Sadhguru: In India, there is a whole tradition of always having a shower and going to the temple with wet hair. When you want to enter a temple, the first thing is you have a bath outside and go in with wet clothes because a wet body is always much more receptive to the energies than a dry one. The Theerthakund is basically used as a mechanism or a tool - as a preparatory tool - to enter Dhyanalinga; but by itself it is also very powerful.
There is a mercury lingam in the Theerthakund. The Rasalinga is made of solidified mercury which is 99.8% pure mercury. This is generally considered 100%. There are only 0.2 % of impurities which could not be taken out. Generally, according to the principles of modern chemistry, you cannot solidify mercury at room temperature. In extremely low temperatures mercury can be solidified, but in normal temperatures there is no such thing. Here, you see, at normal room temperature, it is solidified in this Linga. This is an ancient science, an ancient Indian alchemy, through which mercury can be solidified at room temperature. And mercury is the heaviest substance on the planet. This Linga is just two feet tall, but it weighs 680 kgs. That's a lot of weight for an object of this size. The rock beneath, the avudayar, which is at least 5 or 6 times bigger than the lingam itself, probably weighs just about 150 kgs or maybe 200 kgs, not more.
Mercury, as a substance, has been a very, very important part of all kinds of spiritual alchemy around the world. Here, there is a whole mastery of this science known as the Rasa Vidhya or Rasa Vaidhya where we use solidified mercury as a system of healing. It is very rare, but if it is properly prepared, if it is properly consecrated, it is very healing. You know in South India some people are wearing a ball of mercury around their neck? You can consecrate mercury whichever way you want, and the reverberation is almost eternal. It will stay forever because the substance has that quality- it retains the reverberations for a very, very long time. The core of Dhyanalinga is also solidified mercury.
So, the Rasalinga was consecrated in a particular way - fundamentally to open up one's receptivity and stabilize physical imbalances in a person. When I say physical imbalances, I am talking about pranic imbalances which cause physical disturbance - physical and mental disturbance. It straightens out the energy or the pranic imbalances in a person, which will lead to a lot of physical and mental well-being. But the main focus here is to create spiritual receptivity.
You will hear, in the next few months, many people claiming miraculous healing and things like that. You shouldn't be surprised because it has the capability to do that, though we are not going to promote it in that direction. We are more promoting it as a pool which will enhance spiritual receptivity. But you will see lot of people claiming physical well-being out of it. Yesterday, an 83-year-old man came to me and shared, "after I went into the pool twice, I feel 5 years younger than what I am." He had not climbed a staircase in the last 3 or 4 years but he went down by himself and came up by himself and he is very proud. He wants to stay back in the ashram for his life because he thinks he is going to become a young man if he has a dip everyday. It could happen.
I just went in it once and for almost three days I couldn't close my eyes - I was just wide awake, like that. I don't think I'm going to take dips too often. There is a tremendous amount of energy there and when the body is wet, it is always much more receptive than when the body is dry. You must stay there for 7 minutes at least. If you stay there 7 to 12 minutes, you will see a tremendous sense of vibrance and rejuvenation in the body.
The water there has not become dense, it is just that the vibrance of the lingam makes you feel buoyant. This energy soaked water will have an uplifting effect on the physical body in terms of health and well-being. Above all, it creates a tremendous sense of receptivity - a spiritual receptivity - in a person.
If we want to understand it in terms of chakras - it is mainly in the region of Swadishtana and Manipuraka. It's between these two. That's how the Linga is made. It has created a powerful field of its own.
So, for those people who don't get the point easily, we want to drown them. Drown them not in water; drown them into a certain energy field so that even the hardest nuts will crack somewhere.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Difference between Sadhguru and the Dhyanalinga
Sadhguru: There's no difference. It's just that I still have the problems of eating and sleeping. He doesn't. Otherwise, there's no difference, except that I can walk; he can't (laughs). Now, what you're referring to as the Dhyanalinga is the highest possible subtle body. It is at its peak vibration with all the seven chakras intact. It was consecrated by creating a certain vortex, which drew in enormous amounts of energy. Another difference is that I took three lifetimes to become like this; he managed it in three years. That's a big difference. The etheric body, or the subtle body, was constructed using enormous amounts of energy. If we had made it any more intense, it couldn't have retained a form; it was in that level of intensity. This was the peak of intensity that you could hold within the dimensions of a form. The Dhyanalinga is the highest possible being sitting there all the time, stable, steady, always the same way because he has no problems of a mental body, karmic body or physical body. He is always the same because he's just a subtle body.
In theory, it is possible to slowly construct a human physical body for the Dhyanalinga, and to create a being like that - somebody who will walk - if we're willing to work towards this. In theory, it is possible, but to get all the ingredients and all the forces together is an enormous job. Once we create a physical body, to sustain himself in such peak energies, he would have to do so many things. Above all, once you have a physical body, people's ability to experience what's beyond that will decrease, because once you see a person, you start judging - seeing what's right and wrong about him, what appeals to you or doesn't. All these judgments will take away your ability to experience that being. That's the huge difference. To create the subtle body itself took enormous amounts of work. If we want to create grosser dimensions of the body, we can create a very beautiful human being without him being born through a womb, because the subtle body is properly established. It would be like having Shiva back, alive, walking, but it wouldn't serve any purpose and would involve too much. It's very difficult to tell you logically or sensibly what this is all about.
This reminds me: when Vivekananda was a highly energetic and intense young boy, he was very skeptical and full of questions. He wanted to investigate everything. He had won many awards in debates and was always looking for more debates with whomever he met. When he met Ramakrishna he asked him, "You're always talking about God. What is the proof that there is God?" He was expecting some great explanation, which he obviously had the logic to break down, and he would defeat him. Ramakrishna said, "I am the proof." Vivekananda didn't expect this answer. He was expecting some explanation as to how there's a creation and a creator. So when Ramakrishna said, "I am the proof," he didn't know what to say. He sat there, bewildered. Ramakrishna thought this fellow's snooty logic was making him stupid. Vivekananda had enormous intensity, but he was missing the whole point. So Ramakrishna just took his foot and placed it on Vivekananda's chest. He lost all of his logic, and tears started flowing. Tears and Vivekananda were impossible. Logical people cannot shed a tear unless they're touched in their innermost depth. Tears just started flowing and then he said, "I'm very sorry I even asked you such a question."
Now, if you think logically, it seems impossible that there is no difference between the Dhyanalinga and me. Even if you have experienced the Dhyanalinga in some way for a moment, it still sounds absolutely egoistic for me to say this; but really, there's no difference. If you don't like it, I can't help it. Slowly you will see, as the days pass, I won't be interested in keeping up any façade for anybody's sake. We have done enough of that in order to bring about the necessary goodwill and understanding into people so that they could become receptive enough. We don't have to continue doing that for a lifetime. Those who are too logical and whose ability to live life is very much on the surface may fall off. I don't want them to fall off, but they may, because I am too blunt. It's all right. This is how it is.
When you go to the Dhyanalinga, just sit there - you don't have to believe or disbelieve anything. It's as if a good dinner is being served in front of you. You're not overly hungry nor do you dislike the food. Simply sit there, not trying to grab it. Just be willing, open, not making any judgments about the food in front of you. You must sit in front of the Dhyanalinga like that, not doing anything, but not putting your foot into the food either. Sit there with a certain willingness and openness; then you will see that this is not just a symbol. The Dhyanalinga is not just a stone standing there anymore . You will see it is like a living being in every way.
Somebody who doesn't have a physical, mental or karmic body, but only has a subtle body - spiritual or etheric body - can only touch you on that level. If we teach you Hatha Yoga, kriyas, or if we change your mental attitude through the programs, and you practice for some time, then you give it up, you will see, you will go back to square one. But once you're touched at the level of your etheric body, you can't get rid of it. Whether you live or die, it still goes with you. This is what initiation means. It's not just a bundle of instructions. The idea is to touch you on the level of your etheric body so that it can never be taken away, no matter what kind of life you live, or how ignorantly you live. The seed can't die; that's how it is put across. That's what an initiation means.
When you sit in front of a living Guru, you have many problems, judgments, likes and dislikes, because invariably you end up looking at his personality. People have left their Gurus for all kinds of frivolous things. This happened with J. Krishnamurti, a realized being and very wonderful man. There was a certain lady who was very close to him and deeply involved with his work. She was always around him and traveled to many places with him. Once when he was in Amsterdam, Holland, he went into a shop to buy a tie for himself. He was so meticulous about choosing a tie, because he was very conscious about everything and also what he wore. He could throw the tie away if he wanted to, but when he wears it, he wants it to be in a certain way. So he went into the shop and spent nearly four hours picking out one tie. He pulled out every tie in the shop, looked at it, put it on, and then said, "No." It took him four hours to select just one tie. This woman watched and watched and watched, and as minutes passed, in her mind his enlightenment receded. She thought a man who could be so concerned about what kind of tie he wears couldn't be enlightened, and she left him. Many such stupid things are done because of your judgments.
