in small things, joy is always there in something that is much bigger, greater and lovely and that is what you are. We need to remind ourselves of that again and again and again.

See, we don’t realize we are breathing most of the time right? We realize only when we are climbing a hill or too many steps and when we start panting then we know. Nowadays people have started realizing the importance of  deep breathing, how important it is to breathe more. In the same way we don’t realize, even though we are in it, it is just out of sight because we are so busy running all the time in the rat race for the accessories of life. So Guru Purnima is the time when you relax.

It is good to see thousands of people who are doing a silence program this week to take a few days, not weeks to go deep within and be in silence. It does so much good, it removes all the cobwebs in the mind and the witness consciousness wakes up from within.

Once such awakening happens then it is irreversible, you can not just be gloomy again. The gloomy mindset can be overcome by gratitude, by feeling grateful. In the world, in activity, when we are busy, when we are interacting with people it is quite natural to feel drained or when gloominess sticks to you which may be due to others doings and not your own we can snap out of it when we realize that this is all just part of the whole game, part of life. We should realize that life is much much larger, bigger than events whether pleasant or unpleasant and meditation is the key for it. Silence and meditation is necessary. At some point you will not have to make an effort to meditate at all. Even now there is no effort in meditation, even with eyes open while talking, walking and while doing your work you are meditating, you remain in a meditative state.

Today everything is happening from a different place - satsang is happening in a different place, I am talking to you from a different place and you are watching from a different place but still we are all in one place, that is here (the heart).

Buddha is the manifestation of silence

 

When Buddha got enlightened on that full moon day in the month of May, it is said that he maintained silence for the whole week. He did not say a word. Mythology says that all the angels in the heaven were frightened. They knew that it was only once in a millennium that someone blossoms like Buddha. Now he was silent!

The angels then requested him to say something. He said, “Those who know, they know even without me saying it and those who do not know, will not know even if I say it. Any description of light to a blind man is of no use. There is no point in talking to those who have not tasted the ambrosia of life, and therefore I am silent. How can you convey something so intimate and personal? Words cannot convey it. And, as many scriptures in the past have revealed, words end where truth begins.”

The angels said, “What you say is right. But consider those who are on the borderline, who are neither fully enlightened nor totally ignorant. For them, a few words will give a push, for their sake you speak and every word of yours will create that silence.”

The purpose of words is to create silence. If words create more noise, then they have not reached their goal. Buddha’s words would definitely create silence, because Buddha is the manifestation of silence. Silence is the source of life and is the cure for diseases. When people are angry, they maintain silence. First they shout and then silence dawns. When one is sad, they ask to be left alone and retreat into silence. Similarly, silence is the recourse one takes to if ashamed. If one is wise too, there’s silence.

Look at the noise in your mind. What is it about? Money? Fame? Recognition? Fulfillment? Relationships? The noise is about something; silence is about nothing. Silence is the basis; noise is the surface. From the very beginning, Buddha lived a very satisfied life. Any pleasure was at his feet the moment he wanted it. One day he said, “I would like to go and see what the world is.”

Buddha set out in the quest for truth, all by himself, leaving his palace, his wife and son. The stronger the silence, the more powerful will be the questions that arise from such a silence. Nothing could stop him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get away during the day, so he quietly escaped at night and his search continued for several years. He did all that people told him to do, he went from place to place, fasted, and he walked many paths, before discovering four truths.

At a time when there was so much prosperity, Buddha gave a begging bowl to his main disciples and asked them to go and beg! He made kings take off their royal robes and take a bowl in their hand! Not that they were in need of food but he wanted to teach them the lesson of becoming ‘nobody’ from being ‘somebody’. You are nobody; you are insignificant in this Universe. When kings and geniuses of that time were asked to beg, they became embodiments of compassion.

The first truth is, there is misery in the world. In life, there are only two possibilities:

1. one is to observe the world around us and know from others’ sufferings,
2. the second is to experience it and find that it is misery.

The second truth is there is a cause for misery. You can be happy without a reason, but misery has a cause. The third is that it is possible to eliminate misery. And the fourth truth is that there is a path to be out of misery.

Observe your true nature. What is your true nature? It is peace, compassion, love, friendliness and joy and it is silence that gives birth to all this. Silence swallows the sadness, guilt, and misery and gives birth to joy, compassion and love. In this way, everyone can enjoy and cross the ocean of misery.

Music, sound and silence

 

The purpose of sound is silence. Sound originates from silence and its goal is silence. Silence simply means total harmony.

When there is total harmony deep within you, then even sound seems like an object, it seems heavy. But the way is through sound, through music.

Music is that which connects the individual to the universal. The limited mind expands through music and realizes it is already part of the big consciousness or the big mind.

Buddha is the manifestation of silence

 

When Buddha got enlightened on that full moon day in the month of May, it is said that he maintained silence for the whole week. He did not say a word. Mythology says that all the angels in the heaven were frightened. They knew that it was only once in a millennium that someone blossoms like Buddha. Now he was silent!

