Patanjali in his Yoga sutras has laid out eight fold path for enlightenment. The first step is Yama: loosely translated as discipline. This means tuning yourself to the ultimate; it is not a set of dos and don’ts. It is a set of instructions to tune yourself to your Self. Within this Yama the first step is Ahimsa.

Ahimsa means non violence with understanding; Ahimsa is not a moral condition but a technique.

If you are established in non violence, even wild animals, when they face you, will turn peaceful. You will radiate love and compassion. Patanjali says: If a man is established in non violence, in his presence, enemies and animals will drop their animosity and radiate love.

Sankara, the great enlightened master,  walked all over India on foot, village to village, begged door to door for food, and lived with the common man, to update himself with what was happening around him. This was required of him as a teacher, as a master. As he went he learnt from various masters, universities, and temples which are spiritual universities. He wanted to create his own University to spread his message of advaita (non-dualism), where the energy of love will speak.  In a forest on a full moon night as it drizzled he saw a frog about to hatch its baby and a cobra spreading its hood to protect the frog from the rain; frogs and cobras are born as natural enemies; when Sankara saw this he decided here’s where I should have my University where animals lose their enmity, and pure oneness and love starts happening. Once you experience this love you will never be violent; non violence, ahimsa, will happen to you.

When we are established in love nothing touches us. We do not need to defend ourselves against anything. Defending is what creates the thought of offending. All countries say that they have armies only to defend themselves. Who then is offending?  The more you try to defend you enter into offense. Violence starts. Violence starts with defense. This is what Jesus meant when he said to turn the other cheek when someone slaps you. What he said is not impractical. This can be practiced. What have we achieved by protecting ourselves, except suffering? On the other hand, if you radiate love, you will be a God on planet Earth.  Can you defend yourself against death? By defending yourself you may add some years to your life; by trusting, by loving you will add life to your years.  What would you like to do, add years to your life or add life to your years?

We all believe that without the mind we cannot function. In fact we function better without the mind.

When any of our senses perceive an object, say your eye seeing a flower, it is the energy behind that sensor, called chakshu that comes into play. Chakshu is a digital signal processor which creates a digital image of the flower and sends it to our memory. This part of our mind called chitta has the ability to filter the information by comparing it other images on its data base.
The partly processed information is then sent to another part of the mind called manas which makes a positive identification. Even with all the computing power available today, this kind of optical identification which even a child can do, is not yet practical.
Up to this point, the activities of sensory perception and identification of that experience are conscious processes. Once the identification is done, the file moves to ego, another part of the mind, which stores all our past experiences backed up with emotions. These emotion filled experiences are our samskara, and ego is their warehouse. The jump from manas to ego is an unconscious process.
Ego decides for you. You express that decision and act upon that decision. This zone of ego is not under the control of your conscious, logical and rational mind. Ego never sleeps, not for one moment. Samskara drives you to take illogical, unconscious and irrational decisions.

For instance, a person decides to smoke knowing fully well that it is bad for health. His action is driven by his samskara, his desire that is unfulfilled. Samskara confuses you, depresses you, disturbs you, stresses you and can kill you.
This process of perception and identification of what you perceive, the process that happens between your eyes and your mind happens with your awareness, consciously. However, the process the information file takes between your mind and your ego happens without your awareness; it happens unconsciously.
This process is instinctive, a legacy from our sub-human origins. It is a much faster process since the unconscious mind processes data far faster than the conscious mind, and was designed for life threatening emergencies. The only way to make this process of transfer conscious and meaningful is by bringing in awareness through meditation. Meditation dissolves samskara, frees from suffering.

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

“Ananda” means bliss.

“Nanda” is something that can die out, disappear and related to suffering. Ananda is that which can never disappear from your being, it is bliss. It is not joy. Joy brings suffering in its wake. Ananda is beyond joy. It is eternal bliss, Nithya ananda.
Pleasure is what you feel through your senses based on an outer object; music, a fragrance, a beautiful sight, physical touch. When you meet nature, a mountain, a sea, a forest, you feel joy. When you feel ecstasy without sensory inputs or nature, not even inputs of forms of God, only from your inner core of energy, your atman, without any external input, it is bliss. It can be with no reason. It comes from within your being. That is Ananda.
Yoga: it’s important to understand what yoga is not. Yoga is not physical exercises or breath control; these are but a part of Yoga. Yoga is union; the union with the divine; union with the cosmic power. It is chitta vritti nirodaha: it’s the cessation of the mind, to take it beyond the mind, to be one with existence. The blissful technique to unite your own self with the divine is ananda yoga, using bliss itself to unite.
Life has no goal, it has only purpose.