People have left their Gurus for even more frivolous things. This is simply because, in your day-to-day life, you are deeply caught up with your own physical and mental bodies. What has happened within you on deeper dimensions is not in your moment-to-moment awareness. Certain moments you know this is the deepest thing that has happened to you in your life. The rest of the time your mind will argue and prove to you that it's not so. With Dhyanalinga, you don't have these problems because it doesn't carry a physical or mental body. If you experience him once, every time you sit, you will look up to him reverentially. If he had a physical body, one moment you would be looking up to him reverentially, the next moment you would be judging him and condemning him for something. It's bound to happen. So he has come with extra advantages
In theory, it is possible to slowly construct a human physical body for the Dhyanalinga, and to create a being like that - somebody who will walk - if we're willing to work towards this. In theory, it is possible, but to get all the ingredients and all the forces together is an enormous job. Once we create a physical body, to sustain himself in such peak energies, he would have to do so many things. Above all, once you have a physical body, people's ability to experience what's beyond that will decrease, because once you see a person, you start judging - seeing what's right and wrong about him, what appeals to you or doesn't. All these judgments will take away your ability to experience that being. That's the huge difference. To create the subtle body itself took enormous amounts of work. If we want to create grosser dimensions of the body, we can create a very beautiful human being without him being born through a womb, because the subtle body is properly established. It would be like having Shiva back, alive, walking, but it wouldn't serve any purpose and would involve too much. It's very difficult to tell you logically or sensibly what this is all about.
This reminds me: when Vivekananda was a highly energetic and intense young boy, he was very skeptical and full of questions. He wanted to investigate everything. He had won many awards in debates and was always looking for more debates with whomever he met. When he met Ramakrishna he asked him, "You're always talking about God. What is the proof that there is God?" He was expecting some great explanation, which he obviously had the logic to break down, and he would defeat him. Ramakrishna said, "I am the proof." Vivekananda didn't expect this answer. He was expecting some explanation as to how there's a creation and a creator. So when Ramakrishna said, "I am the proof," he didn't know what to say. He sat there, bewildered. Ramakrishna thought this fellow's snooty logic was making him stupid. Vivekananda had enormous intensity, but he was missing the whole point. So Ramakrishna just took his foot and placed it on Vivekananda's chest. He lost all of his logic, and tears started flowing. Tears and Vivekananda were impossible. Logical people cannot shed a tear unless they're touched in their innermost depth. Tears just started flowing and then he said, "I'm very sorry I even asked you such a question."
Now, if you think logically, it seems impossible that there is no difference between the Dhyanalinga and me. Even if you have experienced the Dhyanalinga in some way for a moment, it still sounds absolutely egoistic for me to say this; but really, there's no difference. If you don't like it, I can't help it. Slowly you will see, as the days pass, I won't be interested in keeping up any façade for anybody's sake. We have done enough of that in order to bring about the necessary goodwill and understanding into people so that they could become receptive enough. We don't have to continue doing that for a lifetime. Those who are too logical and whose ability to live life is very much on the surface may fall off. I don't want them to fall off, but they may, because I am too blunt. It's all right. This is how it is.
When you go to the Dhyanalinga, just sit there - you don't have to believe or disbelieve anything. It's as if a good dinner is being served in front of you. You're not overly hungry nor do you dislike the food. Simply sit there, not trying to grab it. Just be willing, open, not making any judgments about the food in front of you. You must sit in front of the Dhyanalinga like that, not doing anything, but not putting your foot into the food either. Sit there with a certain willingness and openness; then you will see that this is not just a symbol. The Dhyanalinga is not just a stone standing there anymore . You will see it is like a living being in every way.
Somebody who doesn't have a physical, mental or karmic body, but only has a subtle body - spiritual or etheric body - can only touch you on that level. If we teach you Hatha Yoga, kriyas, or if we change your mental attitude through the programs, and you practice for some time, then you give it up, you will see, you will go back to square one. But once you're touched at the level of your etheric body, you can't get rid of it. Whether you live or die, it still goes with you. This is what initiation means. It's not just a bundle of instructions. The idea is to touch you on the level of your etheric body so that it can never be taken away, no matter what kind of life you live, or how ignorantly you live. The seed can't die; that's how it is put across. That's what an initiation means.
When you sit in front of a living Guru, you have many problems, judgments, likes and dislikes, because invariably you end up looking at his personality. People have left their Gurus for all kinds of frivolous things. This happened with J. Krishnamurti, a realized being and very wonderful man. There was a certain lady who was very close to him and deeply involved with his work. She was always around him and traveled to many places with him. Once when he was in Amsterdam, Holland, he went into a shop to buy a tie for himself. He was so meticulous about choosing a tie, because he was very conscious about everything and also what he wore. He could throw the tie away if he wanted to, but when he wears it, he wants it to be in a certain way. So he went into the shop and spent nearly four hours picking out one tie. He pulled out every tie in the shop, looked at it, put it on, and then said, "No." It took him four hours to select just one tie. This woman watched and watched and watched, and as minutes passed, in her mind his enlightenment receded. She thought a man who could be so concerned about what kind of tie he wears couldn't be enlightened, and she left him. Many such stupid things are done because of your judgments.
People have left their Gurus for even more frivolous things. This is simply because, in your day-to-day life, you are deeply caught up with your own physical and mental bodies. What has happened within you on deeper dimensions is not in your moment-to-moment awareness. Certain moments you know this is the deepest thing that has happened to you in your life. The rest of the time your mind will argue and prove to you that it's not so. With Dhyanalinga, you don't have these problems because it doesn't carry a physical or mental body. If you experience him once, every time you sit, you will look up to him reverentially. If he had a physical body, one moment you would be looking up to him reverentially, the next moment you would be judging him and condemning him for something. It's bound to happen. So he has come with extra advantages
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Dhyanalingam - A Miracle
You experience everything through your seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. All these sense organs manifest and enhance the sense of duality in the world. The sense of light and darkness, the sense of good and bad, the sense of what is pleasant and unpleasant, everything is more and more established. As you get involved with the sense perception or as you think and feel life, the duality becomes deeper and deeper.
Now, is there something wrong with the duality ? That is not the point. Without duality there is no creation. Only because of the opposites, the creation has happened. But to be trapped within the duality is the problem. If one is limited to the duality, one does not know the beyond, then it becomes a great limitation on your life. Duality seems to be the source of all the pleasures in the world. If there are no opposites there is no pleasure in the world. At the same time, duality is the source for all sufferings in the world. It is only because of the opposites that man suffers. So, caught in this pleasure and pain experience of life, people get wounded with life. Most people get wounded with life. They do not become wise with life, they become wounded with life because they are not able to handle the duality of life nor are they able to transcend the duality of life. Because when you have limited your experience to your sense perception, you are bound by the duality, you cannot help it. All these sense organs, seem to be an access, seem to be a freedom. For example, eyes-your vision seems to be a freedom for you. If you had no eyes there is no experience of the outside in many ways. But it is the eye that which is limiting you in so many ways. Eye is like a window to your body; it is through this window you are looking out. Now, a window seems to be a great possibility, but a window is also a limitation for you. If you come totally out of this limitation, then you will see it is not the eye that sees, it is you who sees. Eye is only an opening to the world. So, sense perceptions are just a small opening, at the same time a great bondage within ourselves.
The whole process or the whole science of Dhyanalingam is an establishment of the whole exuberance of the duality of life. Through the nadis of Ida and Pingala, through the seven charkas is the wide range of experience, the wide range of manifestation of life. The many many forms of life, the many many levels of life, many many ways of experiencing life are there in the world only because of the duality and the seven charkas of the seven dimensions of life.
So, Dhyanalingam is manifested in all these levels, but the purpose of Dhyanalingam is to help a person to go beyond the duality. We are not denying the duality. We are not against the sense perception, but using the sense perception, seeing the limitation of the sense perception, one needs to go beyond that. So what we call as Lingam, the word Lingam means a form or the fundamental form. It also can be interpreted in English as symbol. It is the basic symbol or the basic form in the existence.