The angels then requested him to say something. He said, “Those who know, they know even without me saying it and those who do not know, will not know even if I say it. Any description of light to a blind man is of no use. There is no point in talking to those who have not tasted the ambrosia of life, and therefore I am silent. How can you convey something so intimate and personal? Words cannot convey it. And, as many scriptures in the past have revealed, words end where truth begins.”

The angels said, “What you say is right. But consider those who are on the borderline, who are neither fully enlightened nor totally ignorant. For them, a few words will give a push, for their sake you speak, and every word of yours will create that silence.”

The purpose of words is to create silence. If words create more noise, then they have not reached their goal. Buddha’s words would definitely create silence, because Buddha is the manifestation of silence. Silence is the source of life and is the cure for diseases. When people are angry, they maintain silence. First they shout and then silence dawns. When one is sad, they ask to be left alone and retreat into silence. Similarly, silence is the recourse one takes to if ashamed. If one is wise too, there’s silence.

Look at the noise in your mind. What is it about? Money? Fame? Recognition? Fulfillment? Relationships? The noise is about something; silence is about nothing. Silence is the basis; noise is the surface. From the very beginning, Buddha lived a very satisfied life. Any pleasure was at his feet the moment he wanted it. One day he said, “I would like to go and see what the world is.”

Buddha set out in the quest for truth, all by himself, leaving his palace, his wife and son. The stronger the silence, the more powerful will be the questions that arise from such a silence. Nothing could stop him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get away during the day, so he quietly escaped at night and his search continued for several years. He did all that people told him to do, he went from place to place, fasted, and he walked many paths, before discovering four truths.

At a time when there was so much prosperity, Buddha gave a begging bowl to his main disciples and asked them to go and beg! He made kings take off their royal robes and take a bowl in their hand! Not that they were in need of food but he wanted to teach them the lesson of becoming ‘nobody’ from being ‘somebody’. You are nobody; you are insignificant in this Universe. When kings and geniuses of that time were asked to beg, they became embodiments of compassion.

The first truth is, there is misery in the world. In life, there are only two possibilities. One is to observe the world around us and know from others’ sufferings. The other is to experience it and find that it is misery.

The second truth is there is a cause for misery. You can be happy without a reason, but misery has a cause. The third is that it is possible to eliminate misery. And the fourth truth is that there is a path to be out of misery.

Observe your true nature. What is your true nature? It is peace, compassion, love, friendliness and joy and it is silence that gives birth to all this. Silence swallows the sadness, guilt, and misery and gives birth to joy, compassion and love. In this way, everyone can enjoy and cross the ocean of misery.

Four powerful ways to happiness in 2021

 

Celebration can be attributed to any reason, because the nature of our spirit is to celebrate. The new year is a time when the spirit of celebration engulfs the whole world. This is also an opportunity to reflect on the year gone by and take stock of the lessons learnt. A celebration has social, emotional and spiritual components. Often, we focus on the first two and forget the third. True celebration happens when the spiritual aspect is attended to.

Very often, people ask me how I see the future. And I say that the future is for them to build however they want it. The unwise regret the past, think the future is destiny and are miserable in present. The wise see their past as destiny, the future as free will and are happy in the present.

However significant the events of the past year were at the time, looking back, you cannot see them all as anything but a dream. Reflecting on these events, what stands out is the impermanent nature of all things. Events are like stones and pebbles in the great river of time which keeps flowing unabated. In life, things are to be learnt and forgotten — learnt so that you do not repeat the same mistakes and forgotten so that they do not leave you traumatized.

Here are four ways to happiness in the new year:

Make Meditation a Part of Life
Modern life’s demands lead to stress and restlessness, which can be released through a few minutes of meditation. Meditation gives you deep rest. The deeper you are able to rest, the more dynamic you will be in activity. It is the best tool to wipe your mind clean of all past impressions that weigh you down.

Often, we get pulled in different directions and are unable to devote time to ourselves. We do not take out the time to think and reflect. This can leave us dull and tired. A few quiet moments everyday are the source of creativity. Silence heals and rejuvenates and gives you depth and stability. Sometime during the day, sit for a few minutes, get into the cave of your heart, eyes closed, and keep the world away.

Serve
Make a commitment to make this world a better place to live. Do some acts of kindness without expecting anything in return. Service (seva) alone can bring contentment in life. It creates a sense of connectedness. When you bring some relief to someone through selfless service, good vibrations come to you. When you show kindness, your true nature, which is love and peace, come to the surface.

Feel Grateful
Our love, faith, and belief should be deep-rooted, and then everything else moves on its own. The feeling that “I am blessed” can help you overcome any failure. Once you realize that you are blessed, then all the complaints and grumbling disappear, all the insecurities disappear and you become grateful, contented and peaceful.

Spend time with Nature
If you are not amazed by the magnificence of this creation — your eyes are not yet opened. Tell me, what in this creation is not a mystery? Birth is a mystery, death is a mystery. If both birth and death are mysteries, then life is certainly a greater mystery. Being completely immersed in the mystery of life and in this creation is samadhi.

Just like we live in the outer world of events and circumstances, we also live in the inner world of emotions and feelings, which we are not always aware of. The distance between the outer and the inner worlds is just the blink of an eye. Yoga is the skill of keeping attention on the inner world while acting in the outer. When you are lost in the outside world, there is disharmony in the inner world and life is like a war. When you are established in the inner world, there is clarity in the outer world and life becomes a game.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Dispassion in the time of a pandemic

 

Social distancing during a lockdown is not necessarily a punishment. Silence and solitude are potent means for personal growth and self-renewal, a great way to nurture dispassion in ourselves. The natural tendency of the senses is to go outwards, and enjoy the whole creation. Right from the moment you wake up in the morning, you want to see, smell, taste, hear and touch. However, the ability of the senses to enjoy is limited.

How long can you watch the beautiful scenery? The desire to enjoy through the senses first comes in the mind, but the capacity of the senses to enjoy is limited. Suppose you love pudding, or apple-pie; how much can you eat – one piece, two pieces, three servings? By the time you have the third serving, the same thing that was giving you pleasure, becomes painful. This is because our ability to enjoy is limited to our senses.

We can enjoy anything on the planet only when what we desire is available, there is the right attitude in the mind, and the senses are not tired. This is not often the case. Things may not be available like right now – during the lockdown that is in force to prevent spread of the coronavirus – and a lot of things that you want, may not be available in the market, or the state of mind may not be right or the senses may be tired, yet the mind is feverish about desires and the outcome of our actions. What can be done in such a situation?

This is where dispassion helps. Notice that after experiencing too much excitement, you want to be a little quiet and calm.

When you are in the grip of feverishness what do you do?

Have faith and confidence that the result will be much better than you can imagine. With faith, you can get rid of feverishness of action/ achievement. Feverishness can also be a hangover from over-activity. Then sleep, listening to flute music and cold-water baths can help.

Have dispassion and know the whole thing will be over one way or another, and it does not matter. Meditation and breathing can calm you down. Drop whatever you are doing and do something completely irrelevant, like while decorating your house, take a moment off to cut grass. When you are doing something very important, take a moment off to do something totally irrelevant and insignificant. This enhances your creativity. Relevant action keeps you bound to the action. Irrelevant action makes life a game.

Now, suppose everything is available. You are hungry, you want to have food, and you can enjoy it, but even that enjoyment is momentary. It stays for a few moments. See, a desire fulfilled causes frustration; a desire unfulfilled also causes frustration. What do we need to do? What is the answer?

The answer is to look inside. Go to the source of happiness. Then the senses are strengthened, you become content and things become available the way you want them. All three happen when the senses are turned inwards, and that inward turning of senses is called dispassion. Desirelessness, dispassion and samadhi are the deepest rest, a space where joy and beauty spring from.

The secret behind your thoughts

How does a thought arise? The mechanism of thought has never been explained before by anybody, anywhere. In order to understand how a thought arises, you need to have an amount of established consciousness and silence in you.

When silent, the mind is calm and memory is subdued – then, no thoughts arise. When the mind is excited and memory is stimulated, the chitta, your recording apparatus, is stimulated. Then, they jointly produce an impulse of energy, which is a thought.

Thoughts come and you recognise them as they come. You cannot recognise a thought before it comes; it is impossible to know a thought before it comes! You only know thoughts as they come. If they are silly, you simply laugh at them and they will move away. Sometimes you are amazed at your thoughts, “Such a stupid thought is coming into my mind!” and you wonder where did it come from; and if it is an ingenious thought, you are also in wonder, “What a great thought; this is such an excellent idea!”.

Thoughts arise anyway, but you choose to act, or not act. This is what awareness brings in you. If you are not aware, you simply act on the strongest impulse, or the strongest thought. But when you’re alert, then you choose whether to act or not.

It’s like a person, who is walking in his sleep. He has no control over where he’s walking, or what he’s doing. He simply walks! Do you see what I’m saying? A sleepwalker just walks – he doesn’t know where he’s walking, or It’s like a person who is walking in his sleep; he has no control. A sleepwalker just walks – he doesn’t know where he’s walking, or what he’s doing. But the moment the person is awake, and walking, then he chooses to walk either left, or right, this way or that way. That is the difference.

Today almost everyone is a sleepwalker! There are very few who are aware and then act. Are you getting what I’m saying? Today, most actions are like sleepwalking; people are not aware. They are simply acting on the strongest impulse. When you meditate, there is keenness of observation. You become totally relaxed, yet at the same time, you possess the strength of intelligence, the sharpness of awareness. When you are aware, and then you act, then that is the right action.