Living has a purpose. If  life is a goal it’s a rat race; even when you win this race you are still a rat. The very living is bliss when you go without a goal, only with a purpose of enjoying the path.
You cannot look at God as a goal. You cannot run towards God. In inner world, logic is very different. Goals are not reached by running towards them. Vivekananda says: Arise, awake, and do not stop till the goal is reached. I say: arise, awake, stop; goal is reached.
Seeking makes you tense, will make you miss your purpose. In a relaxation course you are so tense that you lose the purpose.
I say accept all guilt, all mistakes, and all failures; even if you cannot accept, accept that you cannot accept. You will then relax; guilt will drop from your mind.
If your mind is tense it can never stop. Only when you relax it can cease. You have to drop goal orientation. If you accept what you are, what is, mind will lose its roots- Meditation just happens. When mind is, bliss is not. It is either mind or bliss.

-Paramahamsa Nithyananda

Mind is in constant inner chatter. It starts as soon as you wake up. If you record all of your inner chatter you need a recorder for all your waking hours, say 15 hours. All this chatter creates problems unconsciously. You are comparing yourself unfavourably with others. Of these 15 hours of tape, all spoken by you, why don’t you convert the chatter to give you positiveness and freedom? No man is so poor that he cannot create words that create bliss. We are not poor in capacity, only in consciousness.
This 15 hours of tape are of our karmic system. Let at least ten hours of tape create freedom in you, to start with. When all 15 hours give you freedom from chatter, you have reached liberation or live enlightenment.
Now your mind is locked into one space, as an engineer, as a doctor, whatever; you cannot touch any other part.

All of you are endowed with memory of past life, yet you do not recollect. Why? That’s because you are so caught up in this life’s memories. If you can come out of, relax from, your mind, you can enter all sections of your mind. You can log in and log out.

As of now you can only log in partly since you are afraid to log out. Is it possible to log out, walk out of inner chatter? Asks Buddha: when you have the capacity to create, don’t you have the capacity to walk out? Unconsciously you invite suffering. When everything is right you look for trouble.

A guy living by a railway track is so used to the noise of trains that he wakes up if he cannot hear the sound. You are so habituated to the incessant inner chatter of worry that if it stops you miss it. If your worries are reduced you lose your importance. This world runs not because of us, but in spite of us.
Let us be a little more intelligent and use words that liberate us instead of making us addicted. Napoleon on his deathbed told his subordinates: place my hands out of the coffin so that people will know that even the great Emperor Napoleon carried nothing with him when he left this world.
When you drop your cravings, they may get fulfilled. When you keep craving even if they get fulfilled you are not content. Choose between filling and fulfilment.

PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

There was a popular song a while ago that went: Don’t worry, be happy. It became an instant hit, and no wonder.
We all have a laundry list of worries all the time. It is very difficult for us to predict when we are likely to be joyful, but very easy to say when we shall be worried, which is almost all the time.
We worry when we have no money; we also worry when we have money. We worry if we have no children; we also worry when we have children, as our children quite often are the cause of problems, especially when they emulate us.
Worry follows desires just as night follows day. Just as desires have no end, worries too are endless.
John went to a restaurant and ordered one of each item on the menu. With great enjoyment he ate all that was brought to him. After he finished with his dessert and coffee, he got up to leave. The waiter stopped him with a bill. Said John in exasperation: I never ordered this bill. Why have you brought it to me?
Most of us live our life like John. We have no recollection of asking for the bill as we go on desring about acquisitions and expectations of acquisitions. When the bill does finally arrive we are startled, and depressed as this is not part of our expectation.
Desires are not harmful by themselves. Desires are energy, as long as the desires are your true deep desires. Problem is that most of our desires are borrowed. They arise out of jealousy and greed and nothing to do with what we need.
Ramana Maharishi said about this beautifully: The Universe can cater to the needs of every single inhabitant. However, it can not fulfill the wants of even one single person.
In your own life, just think of all the things you wish for right now. Make a list. Now make a list of the things that you already have. Which list makes you happy, and which list makes you uneasy?
The answer is obvious.
Why don’t we focus on what we have, offer gratitude to the Universe for providing all that we have instead of worrying about what we don’t have? Whether we want to keep begging for more or be thankful for what we have is a choice that we make. It is a choice between happiness and sorrow.

PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

A Bank manager used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He did this for a month and could not do it any more. He found himself trembling while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with the money in his custody. He finally wrote a letter to his boss asking to be relieved of the job. His boss told him that even if the money was lost, he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job. The manager slept peacefully from that day onwards.
Although he is doing the same job, the fear is not there any more. Why? Because the responsibility has shifted to a higher authority, that’s all. This is what surrender is. Do your duty, leaving the responsibility to existence.
You need not surrender to God or to any Guru. There is a life force conducting this world. It is this life force that is causing the breath that goes into you to come out, and the food that you eat to digest.
Simply surrender to this life force. The work that you do in your lifetime for your survival is lesser than the work required to convert a handful of food into blood inside your body. A research was once conducted to simulate the conversion of ‘one piece of bread into blood’. They found that the industry for it extended to three kilometres! This is the kind of mechanism inside you!
Do you think that the life force that sustains this mechanism cannot sustain our lives? It very well can. Only we don’t have faith.
A seed has to surrender to the soil to grow into a tree. It has to have faith in the soil and allow itself to rupture in order to blossom as a tree. In the same way, we have to place our faith in existence and surrender so that a new life, a life of eternal bliss can blossom.
How do you do it? Every time you feel heavy in the heart or mind, just tell yourself that the life force that runs the world will take care of you also and move on, that’s enough. When you do this, you will see that all your depression and worries disappear and creativity blossoms in you.
A deep peace pervades your Being. You begin to live in the moment.
Surrender is your shortcut to God! It is the ultimate technique to merge with existence.
Be blissful!

PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

Its weird and yet it has become normal. Whatever moves faster is better. Communication is at the speed of light. The world is a global village. Electronic mails have to be responded to within the hour. We all are always in a tearing hurry. Doing what?

We are all driven by greed and fear. Greed tells us that there is no time to lose. Fear tells us that we are going to lose. So we hurry not knowing what we are going to lose, not knowing what its value is.

We run because we are afraid to stop; afraid to stop and reflect on what we are doing and why. We are afraid to be with ourselves. To be silent can be terrifying as it makes one vulnerable to oneself.

A young man came to see me.

He said: Swamiji, I have everything sorted out. I am building a house with a 25-year loan. By that time my daughter (a two-year-old holding his hand) will be ready for marriage. My son (an infant that his wife is carrying) will be in a good job. The house would be very valuable and we can get a lot of money by selling it. We will invest most of it and settle down with you at the Ashram.

He had finished off 25 years of his life in just ten minutes. He still feels that his calling is spiritual. Is mortgaging the present for the future spiritual?

This constant running is a reflection of our inner restlessness. We certainly feel we have missed out on life. Has the running been worth it? This is the fastest route to suffering, the expressway.

There is good reason to plan for tomorrow, it’s important. However, let’s not forget to live today!

We take ourselves too seriously. What we do in our lifetime hardly matters in the bigger picture. It is lost in the vast expanse of the universe.

Things go on silently in the universe; so peacefully without any contradictions; millions of solar systems function with such beauty! Things happen in nature in spite of us not because of us.

When we realize this we relax into ourselves. We feel centered in our being. There is a deep sense of trust and peace that envelops our being. When this happens, we will not find the need to hurry through our lives.

Meditation helps to experience this space of relaxation and live enlightenment.

• PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

FREUD says: all your thinking is association. If you see a dog in the street, you start thinking about all the dogs you have seen from childhood. Then you remember your childhood, you remember a teacher when you were a child. There is no logical connection.

When you start verbalising you miss reality. Every day the sun rises; every day the sun sets; every day something new happens. To you it’s one more Friday, one more Saturday, another Sunday. The moment you label it as Friday, you think you know everything about that day. You just take it for granted. Because you take people for granted you don’t enjoy your relationships. You judge people first and collect arguments to support your judgement.
You can never step into the same river twice, because by that time it has moved. People also move, they change, they are not the same as who you met before. By the time you meet them again your husband/wife has changed; something is added to them; either intelligence or foolishness. But you don’t agree. You hold on to the same mental setup.
Sushruta wrote 5,000 years ago. He talks about open heart surgeries and transplants. He was a great enlightened Master. He said: every six months your liver replaces itself completely. Not even one part is same. Once in 21 days your intestine replaces itself. Modern day physiologists agree. Every cell is replaced continuously.
Sushruta says: your mental structure plays a major role when these changes take place. A disciple asks him: why do we carry diseases over a number of years? Why does the new liver carry the same disease? Sushruta replies: you don’t believe you have changed, that’s why. You carry the same mental frame despite body change. That mental frame retains the disease. You don’t let go of that frame, you don’t let go of that disease. You don’t let go of your samskara. Samskara is the powerful mental root that drags you to travel the same path.
Like Pavlov’s dogs which came running and salivated even when no food was served but the bell was rung, whenever you remember that past situation or person you react the same way, you move in the same rut. In the morning you worry about office, by evening you worry about your wife and children, unconsciously, without reason. The mood remains low even if you do not realise why. You do not live based on intelligence, you live based on information.