When we say Lingam, we are referring to the most fundamental form, or the first form that can happen in the process of creation. Just sometime ago I happened to look into the pictures taken through spacecrafts of certain galaxies. If you look at it carefully, you will see the very core of every galaxy is in the form of a Lingam. So, seeing this within ourselves, when you go deep into yourself the very core form of you is in the form of a Lingam. So, based on this is the science of building a Lingam exactly to that form and proportion because that form is a perennial source of energy. Every other form will dissipate over a period of time. The form that we call as Lingam is a perennial source of energy, which cannot be destroyed. It is the fundamental form to the existence. Now, through this manifestation of Ida and Pingala or Shiva and Shakthi, both the dimensions of the logical and the intuitive can be enjoyed and experienced. Today, in the name of modern education we are establishing too much of the logical, destroying the intuitive totally. We are afraid of feeling life, we want to think our lives out today. People are becoming more and more thinking, less and less feeling. If you know the intuitive, you can make life within yourself very beautiful. But you may be incapable of creating an external situation for yourself. If you become very logical, you are very capable of creating an external situation for yourself the way you want it, but you are incapable of creating an internal situation for yourself. If you look at your life, if your internal situation is very beautiful, you are very blessed. But still if the external situation is very much against you, some suffering will come to you, you cannot help it. The world will make sure that you suffer. If you are a master of external situation, you know how to create the external but you do not know how to create the internal, then you enjoy some pleasure in the world, but absolute misery within yourself. So, one has to evolve knowing both dimensions of the logical and the intuitive. Only then a person goes through this world well balanced, a fulfilling life he can live. But knowing the intuitive and knowing the logical is not sufficient. One has to know that which is beyond this, which in Yoga we refer to as “Prathiba”. One is the intuitive nature, another is the logical nature, what is beyond is called as “Prathiba”, where you are neither intuitive nor are you logical, but you have a direct perception of the world the way it is. To experience life simply the way it is, not to the interpretations of your senses.
Now, when we talk about the Lingam, "Why the Lingam? Isn’t Sahaja Sthithi Yoga sufficient?". This question comes up in people’s mind. Many people have asked me-the amount of time, energy and resources we have spent in the last four years to make the Lingam happen, if we had put the same thing into doing other work in the society, we could have produced lots of miracles out there. Why don’t we do it? Why this Lingam?
This is simply because.... See, you can approach a person either through his body or through his mind or through his prana or through his spiritual body or though his bliss body. These are the five ways you can approach a person or these are the five ways a human being can transform himself.
He can start working through the body, he can start working with the mind, he can start working with his pranic energy, he can start working with what we call as etheric body or the spiritual body or he can go directly to the bliss body. Now if you transform your body, let us say with proper food, with proper eating, with proper asanas, we transform your body.
One year you do the asanas, you eat properly, you do everything. One month if you just indulge in food, don’t do anything, you will see, again you are back to square one. The transformation of the body can be very easily taken away from the external situation because body is enslaved to the outside situation in so many ways.
Now, transforming a person through his mind, by transforming him psychologically, bringing understanding to him intellectually, making him know many things-this transforms a person, but once again as you can influence him one way, you can also influence him the other way. You can also again reverse the transformation very easily, which many of you experienced through Sahaja Sthithi Yoga process. Your body, mind and prana gets transformed in many ways when you sit there for thirteen days. But after sometime, you put yourself back, you roll yourself back once again in many situations that you live in. And again through your pranayams, kriyas, we can work on the pranic body, transforming that, but that is also subject to external influence. If you think differently, eat differently, if you sleep differently, the prana gets affected.
For every thought, for every situation, for every external situation, for every external vibration you face, your pranic body reverberates in different ways and goes through changes. So when we teach Yoga, we are trying to transform you through the body, through the mind, through the prana. All these things are good ways, good methods, but still they are subject to external situations. They are subject to the external influences of life.
The Lingam works with you in a completely different way. It starts with you from the other end. When I say transformation…now, willing to be transformed, what it means. When people come to Sahaja Sthithi Yoga program, some people come as investigators, some people come as students, later on these investigators sometime become students after the third day. The next set of people, they come as students, after a few days, they become disciples. Very few become devotees. What it means to be an investigator or a student or a disciple or a devotee-an investigator is of gross mind, he is not interested in knowing anything. He is not interested in transformation at all. He just wants to know whether the other person knows or not. This is an unfortunate situation for anybody. It is a waste of life.
A student is willing to learn, not really looking for transformation, but he is willing to learn, he is willing to learn to the point of convenience. As long as you teach him those things, which are convenient for his life, he will learn. If you teach something, which will dissolve him, he will not learn. . He can only learn that which is convenient for him. He can learn that which will help him to get rid of his disease, that which will give mental peace, that which will give material well-being, physical well-being, emotional well-being. These things he is willing to learn. Beyond that he will not go.
A disciple is one who is willing to transform himself. A devotee is one who has no will of his own. He has simply given himself up. These are the ways that you can transform yourself. These are the ways you can receive something totally new into yourself-either by being an investigator, or a student, or a disciple, or a devotee.
So when you come through, for example the process of Sahaja Sthithi Yoga, most of the time, most people start as students, some people graduate into discipleship, very few move into becoming a devotee. But when you start with the Dhyanalingam, if you just be there for sometime, you will see that you will start as devotee, which is a tremendous advantage over Sahaja Sthithi Yoga as it starts from that end which cannot be influenced by the outside situation. If you transform your spiritual body, you will see this transformation is permanent. Once you are in the sphere of Dhyanalingam, the seed of spiritual liberation is sown into you. You cannot help it. Whether you are willing or not willing, whether you are a believer or non-believer, whether you have come to investigate or come to surrender-it does not matter
The seed of spiritual liberation is always planted into you, and nobody can go untouched. Whether you are going to allow this seed to sprout today or tomorrow or after ten lifetimes, that is your choice. But you cannot destroy the seed. So why so much effort has been put into making Dhyanalingam when we could have done something else is simply because this transformation works at you from a different end altogether.
One cannot destroy this. Other kinds of transformation one can undo. This cannot be undone. That is the reason why so much has been done to make this happen. How much has been done to make it happen, I can never put it into words. In terms of what we have done physically, it is not much. But in terms of what has been done to make the Lingam the way it is, it can never be expressed in words.
This, today’s situation of being able to complete the process of the Lingam and offering it to the world reminds me of a very ancient story that is repeatedly said in the yogic lore. They said, it so happened one day, there were two men, one was blind, another was a cripple. They were in the forest and suddenly there was a forest fire. One person is blind and another person crippled. One cannot see where to go, the other cannot go. So the two of them struggled by themselves for a while and nothing happened. Anyway they would be burnt because fire does not distinguish between anything. It just burns anything on the way. So between the two of them they came to an agreement and the blind person who was physically fit carried the crippled person on his shoulder and the crippled person who could see showed the way. And the blind person brought the crippled person out. Both of them were out of the forest fire. This story is repeatedly used to indicate or to explain the need for both the logical and the intuitive aspect of life.
The earlier attempts with the Lingam have been purely intuitive. Within, we know how to do it, but we did not successfully create a social situation that would accept it. This time, the blind person and the crippled person have come together. We have worked on the social situation sufficiently that today we have completed the process with people’s support and today there are this many people here to experience the Lingam. This has happened simply because the blind and the cripple came together successfully. Earlier attempts were all purely intuitive, did not have the tact to handle the society and they always made sure it did not happen. Even this time, serious attempts were made to stop the process in so many ways, but we have gone through this because the blind and the cripple came together well successfully.
The consecration, I repeatedly say this, I repeatedly wish within myself, I only wished that we could have included more people into the process of consecration. Because of the nature of the process, because of the intensity, because of what is required in terms of energy and understanding to go through the process, we had to limit it to just a few people, but it would be a dream situation if we could involve thousands of people and make a situation like the consecration process.
This took almost three years. In these three years of consecration, what we have seen, what we have experienced, how life has happened around us at that time is indescribable, there is no way we can express it in words. The fortunate few who are there with us, they know what it means, but do not ask them because they can never say anything about it as it is impossible to put it in words.
There were two ways to make this consecration happen. One was very playfully dancing with it. Another way was to give up this body and merge with it. These were the two ways to make this thing complete. Merging with the Lingam, shedding the body would have been the easier way. But we avoided that process simply because I had this apprehension that if we do something like that, it will put so much fear into people that it may take one or two generations before people accept Dhyanalingam itself. So to do it like a play, to make it like a dance, it has taken so many things-I am really at a loss for words, but I have to say this.
This happened the way it happened is one thing. Above all, the Divine Grace, and I cannot discount the love and support that we received from the people around us. The Bhrahmacharis, the inmates in the ashram, the teachers, the meditators, the volunteers and so many other people knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously supported us in making this happen, many of them unwillingly. I wish to bow down to all of them because whichever way knowingly or unknowingly, whichever way they did it, what they have done is one of the greatest gifts that we can offer to the future generations.
I think I need to say a few words about constructing a suitable ornament to the Lingam, the process of building the temple with the limited resources that we could put together. I want to especially mention the efforts that have been put in by the Bhramacharis, the volunteers, meditators and members of the public and the labour force. Especially the last three to four months, the feverish pace at which they have been working is unbelievable. You should have seen the dedication and involvement with which the labour force was functioning.
I want to tell you this, you have known the pleasure of modern science. You have known the convenience of the modern science. Why this Lingam, why this yoga, why we are talking about what we are talking here today is, I also want you to know the power, the liberation of another kind of science, an inner science, the yogic science through which you can become the master of your own destiny. You can create your life the way you want it. You can decide the very process of life, death and rebirth. You can even decide the womb in which you are going to be born. And you can dissolve at will. There is another science like this, which gives absolute mastery over life. The whole process of Dhyanalingam is just to manifest this science in such a way that it cannot be taken away. To manifest it in such a way that it would be accessible at any time to anybody who is willing.
Above all, it gives an opportunity for all people to do their sadhana in utmost intimacy with a Guru, which is usually available to very few
Now, is there something wrong with the duality ? That is not the point. Without duality there is no creation. Only because of the opposites, the creation has happened. But to be trapped within the duality is the problem. If one is limited to the duality, one does not know the beyond, then it becomes a great limitation on your life. Duality seems to be the source of all the pleasures in the world. If there are no opposites there is no pleasure in the world. At the same time, duality is the source for all sufferings in the world. It is only because of the opposites that man suffers. So, caught in this pleasure and pain experience of life, people get wounded with life. Most people get wounded with life. They do not become wise with life, they become wounded with life because they are not able to handle the duality of life nor are they able to transcend the duality of life. Because when you have limited your experience to your sense perception, you are bound by the duality, you cannot help it. All these sense organs, seem to be an access, seem to be a freedom. For example, eyes-your vision seems to be a freedom for you. If you had no eyes there is no experience of the outside in many ways. But it is the eye that which is limiting you in so many ways. Eye is like a window to your body; it is through this window you are looking out. Now, a window seems to be a great possibility, but a window is also a limitation for you. If you come totally out of this limitation, then you will see it is not the eye that sees, it is you who sees. Eye is only an opening to the world. So, sense perceptions are just a small opening, at the same time a great bondage within ourselves.
The whole process or the whole science of Dhyanalingam is an establishment of the whole exuberance of the duality of life. Through the nadis of Ida and Pingala, through the seven charkas is the wide range of experience, the wide range of manifestation of life. The many many forms of life, the many many levels of life, many many ways of experiencing life are there in the world only because of the duality and the seven charkas of the seven dimensions of life.
So, Dhyanalingam is manifested in all these levels, but the purpose of Dhyanalingam is to help a person to go beyond the duality. We are not denying the duality. We are not against the sense perception, but using the sense perception, seeing the limitation of the sense perception, one needs to go beyond that. So what we call as Lingam, the word Lingam means a form or the fundamental form. It also can be interpreted in English as symbol. It is the basic symbol or the basic form in the existence.
When we say Lingam, we are referring to the most fundamental form, or the first form that can happen in the process of creation. Just sometime ago I happened to look into the pictures taken through spacecrafts of certain galaxies. If you look at it carefully, you will see the very core of every galaxy is in the form of a Lingam. So, seeing this within ourselves, when you go deep into yourself the very core form of you is in the form of a Lingam. So, based on this is the science of building a Lingam exactly to that form and proportion because that form is a perennial source of energy. Every other form will dissipate over a period of time. The form that we call as Lingam is a perennial source of energy, which cannot be destroyed. It is the fundamental form to the existence. Now, through this manifestation of Ida and Pingala or Shiva and Shakthi, both the dimensions of the logical and the intuitive can be enjoyed and experienced. Today, in the name of modern education we are establishing too much of the logical, destroying the intuitive totally. We are afraid of feeling life, we want to think our lives out today. People are becoming more and more thinking, less and less feeling. If you know the intuitive, you can make life within yourself very beautiful. But you may be incapable of creating an external situation for yourself. If you become very logical, you are very capable of creating an external situation for yourself the way you want it, but you are incapable of creating an internal situation for yourself. If you look at your life, if your internal situation is very beautiful, you are very blessed. But still if the external situation is very much against you, some suffering will come to you, you cannot help it. The world will make sure that you suffer. If you are a master of external situation, you know how to create the external but you do not know how to create the internal, then you enjoy some pleasure in the world, but absolute misery within yourself. So, one has to evolve knowing both dimensions of the logical and the intuitive. Only then a person goes through this world well balanced, a fulfilling life he can live. But knowing the intuitive and knowing the logical is not sufficient. One has to know that which is beyond this, which in Yoga we refer to as “Prathiba”. One is the intuitive nature, another is the logical nature, what is beyond is called as “Prathiba”, where you are neither intuitive nor are you logical, but you have a direct perception of the world the way it is. To experience life simply the way it is, not to the interpretations of your senses.
Now, when we talk about the Lingam, "Why the Lingam? Isn’t Sahaja Sthithi Yoga sufficient?". This question comes up in people’s mind. Many people have asked me-the amount of time, energy and resources we have spent in the last four years to make the Lingam happen, if we had put the same thing into doing other work in the society, we could have produced lots of miracles out there. Why don’t we do it? Why this Lingam?
This is simply because.... See, you can approach a person either through his body or through his mind or through his prana or through his spiritual body or though his bliss body. These are the five ways you can approach a person or these are the five ways a human being can transform himself.
He can start working through the body, he can start working with the mind, he can start working with his pranic energy, he can start working with what we call as etheric body or the spiritual body or he can go directly to the bliss body. Now if you transform your body, let us say with proper food, with proper eating, with proper asanas, we transform your body.
One year you do the asanas, you eat properly, you do everything. One month if you just indulge in food, don’t do anything, you will see, again you are back to square one. The transformation of the body can be very easily taken away from the external situation because body is enslaved to the outside situation in so many ways.
Now, transforming a person through his mind, by transforming him psychologically, bringing understanding to him intellectually, making him know many things-this transforms a person, but once again as you can influence him one way, you can also influence him the other way. You can also again reverse the transformation very easily, which many of you experienced through Sahaja Sthithi Yoga process. Your body, mind and prana gets transformed in many ways when you sit there for thirteen days. But after sometime, you put yourself back, you roll yourself back once again in many situations that you live in. And again through your pranayams, kriyas, we can work on the pranic body, transforming that, but that is also subject to external influence. If you think differently, eat differently, if you sleep differently, the prana gets affected.
For every thought, for every situation, for every external situation, for every external vibration you face, your pranic body reverberates in different ways and goes through changes. So when we teach Yoga, we are trying to transform you through the body, through the mind, through the prana. All these things are good ways, good methods, but still they are subject to external situations. They are subject to the external influences of life.
The Lingam works with you in a completely different way. It starts with you from the other end. When I say transformation…now, willing to be transformed, what it means. When people come to Sahaja Sthithi Yoga program, some people come as investigators, some people come as students, later on these investigators sometime become students after the third day. The next set of people, they come as students, after a few days, they become disciples. Very few become devotees. What it means to be an investigator or a student or a disciple or a devotee-an investigator is of gross mind, he is not interested in knowing anything. He is not interested in transformation at all. He just wants to know whether the other person knows or not. This is an unfortunate situation for anybody. It is a waste of life.
A student is willing to learn, not really looking for transformation, but he is willing to learn, he is willing to learn to the point of convenience. As long as you teach him those things, which are convenient for his life, he will learn. If you teach something, which will dissolve him, he will not learn. . He can only learn that which is convenient for him. He can learn that which will help him to get rid of his disease, that which will give mental peace, that which will give material well-being, physical well-being, emotional well-being. These things he is willing to learn. Beyond that he will not go.
A disciple is one who is willing to transform himself. A devotee is one who has no will of his own. He has simply given himself up. These are the ways that you can transform yourself. These are the ways you can receive something totally new into yourself-either by being an investigator, or a student, or a disciple, or a devotee.
So when you come through, for example the process of Sahaja Sthithi Yoga, most of the time, most people start as students, some people graduate into discipleship, very few move into becoming a devotee. But when you start with the Dhyanalingam, if you just be there for sometime, you will see that you will start as devotee, which is a tremendous advantage over Sahaja Sthithi Yoga as it starts from that end which cannot be influenced by the outside situation. If you transform your spiritual body, you will see this transformation is permanent. Once you are in the sphere of Dhyanalingam, the seed of spiritual liberation is sown into you. You cannot help it. Whether you are willing or not willing, whether you are a believer or non-believer, whether you have come to investigate or come to surrender-it does not matter
The seed of spiritual liberation is always planted into you, and nobody can go untouched. Whether you are going to allow this seed to sprout today or tomorrow or after ten lifetimes, that is your choice. But you cannot destroy the seed. So why so much effort has been put into making Dhyanalingam when we could have done something else is simply because this transformation works at you from a different end altogether.
One cannot destroy this. Other kinds of transformation one can undo. This cannot be undone. That is the reason why so much has been done to make this happen. How much has been done to make it happen, I can never put it into words. In terms of what we have done physically, it is not much. But in terms of what has been done to make the Lingam the way it is, it can never be expressed in words.
This, today’s situation of being able to complete the process of the Lingam and offering it to the world reminds me of a very ancient story that is repeatedly said in the yogic lore. They said, it so happened one day, there were two men, one was blind, another was a cripple. They were in the forest and suddenly there was a forest fire. One person is blind and another person crippled. One cannot see where to go, the other cannot go. So the two of them struggled by themselves for a while and nothing happened. Anyway they would be burnt because fire does not distinguish between anything. It just burns anything on the way. So between the two of them they came to an agreement and the blind person who was physically fit carried the crippled person on his shoulder and the crippled person who could see showed the way. And the blind person brought the crippled person out. Both of them were out of the forest fire. This story is repeatedly used to indicate or to explain the need for both the logical and the intuitive aspect of life.
The earlier attempts with the Lingam have been purely intuitive. Within, we know how to do it, but we did not successfully create a social situation that would accept it. This time, the blind person and the crippled person have come together. We have worked on the social situation sufficiently that today we have completed the process with people’s support and today there are this many people here to experience the Lingam. This has happened simply because the blind and the cripple came together successfully. Earlier attempts were all purely intuitive, did not have the tact to handle the society and they always made sure it did not happen. Even this time, serious attempts were made to stop the process in so many ways, but we have gone through this because the blind and the cripple came together well successfully.
The consecration, I repeatedly say this, I repeatedly wish within myself, I only wished that we could have included more people into the process of consecration. Because of the nature of the process, because of the intensity, because of what is required in terms of energy and understanding to go through the process, we had to limit it to just a few people, but it would be a dream situation if we could involve thousands of people and make a situation like the consecration process.
This took almost three years. In these three years of consecration, what we have seen, what we have experienced, how life has happened around us at that time is indescribable, there is no way we can express it in words. The fortunate few who are there with us, they know what it means, but do not ask them because they can never say anything about it as it is impossible to put it in words.
There were two ways to make this consecration happen. One was very playfully dancing with it. Another way was to give up this body and merge with it. These were the two ways to make this thing complete. Merging with the Lingam, shedding the body would have been the easier way. But we avoided that process simply because I had this apprehension that if we do something like that, it will put so much fear into people that it may take one or two generations before people accept Dhyanalingam itself. So to do it like a play, to make it like a dance, it has taken so many things-I am really at a loss for words, but I have to say this.
This happened the way it happened is one thing. Above all, the Divine Grace, and I cannot discount the love and support that we received from the people around us. The Bhrahmacharis, the inmates in the ashram, the teachers, the meditators, the volunteers and so many other people knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously supported us in making this happen, many of them unwillingly. I wish to bow down to all of them because whichever way knowingly or unknowingly, whichever way they did it, what they have done is one of the greatest gifts that we can offer to the future generations.
I think I need to say a few words about constructing a suitable ornament to the Lingam, the process of building the temple with the limited resources that we could put together. I want to especially mention the efforts that have been put in by the Bhramacharis, the volunteers, meditators and members of the public and the labour force. Especially the last three to four months, the feverish pace at which they have been working is unbelievable. You should have seen the dedication and involvement with which the labour force was functioning.
I want to tell you this, you have known the pleasure of modern science. You have known the convenience of the modern science. Why this Lingam, why this yoga, why we are talking about what we are talking here today is, I also want you to know the power, the liberation of another kind of science, an inner science, the yogic science through which you can become the master of your own destiny. You can create your life the way you want it. You can decide the very process of life, death and rebirth. You can even decide the womb in which you are going to be born. And you can dissolve at will. There is another science like this, which gives absolute mastery over life. The whole process of Dhyanalingam is just to manifest this science in such a way that it cannot be taken away. To manifest it in such a way that it would be accessible at any time to anybody who is willing.
Above all, it gives an opportunity for all people to do their sadhana in utmost intimacy with a Guru, which is usually available to very few
Friday, December 7, 2007
From Stagnation to Stillness
Stagnation is a certain disease. It is anti-life. Stillness is a tremendous amount of life not manifesting itself in any way. It is just there – potent. That is God. God is stillness, not stagnation. The mind is stagnation. Sadhana is a force which moves you from stagnation to stillness, but between stagnation and stillness, when they are together, there seems to be very little difference, since your logical mind only understands in terms of moving and not moving. Not moving is stagnation, but stillness is also not moving. This non-movement, you may call it stillness or stagnation because it’s purely subjective.
If you look at it objectively, stillness and stagnation are about the same. Physically they could be seen as about the same, but qualitatively they are worlds apart. A person who is meditating and a person who is sleeping may look about the same. One is sitting and sleeping, another is lying down and sleeping, that is all. For a person who doesn’t know the difference, that’s all he sees. Have you seen with how much sarcasm people look at meditation – those so-called dynamic people of the world? They think it’s for people who don’t even know how to sleep.
Externally there may be no difference between stillness and stagnation. Internally there is a tremendous difference. From stagnation to stillness, from ignorance to enlightenment, that’s the difference. In a way, it is the same thing, only the quality has to change, that’s all.But how can you know the qualitative difference when you’re drowned in ignorance? This is why the movement of sadhana has to go in full circle. Depending on how stupid a person is, that is how long the sadhana has to be. Physically and mentally, push yourself to the limit and see what is there. If you stop for every little discomfort, you will never know what it is. Just push yourself to the limit. Physically, mentally, emotionally, in every way push yourself to the last point, either you must go mad or you must get enlightened, that’s all there is; and we will not allow you to go mad, don’t worry.
That is why I keep asking you, “What is your priority? What is it? You have to increase it.” Every time I ask that question, you have to push it up one more notch. To the point of discomfort you have pushed, but don’t let up, push it up one more point and yet another point. It has to be pushed to the ultimate, to the optimum. Only then can the mind dissolve by itself. You don’t have to do any other sadhana. This is the only sadhana needed. All other activity in the form of sadhana is just to get this one thing done. Make it in such a way that your sankalpa is unshakeable.
Why someone is asked to go and live in the Himalayas for twelve years is not because if they live in the Himalayas the rocks could give them enlightenment. It is because he is even willing to waste his life for twelve years, with all kinds of hardship, just to seek Truth. If that kind of sankalpa has come, that man is very close. In a way, it is like literally wasting your life. When the whole world is eating well, drinking well and enjoying themselves, you are sitting there in the cold and chanting, “Shiva, Shiva, Shiva,” knowing nothing might happen.
If you live there for long enough, you may come to know. Shiva probably will not come and bail you out. When you’re hungry, you’re plain hungry. When you’re cold, you’re just cold. You know it may turn out to be hopeless being there. In spite of that you stay, because the most important thing in your life is something else. When that sankalpa comes, it does not take twelve years. In one moment, it can happen. Nobody needs to wait for twelve years. This can be the moment. It is because you don’t use this moment that you have to wait for the next one. This is always the moment. Are you going to tighten it up, or every time discomfort comes, will you think, “Oh, this is not for me.” It is definitely not for you if this is so. I am not saying the path is difficult; it’s just that you make it difficult. The path is not difficult. It is very simple. If you are simple, it’s very simple. If you are all wound up, the path is very, very winding. That’s all it is.This moment, when you’re very simple and at ease, life is very simple, isn’t it? When you’re wound up, just see how complicated it is. Don’t become all wound up. There is enough nerve-racking past in you, which is already in knots. Don’t create new knots now. The old knots are already causing a lot of pain, causing a deep pit inside, which is eating you up in many ways. Some of you have become aware of this, and some are yet to become aware of that, but it is there in every human being. There is one empty pit within you which just eats you from inside. That is enough, isn’t it? Don’t create more now. What you have created in the past is enough. Many lifetimes of opportunities have been wasted, but this one need not go to waste too. Those of you who feel the urgency, please go on unrelentingly. To those of you who think, “Anyway, another ten thousand years are there, no problem,” I am saying, “Why only ten thousand? There is a whole eternity ahead of you. There is no hurry. After all, what is wrong with life?” When I say it, it may look like a curse, but it is not a curse. I am saying, in this situation, when the energies are high like this, if you don’t make use of this situation and me, if you don’t see this, well then..
Terrorism
The mechanism of terror in the world today encompasses various kinds of terrorism, and religious terrorism is a major part today. The purpose of terrorism is not war but to cripple a society with fear. It is more a shock value and because it has grown due to availability of material they have had quite an impact. We see suicide bombers; young people who are willing to give their lives.The revolutionaries and the resistant forces have all been educated people. But now when physician have become terrorists then its like people who are supposed to give life are taking lives. There seems to be so much anger that people are willing to take lives for whatever cause they believe in.
One way of looking at it is-any man who is willing to die for what he believes in is a wonderful man. The problem is that there is a huge volume of anger and hatred behind it and so the end result is ugly. Otherwise a man who is willing to die for what he believes in has a wonderful quality.
It’s just that this is happening with enormous anger and hatred against some body and that is the problem. In India we have the naxalites, the communist group which believes they are causing a revolution but we call them terrorists. Then there are the Tamil Tigers in Srilanka and the IRA group all of whom believe they are freedom fighters. And now there are the religious terrorists who believe they are fighting for their religion.
So different causes have bred the same thing-whenever there is a powerful force that becomes oppressive, people who do not have the same level of power will naturally go in for the method of fighting we call terrorism.It is very important that the armies, the government and the leaderships in the world look at the cause why people are so angry. For every creature on this planet, its own life is always precious. Even if you try to kill a little ant, it does its best to save itself; so it is for the human being. To be willing to die for something means that “something” has become very important to him, especially when so many people are going in the same direction.
We have to address the fundamental issues beneath that decision rather than treating it as something you can just stamp out.Right now the level of terrorism in the world has grown because we are blatantly trying to stamp things out rather than looking into and addressing the fundamental issues. Today you have to live with the reality that once every few months another terrorist event will happen on the planet.
Who is a terrorist? People who are in it do not believe they are terrorists. It is just a term that they feel someone is using for them. Many of them think they are freedom fighters, revolutionaries and some think they are God’s own children. You stamp out one person and a hundred will be born out of that lack of understanding.
Right now in many ways the US is the leader in the world. Whenever a particular nation becomes very powerful there can be a possibility of exploitation and domination on one hand or if done the right way, there is a possibility of changing everything for the good.Earlier there was Russia and because of the mistrust, both of them went about doing all sorts of things to gain superiority in the world. A lot of illegal activities happened and the excuse was always if we don’t do it, the other would. Now that Russia is gone, there is only one gun left and so it should be easy to keep it down.
If truly wise leadership comes up in the United States, they can truly change the world. It doesn’t take a lot of money and resources to address all the problems in the world-it just takes the will. USA has spent more than 600 billion dollars on Iraq. A fraction of that amount could have helped in eradicating poverty or providing healthcare (forty percent people on the planet don’t get medical help), educational facilities and nourishment on the planet.
We have not re-built Iraq. We have done nothing except kill our men and people of other countries. It has happened due to lack of vision and simply looking at the world with the same eyes as the barbarians have looked at it. If some body pricks you with a pin instead of cutting off their hand if you try to turn their hearts around, try to work on their anger and move them towards a more sensible way of looking at life, things may be different.
By cutting one hand you are making a million more hands come up.
When you look at the Muslim doctors from India who went to UK, they are good students who have done well. They are married and have children. They definitely did not build their lives around becoming terrorists. They wanted to live a normal life. They feel that the international activity against their community is such injustice that it’s firing them up to such an extent that they are willing to die for it and kill people. Even if they are misguided, if a large number of people are going in this direction, I think we need to work on turning them around. Shooting them down is not the answer.I was at the World Economic forum and a positive development is that the major economic forces on the planet are thinking of peace- not necessarily by compassion but by compulsion. Especially in the last four years, I see a trend where major corporations in the world are looking at changing the fundamentals of human life on the planet in terms of education, health, nourishment and medical care.
Corporate social responsibility is not always driven by compassion today but even if it becomes the fashion, as long as it serves its people that is all that matters.
Human Welfare
Whatever be the nature of business, fundamentally it has all been started in the interest of the well being of humans. So the business of human well being is the only real business. All other businesses are subsidiaries of that. As long as business leaders remain aware of the fact that every business was started for human well being and that is the only purpose of doing business, business is fine.Today there are corporations that are big enough to take over small countries and yet they are still looking at business from one quarterly balance sheet to the next quarterly balance sheet.
That is not good enough. A farmer plants a tree and waits 8-9 years before he can reap the fruits of planting that tree. There are several companies that have the capability today for similar long term investments. If they invest in human health and education, in about 15 years they will have huge human resources at their disposal. Finding employable and capable human resources is becoming a big challenge today, as is the expansion of a market base. We have left half the world population behind, and unless we empower the entire world population to participate in economic activity, things will not reach their full potential.
In the last three-four years I have been to several world economic forum and other summits featuring business leaders and many of them are not focused on long term investment. They are only worried about current trends and how they can gain the competitive edge over others.
But today I see that slowly the thought process is beginning to change. Many of the business leaders are beginning to understand that an inclusive economy is definitely better in the long run. Inclusive doesn’t just mean including the rest of the human population but also to address ecological concerns.
Business of course should not be run like a charity. I think the days of corporate social responsibility are over. No human being wants to feel his well being is dependent on charity. He wants to feel worthy, and he wants to feel that he is part of the process of economic prosperity; that it’s an equal partnership between him and each corporation. Both the corporation and the individual come armed with certain capabilities. It’s important to see how human potential and corporate capability can be combined to create a productive enterprise.We recently devised an in-depth business plan and gave it to Reliance Industries to show them how they could include the local people, benefit the farmers and make money in the process. It took us six months of talking and negotiating to convince them it works.
As far as India is concerned, there is a big economic boom but it sitting on a very narrow base. The biggest generation of new economic development is from the IT industry which does not employ more than 2 to 2.5 million people which is just a little over 2 percent of the total population. You cannot have sustained growth or an economic revolution by involving such a small number of the population.
Right now we have 1 billion people to feed and the Indian farmer is somehow managing it through a very rudimentary infrastructure. We need to focus on investing in the creation and training of a skilled force and look at it as a long term investment that will bear fruit after 6 to 8 years. There is great need for long term investment in different forms of education which will be beneficial for the investor also. Otherwise we will have chaos, because of unstructured and unplanned development and movement. The chaos will be outside and within the human being as well.Having talked about business and creating opportunities, I have to point out that all those who are working towards economic development, and creating opportunities or have already become successful business leaders, need to also focus on creating a balance between their inner and outer worlds. A certain kind of clarity to look beyond the immediate has to be created and that can ok beyond the immediate has to be created and that can or inner and outer worlds. have already bed that clarity will only come when the person reaches a certain physical and mental state. We teach an inner engineering course which helps executives in achieving that. For the skeptical, I must add that the course is taught in such a technical and scientific way that you will not have any problems with the divine, because whatever you call divine becomes a source within you. The moment the person loses contact or turns away from the source within himself he reaches a dead-end.
The engineers from IIT once they take the course will realize that the yoga system we teach is more technical than any engineering they have studied. At the World Economic Forum, the topic I presented was spirituality and science and how the scientists today are talking like philosophers. Albert Einstein has said that unless we look at science with the vision of a mystic there is no answer
That is not good enough. A farmer plants a tree and waits 8-9 years before he can reap the fruits of planting that tree. There are several companies that have the capability today for similar long term investments. If they invest in human health and education, in about 15 years they will have huge human resources at their disposal. Finding employable and capable human resources is becoming a big challenge today, as is the expansion of a market base. We have left half the world population behind, and unless we empower the entire world population to participate in economic activity, things will not reach their full potential.
In the last three-four years I have been to several world economic forum and other summits featuring business leaders and many of them are not focused on long term investment. They are only worried about current trends and how they can gain the competitive edge over others.
But today I see that slowly the thought process is beginning to change. Many of the business leaders are beginning to understand that an inclusive economy is definitely better in the long run. Inclusive doesn’t just mean including the rest of the human population but also to address ecological concerns.
Business of course should not be run like a charity. I think the days of corporate social responsibility are over. No human being wants to feel his well being is dependent on charity. He wants to feel worthy, and he wants to feel that he is part of the process of economic prosperity; that it’s an equal partnership between him and each corporation. Both the corporation and the individual come armed with certain capabilities. It’s important to see how human potential and corporate capability can be combined to create a productive enterprise.We recently devised an in-depth business plan and gave it to Reliance Industries to show them how they could include the local people, benefit the farmers and make money in the process. It took us six months of talking and negotiating to convince them it works.
As far as India is concerned, there is a big economic boom but it sitting on a very narrow base. The biggest generation of new economic development is from the IT industry which does not employ more than 2 to 2.5 million people which is just a little over 2 percent of the total population. You cannot have sustained growth or an economic revolution by involving such a small number of the population.
Right now we have 1 billion people to feed and the Indian farmer is somehow managing it through a very rudimentary infrastructure. We need to focus on investing in the creation and training of a skilled force and look at it as a long term investment that will bear fruit after 6 to 8 years. There is great need for long term investment in different forms of education which will be beneficial for the investor also. Otherwise we will have chaos, because of unstructured and unplanned development and movement. The chaos will be outside and within the human being as well.Having talked about business and creating opportunities, I have to point out that all those who are working towards economic development, and creating opportunities or have already become successful business leaders, need to also focus on creating a balance between their inner and outer worlds. A certain kind of clarity to look beyond the immediate has to be created and that can ok beyond the immediate has to be created and that can or inner and outer worlds. have already bed that clarity will only come when the person reaches a certain physical and mental state. We teach an inner engineering course which helps executives in achieving that. For the skeptical, I must add that the course is taught in such a technical and scientific way that you will not have any problems with the divine, because whatever you call divine becomes a source within you. The moment the person loses contact or turns away from the source within himself he reaches a dead-end.
The engineers from IIT once they take the course will realize that the yoga system we teach is more technical than any engineering they have studied. At the World Economic Forum, the topic I presented was spirituality and science and how the scientists today are talking like philosophers. Albert Einstein has said that unless we look at science with the vision of a mystic there is no answer
Good and Bad Divide the World
People always believe that they are good and somebody else is bad. That’s the only way they can carry on their missions in the world. Right now, we’re on this part of the Himalayan road; they are making it into a two-lane highway. Every year, so many people die here because of landslides and vehicles going off the road. Driving here on these curves, one mistake and you’ve had it. When you travel here, you give an enormous responsibility to the driver. Just one mistake of his and you’re finished. Every year, so many people make those mistakes. If you don’t know this, when you see a small heap of scrap metal on the side of the road, it’s usually a salvaged vehicle.
So they are laying a two-lane highway. Is it good or bad? It’s good, because people like you can travel in more comfort, with less risk; so that’s good. Today, a lot of people may tell you to stop building roads, disfiguring the mountain, and disturbing the creatures on this planet. So for them, this is bad. Just because those in power, or the majority, think something is good, it won’t become good. Maybe it would be better to take a person as an example. Now whatever a terrorist is doing, is it good or bad?
You may say bad. In the same situation, who is good and who is bad all depends on which side of the border you’re on. Is India good or is Pakistan good? You’re on this side of the border, so obviously Indians are good; Pakistanis are evil. If you were on the other side of the border, you would be arguing for the other side. It all depends on what you’re identified with. Accordingly, you have your ‘goods’ and ‘bads’. You cannot think beyond that.
Your thinking itself is limited to your identifications. Your identifications are always limited, so your thinking is also limited. With this limitedness, why do you get into this nonsense about deciding what’s good or bad? The moment you say something is bad, you can’t stop disliking it, can you? Can you say, “This is a bad person, but that’s okay with me”? On the surface you may say it, but if he gets closer to you, though initially it is just dislike, later it will turn to hate. The moment you identify something as good or bad, you’re just dividing the world.
Now somebody comes and says they want to walk the spiritual path. So I tell them, “Okay, stay here for a week. Let us see what we can do.” Then he says, “No, no, Saturday is my cousin’s birthday; I have to go. I can be here only for three days.” So I ask, “All right, but how far would you like to go with this?” He says, “All the way.” Then I say, “So in three days, all the way? Anyway, you do these few things when you’re here, then let’s see what to do next.” Then he says, “No, I don’t like this.” So I tell him, “Okay you give me a list of things that you like. We will do only that.” He sits there, thinks seriously for a while and writes down half a dozen things. So I ask, “What? In this vast existence, you like just about half a dozen things, and with that, you want to be spiritual?” Where is the possibility?
The moment you create good and bad, you are dividing the world. Once you divide it, where is the question of inclusion? Where is the question of yoga? Where is the question of becoming one with everything? Where is the question of knowing truth? Your division is because of your stupidity; it has got nothing to do with reality. Good and bad are always according to your ego requirements. If you go by this, you enslave yourself to the dualities of life; you divide the existence. So the question of turning spiritual never arises.
So they are laying a two-lane highway. Is it good or bad? It’s good, because people like you can travel in more comfort, with less risk; so that’s good. Today, a lot of people may tell you to stop building roads, disfiguring the mountain, and disturbing the creatures on this planet. So for them, this is bad. Just because those in power, or the majority, think something is good, it won’t become good. Maybe it would be better to take a person as an example. Now whatever a terrorist is doing, is it good or bad?
You may say bad. In the same situation, who is good and who is bad all depends on which side of the border you’re on. Is India good or is Pakistan good? You’re on this side of the border, so obviously Indians are good; Pakistanis are evil. If you were on the other side of the border, you would be arguing for the other side. It all depends on what you’re identified with. Accordingly, you have your ‘goods’ and ‘bads’. You cannot think beyond that.
Your thinking itself is limited to your identifications. Your identifications are always limited, so your thinking is also limited. With this limitedness, why do you get into this nonsense about deciding what’s good or bad? The moment you say something is bad, you can’t stop disliking it, can you? Can you say, “This is a bad person, but that’s okay with me”? On the surface you may say it, but if he gets closer to you, though initially it is just dislike, later it will turn to hate. The moment you identify something as good or bad, you’re just dividing the world.
Now somebody comes and says they want to walk the spiritual path. So I tell them, “Okay, stay here for a week. Let us see what we can do.” Then he says, “No, no, Saturday is my cousin’s birthday; I have to go. I can be here only for three days.” So I ask, “All right, but how far would you like to go with this?” He says, “All the way.” Then I say, “So in three days, all the way? Anyway, you do these few things when you’re here, then let’s see what to do next.” Then he says, “No, I don’t like this.” So I tell him, “Okay you give me a list of things that you like. We will do only that.” He sits there, thinks seriously for a while and writes down half a dozen things. So I ask, “What? In this vast existence, you like just about half a dozen things, and with that, you want to be spiritual?” Where is the possibility?
The moment you create good and bad, you are dividing the world. Once you divide it, where is the question of inclusion? Where is the question of yoga? Where is the question of becoming one with everything? Where is the question of knowing truth? Your division is because of your stupidity; it has got nothing to do with reality. Good and bad are always according to your ego requirements. If you go by this, you enslave yourself to the dualities of life; you divide the existence. So the question of turning spiritual never arises.
Allergic to Spirituality
It is very important that the spiritual dimension of life is brought into everybody’s lives. Why many people have developed an allergy to spirituality is because somebody always told them, ‘spirituality means leaving everything and going to the mountains.’ Even if you want to go, there is not enough space for all of you there. You had better learn how to be spiritual in your office, in your home, on the streets, wherever you are. You had better learn that because spirituality is about your interiority, not what you do outside. Spirituality is an inner science to create a conductive inner atmosphere because the quality of your life is dependent on how you are within yourself. That quality this moment depends on how joyous, how peaceful you are. This dimension you have completely neglected. Unless you do something to the inner, you will not know what it is to be peaceful, to be joyous, you will not know how to go beyond the limitations of being just a physical body and mind.
See, your body is simply accumulations of what you have gathered from the Earth – when you leave you can’t take an atom of this body. So this body is not really yours. Your mind is not yours too. It is also just an accumulation – what you have gathered from the backgrounds in which you were brought up in life. So there is something else which needs to be looked at beyond these dimensions.Even if I erase all your memory, still you will be here. Yes? Your family will disappear, your status will disappear, your business will disappear, everything that you own in the world will disappear. But still you are here. So beyond all the things that you identify yourself with, still there is something called as you. That you is not subject to what you accumulate from outside. But unfortunately that you has been so much covered, so much crowded with other things that you never allowed yourself to look at that. You always thought that what you are identified with is much more important than who you really are. Now if your focus shifts, then the other dimension can start opening up for you.
The whole process of spiritual science, yoga in particular, is to somehow elevate you to an experience that is beyond the five sense organs. When you transcend the limited experience of what you know as yourself, your experience of life is naturally in a different dimension. Then you begin to experience that which is not physical, the spiritual, the Divinity of your true nature. If you are ready and willing to experience life in a deeper dimension, to be truly happy, I have methods. Then you can begin to experience the joy, the blissfulness of knowing who you really are.
See, your body is simply accumulations of what you have gathered from the Earth – when you leave you can’t take an atom of this body. So this body is not really yours. Your mind is not yours too. It is also just an accumulation – what you have gathered from the backgrounds in which you were brought up in life. So there is something else which needs to be looked at beyond these dimensions.Even if I erase all your memory, still you will be here. Yes? Your family will disappear, your status will disappear, your business will disappear, everything that you own in the world will disappear. But still you are here. So beyond all the things that you identify yourself with, still there is something called as you. That you is not subject to what you accumulate from outside. But unfortunately that you has been so much covered, so much crowded with other things that you never allowed yourself to look at that. You always thought that what you are identified with is much more important than who you really are. Now if your focus shifts, then the other dimension can start opening up for you.
The whole process of spiritual science, yoga in particular, is to somehow elevate you to an experience that is beyond the five sense organs. When you transcend the limited experience of what you know as yourself, your experience of life is naturally in a different dimension. Then you begin to experience that which is not physical, the spiritual, the Divinity of your true nature. If you are ready and willing to experience life in a deeper dimension, to be truly happy, I have methods. Then you can begin to experience the joy, the blissfulness of knowing who you really are.
True Happiness
First we need to know that the basis of our misery is that we have established ourselves in untruth. We are deeply identified with that which we are not. Somewhere along the way we have gotten identified with things around us. We have got identified with our body and mind. That is the source of suffering.
Whatever you have known right now, your experience is only limited to your five sense organs. Whatever you have known either of the world or yourself has come to you only by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. If these five senses go to sleep, you will neither know the world nor yourself. They feel everything only in comparison. So this is not a genuine experience.All yogic practices are fundamentally aimed at giving you an experience beyond the five sense perceptions. This is not in terms of physical reality, it is in a totally different dimension. That dimension, if you want to call it God, or if you want to call it my Self, it does not matter. Whatever your idea of God is, it is simply coming from the limited experience of who you are right now. It is not coming from any true experience. The only thing that you can experience is that which is within you. And that which is within you, you have never really looked at in real depth.
The whole experience of transcending your limitations must happen within you. If you want to transcend, only if you are truly willing, it can happen. Otherwise no power on earth or in heaven can move you.Spirituality is simply the process of dis-identifying with what we are not, to shed the layers of conditioning so that we know what we are NOT. When that is completed, we arrive at something that cannot be discounted. This discovery will be the recognition of divinity, and we will see that there is no reason for misery in the world.
The whole process of yoga is to make your interiority absolutely in your control. It is a possibility to move from a state of external enslavement to inner completeness, which is the state of unbounded ness. If your inner nature is unbounded, your life is also unbounded. You can either sit with your eyes closed or you can perform different action – both ways your life can be complete.When a man has reached this state within himself, where his actions are only to the extent required for outer life situations, then he is a complete person. If within you, your inner nature has attained fulfillment regardless of the external situation, we can say that you have become unbounded. This is a state of true happiness
Whatever you have known right now, your experience is only limited to your five sense organs. Whatever you have known either of the world or yourself has come to you only by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. If these five senses go to sleep, you will neither know the world nor yourself. They feel everything only in comparison. So this is not a genuine experience.All yogic practices are fundamentally aimed at giving you an experience beyond the five sense perceptions. This is not in terms of physical reality, it is in a totally different dimension. That dimension, if you want to call it God, or if you want to call it my Self, it does not matter. Whatever your idea of God is, it is simply coming from the limited experience of who you are right now. It is not coming from any true experience. The only thing that you can experience is that which is within you. And that which is within you, you have never really looked at in real depth.
The whole experience of transcending your limitations must happen within you. If you want to transcend, only if you are truly willing, it can happen. Otherwise no power on earth or in heaven can move you.Spirituality is simply the process of dis-identifying with what we are not, to shed the layers of conditioning so that we know what we are NOT. When that is completed, we arrive at something that cannot be discounted. This discovery will be the recognition of divinity, and we will see that there is no reason for misery in the world.
The whole process of yoga is to make your interiority absolutely in your control. It is a possibility to move from a state of external enslavement to inner completeness, which is the state of unbounded ness. If your inner nature is unbounded, your life is also unbounded. You can either sit with your eyes closed or you can perform different action – both ways your life can be complete.When a man has reached this state within himself, where his actions are only to the extent required for outer life situations, then he is a complete person. If within you, your inner nature has attained fulfillment regardless of the external situation, we can say that you have become unbounded. This is a state of true happiness
Experiencing Life Fully
All teachings of self-knowledge will only deceive you. When you come to a living experience that, ‘this body is not me,’ then there is a different kind of wisdom in you. There is a different kind of understanding in you. When you intellectually understand, it leads only to deceptive states. When you experientially know, it is very different. Why you are saying, “It is not me,” is because you don’t want it to be you, isn’t it? A philosophy like that will just give you some semblance of balance in your life, but it does not liberate you from the deeper karma, because you are only trying to avoid it, and in that avoidance you find a little balance in day-to-day life. But slowly, if a person applies this philosophy, you will see, slowly they will become joyless. They will become reasonably balanced and stable, at the same time they will slowly become lifeless.
If you bring lifelessness into you, that itself is a very negative karma because you are just suppressing life. That is karma.
The most beautiful thing that has been said about this is when Krishna said: “Hesitation is the worst sin,” because with hesitation you kill life. Anything that suppresses life is the worst sin. Suppression does not mean, “Okay, now I want to eat, I do not eat.” This is not suppression. People always think, “If I don’t do what I want to do,” it is suppression. No! It is just that you are not allowing yourself to experience it totally. Whether hunger or food, if you sit here and experience hunger totally, it is wonderful, it is releasing; or if you experience food totally, it is releasing. But you neither experience hunger fully, nor food fully; this is karma. It is saying, “this is not me.” This ‘not me, not me’, the nethi process is a very different process. Denying what is happening within you is self-denial. If you deprive yourself of any experience, whether it is pain, suffering, joy or whatever it is, if you avoid it, that is big karma. If you go through it, it is not so much of a karma.
Today, in the name of civilization or whatever – etiquette or education – educated people are not able to experience any of their emotions fully. They cannot cry fully, they cannot laugh loudly. For everything, they have got etiquette. With this you will see, slowly they will become joyless. A deep sense of frustration will establish itself. You will see simple people who laugh and cry as it comes, they are so much more free. They have not accumulated heaps on them yet; but people with practiced etiquette accumulate heaps on their head. The very process of life is dissolution of karma. Every living moment of your life, if you live it totally, you dissolve enormous amounts of karma. Living totally does not mean just having fun. Anything and everything that comes, you just experience it fully, intensely.
If you bring lifelessness into you, that itself is a very negative karma because you are just suppressing life. That is karma.
The most beautiful thing that has been said about this is when Krishna said: “Hesitation is the worst sin,” because with hesitation you kill life. Anything that suppresses life is the worst sin. Suppression does not mean, “Okay, now I want to eat, I do not eat.” This is not suppression. People always think, “If I don’t do what I want to do,” it is suppression. No! It is just that you are not allowing yourself to experience it totally. Whether hunger or food, if you sit here and experience hunger totally, it is wonderful, it is releasing; or if you experience food totally, it is releasing. But you neither experience hunger fully, nor food fully; this is karma. It is saying, “this is not me.” This ‘not me, not me’, the nethi process is a very different process. Denying what is happening within you is self-denial. If you deprive yourself of any experience, whether it is pain, suffering, joy or whatever it is, if you avoid it, that is big karma. If you go through it, it is not so much of a karma.
Today, in the name of civilization or whatever – etiquette or education – educated people are not able to experience any of their emotions fully. They cannot cry fully, they cannot laugh loudly. For everything, they have got etiquette. With this you will see, slowly they will become joyless. A deep sense of frustration will establish itself. You will see simple people who laugh and cry as it comes, they are so much more free. They have not accumulated heaps on them yet; but people with practiced etiquette accumulate heaps on their head. The very process of life is dissolution of karma. Every living moment of your life, if you live it totally, you dissolve enormous amounts of karma. Living totally does not mean just having fun. Anything and everything that comes, you just experience it fully, intensely.
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