• SRI PARAMAHAMSA NITHYANANDA

A POMPOUS professor came to a Zen Master to learn. Instead of listening, he started blowing his own trumpet. The Master asked for tea and when it was brought, started pouring a cup for his guest. He kept pouring tea into the cup without stopping. The cup overflowed and the tea spilt on the table. Irritated, the professor shouted: stop, can’t you see the cup is full?
The master said: so is your mind. Unless you empty it what can you learn? Acquiring knowledge is a transmission process. For this transmission to take place effectively and effortlessly, one’s mind has to be empty and still. Only then the teaching, learning and above all the transmission can happen.

Basic knowledge that we all learn from childhood, the type that learn our three ‘R’s with, is intellectual knowledge. To read, write, and calculate we use our head, our mind, to acquire the needed knowledge. At this level of knowledge transfer what happens is communication.
Another type of knowledge needs the heart to be involved; one’s head is no use here. Can you become a poet using your head; can you become a singer or a painter using your head? You need passion to be a master.
The son of a potter watched his father and picked up the art. He became famous as a master craftsman. People came to him and asked to be taught the way he learnt it. He said, “I don’t know how to teach you. If you want just watch me and do.” What was merely an intellectual communication becomes collaboration between master and the taught, when the heart is involved.
Spiritual knowledge is knowledge of the highest kind; it is not knowledge really but wisdom. This can neither be taught nor learnt. Spiritual wisdom, the Truth of the Universe, has to be experienced, by transmission from an enlightened Master who is willing to transmit it from his Being to your Being.

At this level, it is a communion of beings, far beyond collaboration and communication.
Spiritual wisdom happens; it’s not taught or learnt. It happens in the silencing of your mind. It happens when your chatter, both inner and outer are stopped. Meditation is the key to silencing the mind. No spiritual knowledge is possible without the aid of meditation. Ego fills the mind otherwise. To go beyond ego, to go beyond mind, to go beyond chatter, meditation is the answer.
PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

A MIRACLE happened in the life of a stone cutter. A fairy appeared before him and told him,

“From today, you will become whoever and whatever you would like to be.”

The stone cutter had always wanted to be rich, very rich and he wished he could become the king, and instantly he became the king. He slept happily that night, “there is no one more powerful than me from now.” The next morning, the stone-cutter who had then become king, wanted to go round his city in his chariot and called his minister. The minister said: Oh king! It has been raining heavily from yesterday and you can’t ride in the chariot.

The king thought: Is the rain more powerful than me? Then I should become the rain. Forthwith, he became the rain. He was extremely happy as the rain and flooded the city. Suddenly, there came a strong gust of wind which scattered away the clouds and stopped the rain. Very angry at this, the rain thought: is the wind more powerful than me! All right, then I must change as the wind. The rain instantly changed into wind.

The wind became very happy and blew hard and fast. It uprooted very big trees and destroyed many houses too. But, try as it might it could not do any thing with the mountains.

“What? Are the mountains and the rocks in it more powerful than me? I then wish to become a mountain.” The moment he thought so, he turned into a mountain. At dawn, a stone cutter came to the mountain and began to cut on the rock face. The mountain could do nothing. Every cut and blow hurt terribly. Even as the mountain thought, “Is this stone cutter so powerful that I cannot stop him even though he hurts me? I may then as well be a stonecutter” the mountain changed into a stone-cutter. The stone cutter returned to his starting point. One cycle was completed. How he will be hereafter depends upon his desires. This is what continuously happens due to desires.

The stone cutter would not have continued upon such a cycle if at any stage he had remained contented and happy with whatever nature has bestowed on him, and without any pride whatsoever. It was only because, at every stage of his desires, he did not feel fulfilled that he had to go frantically searching: what next? What next?

What we call Karma, is the collection of unfulfilled desires and unsatisfied aspirations that we accumulate during our lives.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda