Chapter 22 — Enlightenment is the Key to Your Kingdom🔗

We now reach the ultimate, or what I call the peak experience. Realization of who we are and our role in this universe is the ultimate knowledge and experience that we can have. From the darkness of ignorance we move into the light of truth. We become enlightened.

Why enlightened beings happen on planet earth

When you see somebody swimming, you understand three things. The first thing is that swimming is possible, that a man can float on water. Secondly, you have a tremendous urge, ‘If he can do it, why not me? Why can’t I? I can too.’ The third thing is, ‘Let me jump in!’ You get inspiration and courage!

In the same way, when you see an enlightened being walking on planet earth, when you live around him, you also understand three things. The first thing is that enlightenment is possible. You can live like god on this planet earth. The next thing is, ‘If he can attain enlightenment, why not me?’ because he radiates such simplicity and ordinariness, which is close to your own human nature. You naturally get confidence that it is possible for you too. The third thing is courage, ‘Let me jump in!’ All these three will happen only if you live around an enlightened master and continuously watch his body language. Nothing else can trigger this in you.

There are five universal actions called pancha kriyas. They are creation, protection, maya, and destruction, creating illusion or pulling a soul out of the illusion with grace. God is said to perform these five actions. Nataraja, the dancing form of Shiva, has four hands. His upper right hand holds a drum, symbolizing Creation. The whole of Creation is believed to have evolved from sound vibration. The gestures of the lower right and left hands symbolize protection. The upper left hand holds fire, symbolizing destruction. The snake around his neck symbolizes ‘illusion’, into which man enters before liberation. Caught under his foot is the demon who symbolizes coming out of this illusion. Shiva symbolically destroys the illusion under his feet. Performing all these five actions simultaneously, Shiva remains utterly blissful and peaceful!

Shiva carries out these five activities while he performs what is called the Shiva Tandava, Shiva’s Cosmic Dance!

The energy that performs all these five activities is the cosmic energy. Shiva performs the first four actions, creation, protection, destruction, and putting one nirvanic layer or bliss into illusion, from his body, which is the innermost body of the seven bodies. The Divine energy can perform all these four actions from the nirvanic layer itself. There is no need to take a physical form to perform them. It can be done by the energy level body itself.

However, to perform the fifth action of pulling souls out of illusion, the energy has to take a human form! The Divine energy does not need your cooperation to perform the first four actions of creation, protection, destruction, and putting you in maya, but when it comes to pulling you out of maya, it needs your consent and cooperation!

Creation is not done with your consent. Protection is also not dependent on you. Similarly, destruction takes place without your consent, and the fourth act of putting you in illusion also does not require your support.

However, the divine energy needs your support to pull you out of illusion and make you enlightened. It is like god asking you to fill out a visa application in order to issue the visa for liberation. You need to fill it out and sign it! The problem is that you may not complete the application or you may delay the process. In order to get your confirmed support for your own enlightenment, god assumes the human body and visits planet earth as an enlightened master.

God assumes all seven layers or bodies when he descends on earth as an enlightened master. When performing the first four actions, He only had the nirvanic body, but when He comes to give you enlightenment, He assumes all seven bodies. When god comes down as the master, He lifts you up!

People ask me during meditation programs, ‘I felt a deep peace and a strong energy during the meditation. Does that mean my enlightenment is near?’

First I want you to understand, we are always near enlightenment. That is the important thing. We are always near to enlightenment. It is a very foolish and wrong idea to think that one person is closer to enlightenment than another. There are only two categories, either you are enlightened or not, that’s all. If you are not yet enlightened, then be very clear, you are as close to enlightenment as all others in your category.

Even if you are 99.9 percent enlightened, you are not! Enlightenment is a complete and total change. It is just as water becomes steam only at 100 degrees Celsius, even at 99 degrees it is still only water, never steam. Only at the 100 degree does it become steam. At any point in time, it is either water or steam, never both. Even hot water can put out a fire. That means it still carries the quality of water, not steam. Can you put out a fire with steam? No. So even though it is hot water, it can only have the quality of water. In the same way, at any point in time, you can be either enlightened or not, never both and never ‘nearly’.

Understand, enlightenment is not a continuity of yourself. It can never be a development of yourself. It is a quantum leap, not a continuity. If you feel some growth, some development, clarity, inner healing etc. during the spiritual process, it is okay. All these just give you the indication that you are on the right track, that’s all. When you see a road sign saying ‘Los Angeles, 100 miles’, it is a helpful sign always. You know you are on the right track, that’s all. But it does not mean you have arrived.

We always want somebody to give us some consoling words. You seek their support and give your support to them in return. But the master does not need your support, so he will straightway tell you the actual truth.

There is no such thing as 99.9 percent enlightened or very close to enlightenment or very near to enlightenment. Either you are enlightened or you are not.

Enlightenment is like a complete ‘yes’ or a complete ‘no’. There are no steps in between. Enlightenment itself is not a step-by-step process happening in stages. Enlightenment is like replacing a gas cylinder, the old one is completely removed and a new one is put in its place!

After the evolution from monkey to human being, it is now time we take the quantum leap to the next level, to the ultimate level. A quantum leap in consciousness is the real goal of enlightenment.

When you are on the path, you don’t have to stop and make records about your past. As long as you are stopping and taking record or accounts about your past, be very clear, the breakthrough has still not happened.

When a clear breakthrough, a quantum leap happens, you don’t need to and you will not be able to check whether you have grown and how much you have grown. The jump will be beyond your logic.

After the quantum leap, you will be a totally different species, a totally different being. Your body may look like a human body, but your whole inner space will be totally different. Your way of living will become totally different.

Enlightenment is…

Living with the limitless continuum is enlightenment. The limitless continuum will happen when you relax from the identities you hold of yourself in the outer and inner worlds.

If you are settled in that limitless continuum and are able to be active, you are living enlightenment. If you are not able to settle down in it, but you had at least one experience of it, then you have satori. experienced

The basic thing needed for enlightenment is a ‘psychological revolution’, a new clarity about the self ( jeeva), world ( jagat ), and god (

Ishwara). How you think, why you think, how you are driven, what is your inspiration, what motivates you in life - this understanding is the clarity about the self or jeeva. How to achieve your desires in the world, how you avoid fears and other things forced upon you by the world - this understanding jagat is the clarity about the world or. Ishwara

Clarity about or god means understanding the source of both the individual self and the world. Achieving the source, knowing all these three, is enlightenment.

When you have a clear understanding about why you think and how you think, this very understanding gives you the clear experience of the self. When you understand how to connect with the world through your fear or greed, achieving what you want, and avoiding what is not needed, you gain a clear experience of the world. god, Ishwara

The third is experiencing, the source of the self and the world.

Gaining a true understanding of the self, world, and god is enlightenment.

People ask me, ‘After enlightenment, can enlightened beings enjoy?’ I tell you, only after enlightenment can you enjoy! Before that, you can only think or imagine you are enjoying.

After enligh-tenment, you don’t even need sense objects to enjoy. You will simply be enjoying all the time. There will be such an intense excitement for no reason.

If I have to define enlightenment in two words, I will say it is ‘intense excitement’ for no reason, intense passion directed towards no object. There is no object, but there is intense passion. There is no reason, but there is intense excitement. That is what I call enlightenment.

People ask me, ‘How can we be happy without a reason?’ I tell them, most of you know only one secret, how to be sad without a reason. You have mastered that habit. You have a doctorate in that line! Just change it a little, that’s all. When we know that, why can’t we learn this?

Many times, you will be in a low mood, but you will be searching for a reason why you are in a low mood! You will not be able to identify the reason, but you will be sad. Your chemistry itself is trained to fall into low moods without any reason, because so many times you have trained yourself to fall into low moods with a reason. After some time, your chemistry learns this habit. Then you don’t need a reason. Just by the chemistry, just through the in-built system, you fall into low moods. Enlightenment does not mean escaping somewhere. Tasting life here and now is what I call enlightenment.

What I call enlightenment is experiencing the same intensity of life that you feel . You inside yourself, outside your skin also are not alive just inside your body. You are also alive inside every other individual, tree, and rock. Your hold over your physical body is transformed into a hold over the cosmic body! You are alive in every cell in the cosmos. Every cell is a complete, fulfilled part of the cosmos. There is a beautiful verse at the start of Purusha Suktam, in the devotional hymn, the Vedas, Om sahasra sheersha purushaha sahasraaksha sahasrapaat sa bhoomim vishwato vrutva atyatishtha dashaangulam

This verse beautifully describes the whole of the cosmos as a beautiful human form called

Purusha

• having a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. The form encompasses the whole earth and exceeds that by ten times! This is the experience of enlightenment.

Understand, I am alive as much outside as I am inside my skin. So I am alive in all the millions of heads, eyes, and feet and all the millions of beings in the cosmos.

To achieve this, start seeing everything as if you are seeing it for the first time, without bringing in your engrams, your past engraved memories. Then, you will start experiencing the same life and intensity that you experience inside your skin, outside also.

Try this for ten days. Once you get a glimpse, you will never miss it! You will see you are in ecstasy for no reason. You are in excitement for no reason. You will never take things for granted again. You will always be in joy. As of now you connect all the past experiences of your life and create a shaft. All your future experiences depend on how you have created this shaft. They depend on which words from the past you have picked, and how you have formed the shaft. Your future emotions, reactions, thoughts, and words depend entirely on this shaft. But after enlightenment, life is very different from this. Thoughts arise, and if they want to work, the body pursues the thoughts. Once the work is done, the thoughts disappear. Then the next time something needs to be done, thoughts arise again, and the process continues. The whole thing happens beautifully by itself. There is no shaft at all.

Currently we all carry constant irritation from the moment we get out of the bed until the minute we go back to bed. Constantly we carry some irritation or other. We are waiting to jump on people. We only need some excuse. After enlightenment, the constant fear or guilt or desire or something that constantly irritates, is not there.

When you unclutch from the shaft for even one moment, you get a glimpse of enlightenment.

The shift from the shaft happens in a fraction of a second. If you are deeply aware, you can catch that precious moment when the unclutching happens. All our tapas, spiritual training, is only preparing us to catch that shift. The shift happens many times. You just need to be really aware and you can catch it. When you permanently unclutch from the shaft, you are enlightened.

I can say that a few changes happened permanently in me when I became enlightened.

The first thing was that all inner chatter disappeared.

By inner chatter, I mean the constant chatter of words that goes on inside us normally. In the gap between my words as I talk now, even in those few seconds, there is no chatter inside. It is simply pure space, silence. The second thing is that the idea that my boundary ends here at this body, and there starts the rest of the world disappeared. Border consciousness dissolved. I don’t feel I am just this six foot form. I see and feel myself in everything. If you watch me, I will be the first one to enjoy all my photographs after a photo shoot or on the book covers! I will just play with them for four or five days.

Swamiji? You People ask me, ‘What is this, are sitting and enjoying your own photographs!’ I tell them, ‘How does it matter? I don’t feel I am this six-foot form. Just like you see this form, I too see this form and enjoy it! I enjoy it as a part of Existence, just like you do!’ In fact, you feel embarrassed when you see your own photographs only because you feel the boundary of your own body strongly! For me that separate feeling is not there about my form, so I just enjoy it like everything else.

The third thing is that even though the body is a male body, the inner identity of male or female disappeared. The psychological idea that ‘I am male’ or ‘I am female’ doesn’t exist in me anymore.

The fourth thing is that there is a constant excitement within, everything excites. Even small things give big excitement. Even a simple thing creates intense excitement and joy.

Any small thing, some statue – a small Shiva, a small Buddha or just a soft toy, will trigger great excitement! Every small thing gives great excitement. The most important thing is that I don’t feel bored with anything. Over the past five years, I have conducted hundreds of sessions of meditation programs. I have never felt bored because for me, there is no solidifying of the past. You feel bored only when you solidify the past. You feel you have seen everything already. Any face that I see, I feel excited, that’s all. The constant excitement is there.

I can say that these four changes are permanent things that happened in me after enlightenment.

Be very clear, enlightenment is not the end. It is the ultimate experience, but not the final experience.

You need to understand these two words ‘final’ and ‘ultimate’, they are very different. For example, after the first day of discourse in this series, one person came to me and said, ‘You have said everything. Why do we need one more class?’ Yesterday Swamiji, on the first another person said, ‘day, I thought you could not take us any deeper, it is over. Today, suddenly I felt that you have taken us deeper than yesterday, and you cannot take us any deeper than this. Every day I feel that you cannot take us much deeper than this, but we do keep going deeper.’ Every day the person felt that the experience was the ultimate.

Ultimate means living every moment totally, completely. Ultimate is not final. It can be updated.

There is a big difference between these two words, ultimate and final. If it is ultimate, it is happening every moment, it is not final.

People think that after enlightenment masters don’t grow. I tell you, after enlightenment, not only are they constantly updated, every moment growth is happening, expansion is happening. God grows. Only god grows! Nothing else grows.

In your space you may think you are growing. But the actual growth or expansion happens only in the cosmic energy.

When a being becomes enlightened, not only does he experience his potentiality, but he also starts creating more enlightened beings. He starts creating the possibility of more enlightened beings.

When you are enlightened, there will not be any movement of letter or word or thought between your navel and throat. Words will come only from the throat. I can say this is one of the precise descriptions of enlightenment. There will not be any word, thought, syllable, or sound movement between the navel and the throat.

Words will be there only when you are talking. When you are not talking, there will not be any words inside. Only the energy movement will be there. There will be no thought, no verbalization, no continuous inner chattering.

Your inner chattering is the only thing that disturbs your whole life. This is very difficult for most people to understand. They always think, ‘Unless

I have inner chatter, how will I ever plan my everyday life? How will I be able to run my business? How will I be able to live?’

Understand, when you don’t have inner chatter, it is not dead silence. It is intense energy! From that energy, whatever needs to be done will come out as a complete visualization. If you have inner chattering, it will come line by line – ‘Morning, I have to wake up. Then, I have to go to my office. There I will work on the new project. In the evening I will come back. Then I may go out for dinner…’ In a linear manner, one by one, thoughts and words come out.

When you don’t have inner chatter, when you are just with yourself, the whole visualization comes out as one package, one piece of information. That is what we call intuition. When you go through the logical process, it is called inner chatter, it is intellect. But when you don’t have that inner chatter, things start expressing in you intuitively, straightaway you know.

Enlightenment does not lead to the absence of troubles. It leads to the presence of courage to handle troubles. When the intellect ripens and reaches its peak, it becomes intelligence. When emotion ripens and reaches its peak, it becomes trust. When the being ripens and reaches its peak, it becomes enlightenment.

The person who has removed hypocrisy from his inner space will experience enlightenment.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the enlightened master from India, says beautifully, ‘Integrating your inner chatter and your spoken words is enlightenment.’ He says, just integrate your inner chatter and the words that you utter. Let both of them be integrated and you are enlightened.

I tell you, to live in a body in which inner chatter and outer words are connected is heaven. Nothing else can give you more joy than living in a body where the inner chatter and the spoken words are integrated. It is just pure ecstasy! This constant ecstasy is what I call

THE SPH . If you can live inside a or eternal bliss body in which the inner chatter and the spoken words are integrated, in tune, suddenly you will see that you are living inside a hollow bamboo. You are living with such a vast inner space!

Enlightenment is nothing but feeling yourself as the mahakaasha, the cosmic . It means that you feel that you are space the cosmic space instead of the chittakasha, the individual space.

When you relax from the identity that you project to the outer world, to show who you are to others, it is called the ‘first experience’ or satori. Relaxing from the second identity that you carry in your inner world, to prove who you are to yourself, is what I call enlightenment!

After someone achieves enlightenment he or she has a very sharp superconscious awareness. With that superconscious awareness, it is easy to do research, experiments and analysis. Even after enlightenment, I have been doing so many experiments, so many practices along with scientists and researchers of the outer world and inner world, and by myself. Understand, when an enlightened being does spiritual practices it is not just for him. It is to create the right formulas for the disciples, so that he can reproduce the same experience in them.

Someone asked me, ‘Is enlightenment the natural human state or is it a transcendence of the human state?’

Surely, enlightenment is the transcendence of the human state. Whatever you think of as the human state is not complete. You are only a seed, a potential, a possibility. You are not a tree. You are not actuality. Your actuality is enlightenment.

You are called a human being in your potential state. In your actual state, realized state, you are called an enlightened being. Be very clear, you are not a human being with a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual being with a human experience! When you meditate, you can get various siddhis. But enlightenment yogic powers or happens when you go beyond these powers also. Enlightenment is having the capacity to handle the powers, as well as the intelligence to drop them when necessary.

The other day I read an interesting article about a book

‘Occult Chemistry’ based on research done by the theosophists Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater on the molecular structure of various elements. It said that even long before physics discovered that an atom has a nucleus, the theosophists had determined the atomic structure of many elements, and that too down to the ‘quark’, the most fundamental particle known today in quantum physics! How did they find this out with no modern scientific equipment, before even quantum physics was born? The report says it was siddhi, or mystical power, through the known as anima that has been described in the Yoga Sutras by the sage Patanjali, an enlightened master from India and father of the science of Yoga. Patanjali described anima as ‘the ability to acquire knowledge of the small, the hidden, or the distant, by directing the light of superphysical faculty.’

With yogic training, they could experience visual images of minute objects too small to be seen by the normal eye. They found five new elements through these yogic powers. They even went beyond the quark as well as its detailed structure, into the sub-quark, which science is yet to find. These very same findings have also been made by at least three other people from different places in the world at different times, through such occult capacities.

They concluded that all matter is like bubbles in space, just like pearls on an invisible string. The report says that the researchers not only ‘saw’ the subatomic particles, but they could also see inside the atom down to the sub-quark, for which science needs a very powerful particle accelerator that costs billions of dollars! There are many yogis who have these kinds siddhis or powers that come about as a of result of meditation. They are good as long as you don’t get caught in them. Otherwise, you will lose sight of the ultimate goal of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is having such a strong and clear sense of peace inside you that even your thoughts cannot disturb you.

Do not think enlightened masters don’t have thoughts. It is just that their inner space is so big that the mind is a negligible part. For you, if you have a ten-acre mind, all ten acres are like a zoo. With an enlightened being there are a million acres, but still only a ten acre zoo. In a million acres, if there is some movement in ten acres, can you consider it as something disturbing? No! It is negligible. It is practically not there. That is why an average person feels ‘I am the body’ but an enlightened being feels, ‘I am the body also.’

It is not that the idea ‘I am body’ disappears. It just expands to ‘I am also the body.’

Enlightenment means simply allowing that natural flow of energy through your body without creating conflicts. The moment you start choosing and prioritizing, you have already created conflict. Enlightenment never happens to a person who chooses enlightenment. It happens to a person who chooses choicelessness. This is an important understanding.

For thousands of years, millions of seekers have been struggling. Very few have achieved the ultimate experience of enlightenment. The reason is that you have some idea about enlightenment and you choose what you think is the right action based upon that idea.

When you see living masters, you always see only the side-effect of enlightenment or the byproduct of enlightenment. Your idea and greed about enlightenment is built upon seeing the quality and energy of the enlightened master’s lifestyle.

This is not attachment to enlightenment. idea about This is attachment to the enlightenment. For example, you may think that the moment you become enlightened, suddenly somebody will give you a golden throne. You only get attached to that golden throne. You cannot get attached to enlightenment itself.

How will you get attached to enlightenment? Whatever idea you have now about enlightenment is not enlightenment, about it is enlightenment.

The more your idea about enlightenment gets purified, the more you will go towards enlightenment, you can never get attached to it.

If you are attached to it, be very clear, your idea about enlightenment is neither pure nor clear. You need to purify and have a clearer understanding about enlightenment. Read spiritual literature, listen to the master’s words and get a clear idea about enlightenment.

The clear idea about enlightenment IS enlightenment! Because after some time once you stop fighting with the master, all the clarity that he gave you until then will become a solid experience.

When the inner space is very loving, connected to the master, every word he expresses will straightaway become an experience in you. So try to create a clearer understanding. It will automatically take you to enlightenment, and the attachment will disappear.

Being aware, doing the right things, and surrendering to the Divine - enlightenment means all these three. As long as you think all these three are different things, you are not enlightened. When you realize all these three are one, all three happen simultaneously and spontaneously. You are enlightened. When you are aware, you are already surrendered to the Divine, and you will always be doing the right thing!

‘Always being intense’ is the main mark of an enlightened master. When you see that, you understand it as ‘bliss’ or ‘happiness’. To tell you honestly, I myself do not feel that I am a separate blissful being. All I know is that something extraordinary is constantly happening in me, very intensely. Only an outsider feels it is ‘bliss’. Actually it is not even ‘bliss’. It is the quality that cannot be described, that cannot be conceived by the mind.

As of now, you see three separate things: the experiencer, the experience, and the experienced. For example, you are reading this book now. You are the experiencer that is the reader, the experience is of reading, and the thing being experienced is the book. When you get enlightened, all these three – experiencer, experience, and the experienced, become one. You are only the experiencer having the experience of you, who is also the experienced!

Living Enlightenment

As of now, you are not mature enough to hold the chaos, the cosmos, inside the frame of your body. You need to put the chaos in order because you are not capable of handling the cosmos as is. The six feet frame of your body is not mature enough to hold the chaos as is, to experience and enjoy the cosmos as is.

Being with a body, mind and brain that are awakened and tuned to experience the cosmos as is, is what is living enlightenment.

For this, the body, mind and brain need to be prepared. The body can be prepared with techniques like Nithya Yoga.

The mind is like the software. It consists of the conscious mind and unconscious mind. The conscious mind can be cleared by the right teachings, by removing the wrong ideas and taking in clear and correct ideas. The unconscious mind can be cleared by meditation techniques.

But ultimately, for the software change to be permanent, the hardware also has to change. Your very brain grooves have to change to hold and radiate the experience of living enlightenment. This can happen through initiation, the touch of the master. Initiation is directly transmitting the energy after which different dimensions of you will start getting awakened.

Living enlightenment has nothing to do with married life or celibacy. It is just living a conflict-free life where your actions and knowledge are in tune with your desires. Not being in the extremes of anything, not being caught in the extremes of emotions is what is called the Middle Path. Being in madhyapantha the middle path, the, suddenly you see a reduction in the number of thoughts that arise before any action starts. That is the period called ‘living enlightenment’. When thoughts completely drop and you are able to do all your activity without thoughts, you are enlightened. Centered in sattva, positive energy, you will be able to perform all your activities, your profession, your business, your relationships, your whole life in a beautiful, effortless way. You will be able to manage everything just centered on positive energy. That is what I call ‘living jeevan mukti - even while enlightenment’ or you are living, you are liberated.

When you are centered in sattva, positive energy, you have a clear understanding of the jeeva, the self. You have the clear understanding of how to relate with the jagat, the world. Because of the clarity of the self and the world, naturally you will fall into the source, Ishwara, god.

The very understanding will give you clarity. That clarity will automatically awaken the non-mechanical parts of your brain. When that awakening happens, a chaos will start happening in your routine. Your routine will start getting re-arranged by itself. Just cooperate with it. That is what I call ‘living enlightenment’.

If you don’t cooperate with the new ecstasy that is happening, with the new awakening that is happening, and if you force your same old dull routine on yourself, you may forget, or you may bring yourself back to the same old person, the same old dullness. Cooperating with the awakening that happens in you is what I call being a disciple or living enlightenment.

‘Living enlightenment’ is the right word. When you are living these great truths you are enlightened, that’s all.

People think that having enlightenment means all responsibilities are taken away and that you don’t need to do anything. They think it is a long vacation and you can just lie down on a beach, and that nothing needs to be done.

You have a fantasy about what you want to have and all that you never had in your life. You project these and see them as enlightenment. You project your own concept of heaven and think that it is enlightenment. ‘Having’ enlightenment is a wrong word. ‘Living’ enlightenment is the right word.

You are supposed to live the truths. Living the great truths in your life is enlightenment. The master cannot hand over enlightenment to you. It is not something separate that he can give. He can only give you the tools for you to experience your enlightenment. He can only give the path. He can only give the truths. You need to start living these truths and experiencing them in your life.

Enlightenment does not mean you will leave your body and die. No! You will live in a center that is beyond the five senses, but with the five senses. Only your center will be shifted. The cognitive shift will jeevan happen within you. This is what I call mukti, living enlightenment.

Ego Vs Enlightenment

Your ego is not powerful enough to take away your enlightenment! Understand that your ego is not so powerful that it can take away your enlightenment.

You need to stop thinking that you have an ego. Even your ego is not as big as you think. You are not as big as you always think! So even your ego cannot take away your enlightenment.

Whether you believe it or not, experience are eternal Consciousness. it or not, you

Your logic is also not as strong as you think. I always tell people, your ignorance is not so strong as to take enlightenment away from you. Even in your ignorance or ego you are not that big a person, and that is the truth!

Before and after

There is a beautiful Zen saying, ‘Before enlightenment, a mountain was mountain, a river was river, a forest was forest. When you start seeking, when you start searching, a mountain is not a mountain, a river is not a river, a forest is not a forest. Everything is chaos. When you achieve what you are seeking – enlightenment again, a mountain is a mountain, a river is a river, a forest is a forest.’

It is very difficult to understand this statement. What they mean is, before you started seeking and after you achieved enlightenment, things are clear. But during the process of seeking itself, things are not clear. Although before seeking and after enlightenment, things appear to be clear, the clarity before seeking is not the same clarity as after enlightenment.

Before seeking, the clarity that you have can be confused very easily by anything! It is not the ultimate clarity. It is just a vague idea. But after enlightenment, the clarity that you get cannot be confused by anything. It is the ultimate truth as it is. That is the difference. The clarity that cannot be confused by anything is the clarity of enlightenment. After enlightenment, the very frequency of seeing things will be totally different. So although a mountain is a mountain, a river is a river, and a forest is a forest, the very frequency of seeing will be completely different. During seeking, since it is a transformational process, things will only be in confusion! Don’t bother much about it.

Deep want, no qualifications

People ask me, ‘If a master wants, whether a disciple is qualified or not, can he give him enlightenment?’

An enlightened master can enlighten anybody just by one touch – not even touch, just a thought is enough. Nothing else is necessary. He can liberate anybody. The greatest happening on planet earth is an unenlightened being sitting with an enlightened being and becoming enlightened. The master can simply download the software of an enlightened physiology into anyone.

When you are completely open, the software of an enlightened physiology can be downloaded into your system. Your body learns that it can be better than what it is now. Your biomemory learns the lesson of the possibility for a better existence.

A small story from the life of the enlightened master, Buddha:

Buddha was once asked, ‘Why don’t you give enlightenment to everybody?’ He said, ‘Please ask in the village who wants enlightenment. Bring them to me and I shall give.’

The man went through the whole village that day asking who wanted enlightenment. He came back to Buddha in the evening with a low face. Buddha asked him, ‘What happened? Nobody wants enlightenment, is it?’ The man replied a little cheerfully, ‘No, no, two people want enlightenment.’ Buddha replied, ‘Ok, get them right now. I will give them enlightenment.’ The man replied in a low voice, ‘No, they don’t want to come here. If you send it to where they are, they will take it!’

Nobody really wants enlightenment in the real sense! They just want it as a utility or to keep in their showcase!

Understand, god gives you the freedom to be in bondage also. Enlightenment can never be forced on you. If it is forced, even freedom will become bondage.

There are two things, qualification and wanting.

There is no qualification needed for enlightenment, but the deep feeling, the deep wanting that ‘I want it’, should be there.

Please be very clear, I also had ALL the problems that you are having like not being able to trust Existence or not being able to trust myself, I had everything. All I can say is, there is no qualification for enlightenment. For somebody to become enlightened, they do not need any qualification.

It is like winning a lottery ticket! Can anybody say, ‘I worked for the lottery ticket, I went and bought it and deserve to win the lottery. My effort is equal to the prize!’? No! What is the qualification for the 100 million dollar lottery? You just need to buy a ticket, that’s all! The work that you do is too small for the result that you get. Your effort is not equal to the result. It is the same with enlightenment. So enlightenment is always like a lottery. The experience is always so much more than any and all effort you make on the spiritual path.

Once the experience happens, you will understand that it is a blessing. Whatever you do until then is nothing more than buying a lottery ticket. The person who bought a lottery ticket cannot say he won the lottery because of his hard work.

Ramana Maharishi sings a beautiful poem to Arunachala, the sacred hill manifestation of Shiva in the temple town of Tiruvannamalai in South India. In it he sings, ‘I gave me and got You. So who is the winner? Who is more intelligent!’

Enlightenment can be had by giving yourself to Existence. Giving yourself is not an equal thing for what you receive. Even if you give your life, it is nothing more in effort or value than buying a lottery ticket.

After it happens, you will understand that the whole thing is nothing but the pure grace and blessing of Existence. The result or the transformation will be so big, so great that you can’t think of a reason why you were chosen for it, why it was showered on you! No qualification is necessary, but the deep need, the seeking is necessary. Fulfillment is always a gift.

To receive a gift, there is no such thing as being worthy.

Seeking is feeling the void, the emptiness, because you don’t have the spiritual clarity and enlightenment as yet. The urge should become urgent.

The enlightened master, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, used to say, ‘Suppose you are living in poverty, dying with no food and no clothes. But somehow you know that there is a lot of wealth kept locked in the next room. Even if you take it nobody will know. Will you be able to sleep restfully now? Either you will try to open the door or you will break down the door. Unless you have that wealth under your control, you will not be able to sleep.’

In the same way, you should know you are in spiritual poverty right now. You should know that inside you there is a room in which there is immense wealth that is kept under lock and key. That knowledge, that attitude, that intensity, that mood is a basic necessity. With that, the seeking can simply transform your whole life.

Your dedication is powerful enough to lead you to enlightenment.

Actually, enlightenment is practically like cooking. Something has to be added, something has to be removed. You have to add the intense seeking. Whatever is unnecessary, like restlessness, etc., will come out automatically, and enlightenment will happen!

Gradual Vs sudden techniques for Enlightenment

I can say all major spiritual traditions can be classified into two major categories. One is the category that gives gradual progress. There will be a clear-cut, defined path, like the five disciplines prescribed by the father yama (discipline), of yoga, Patanjali –niyama (personal conduct), asana (sequence prayanama (breathing), and of postures), pratyahara (withdrawal). It will appeal to the common mind. You can start and slowly continue to progress. It is easy to start but difficult to end, difficult to achieve.

The other tradition will give you the experience directly, especially the Shiva Sutras delivered by Shiva. It is all about techniques that straightaway give you enlightenment. But starting will be a little difficult because logically you cannot feel connected.

Shiva says very clearly that simple things can lead you to enlightenment. For example, there is a technique where you are to be intensely aware when sneezing happens to you and you can become enlightened! Practically He says that just a sneeze can lead you to enlightenment! How can you believe this? Logically you can’t be convinced, logically you can’t understand.

There are some methods, some techniques that give you sudden enlightenment, like those prescribed in the Shiva Sutras. One important thing you need with these sudden enlightenment techniques is the courage and the feeling of connectedness with Existence or your master.

Enlightenment can happen at any moment. Even in Tibetan Buddhism, they have the bardos’ – the intermediate concept of ‘states between death and rebirth, the states where the possibility of enlightenment is very high.

The traditions that teach us gradual enlightenment have really contributed a lot. For new seekers, they can be a really inspiring way to start. But these gradual paths have a danger. They may not give you the ultimate breakthrough, the ultimate opening, because the modern mind may get tired very soon. The modern mind is very impatient. It wants everything instantly, like instant coffee!

Sudden enlightenment methods are good because they give you a glimpse of the experience and a conviction about the possibility of the experience. Then you will not have many doubts and problems. All your problems are nothing but doubts like, ‘Is it really available? Will I be able to have it? Will I be successful? I don’t know what will happen to me. What will happen to my husband or wife?’

All these doubts are the problems. When you have at least one glimpse of sudden enlightenment, all these problems and doubts will disappear. It will be a lot easier for you to travel on your spiritual journey. One more thing:

Relax from judging the master’s words. Stop choosing what you want to follow from the master’s words and only following those ones. Then you will see, the final enlightenment happens to you.

Understand that only a person who has exhausted all the three states of waking, dream, and sleep states, can become enlightened. One who is able to unclutch from all these three states can achieve enlightenment.

Expression leads to experience

Anything that comes out of enlightenment will take you to enlightenment. If you imbibe the expression, it will lead you to the same experience.

If a piece of music comes from an enlightened

Consciousness, if you just imbibe it with deep receptivity, it will put you in the same enlightenment experience!

The other day I was reading an article about art therapy. They say that if mentally unsound people are asked to paint, they paint wildly. They pour the paint on the canvas and do all kinds of things with it. More than just painting on the canvas, they paint on their body. If they are allowed to do this for a week to a month, slowly the madness comes down and they get healed. You will be surprised, like a catharsis they throw everything away. The second discovery was a more important one: all those who became mad because of money paint in a similar way. All those who became mad because of women or name and fame paint in a similar way.

If they are allowed to paint, they do the catharsis and whatever is inside comes out. The reason for their madness is expressed clearly in their painting.

The third most important thing that happened was that the doctor who studied all those paintings extensively and gave conclusions became mad!

Be very clear, when someone expresses something intensely, and if somebody studies that expression deeply, then he gets into that same experience as the person who expressed it. That is why the doctor became mad.

Now understand, if you deeply imbibe the expressions of an enlightened master, you can get the experience of enlightenment itself! Blessed are the ones who live around an enlightened master.

When the great musical saints like Tyagaraja, Annamacharya and Manickavasagar from South India sang spontaneous verses, they expressed their own experience of enlightenment.

Traditional Indian music is designed for meditation, for enlightenment. Classical Indian dance is designed for enlightenment. That is why the person who performs and the person who sits and experiences, both experience the same meditative state.

You can enter the very space from which any music is created. If it comes out of the space of the heart, you too will fall into the heart. If it comes out of lust, you too will experience lust. The state of mind of the musician plays an important role in impacting your mind.

When you listen to any music, be receptive. Don’t bother about the words or the notes. Go to the core of it, just relax with that music and try to see the thread, the backbone, the composite central sound. Suddenly you will see you are experiencing the same thing from where the expression came out.

Understand, if the expression comes from enlightenment, it will lead to enlightenment.

A healthy body gives confidence for Enlightenment

Understand that if your family completely supports you and gives you the courage and confidence that you are a leader, you will be successful in your professional life or social life. The right family is really important to be successful in society because only that will give you the courage and confidence to take major decisions in your life.

In the same way, only your body can give you the confidence for you to achieve enlightenment. That is why yoga plays such an important role in the path of enlightenment. It works on the body and mind and gives you the confidence and courage that you can execute whatever you think.

Enlightened society

During the vedic times in India, the whole life, the whole society was based on enlightenment. 70 percent of the people were enlightened and the remaining 30 percent were seeking, working towards enlightenment.

Arts, sciences, education, lifestyle – every sphere of life, every action was directed towards the ultimate experience of enlightenment. Classical dances like Bharatanatyam, traditional vocal and instrumental music, traditional architecture of temples and sculptures, classical paintings and art forms, the science of languages like Sanskrit, the sciences of astrology and vaastu, the unique gurukul system of education, traditional ceremonies right from birth through marriage to death – every single activity in every dimension of life was an expression of the enlightenment of the great seers, as well as a means to get enlightened.

India is the spiritual incubator that produces enlightened masters. For apremature baby you need an incubator where you can maintain the correct atmosphere, oxygen, food, heat, and take care of the baby until it can survive on its own.

In the same way, for an enlightened being to land on planet earth and completely express his enlightenment and share it with the world, he needs an incubator. India is that spiritual incubator that nurtures the enlightened being because the very societal structure of ancient India was created only for the inner science research and enlightenment.

Every sphere of life, personal or professional, was only to experience the ultimate state that is enlightenment. To this day, the society of India is best suited to nourish the seeds of enlightenment and grow enlightened beings.

The ultimate energy that can stand the test of time

There can be nothing more than the enlightenment experience on planet earth. No philosophy, no system, no theory, no ideology, stands, survives, or thrives for more than one generation if it does not have an enlightened base, the base or inspiration from an enlightened being. In ancient India, there were at least 3000 kings ruling at different times. Not a single king or kingdom that was not guided by an enlightened master was able to flourish. Even today if you go to South Indian villages, you will see huge temples built of stone, installed by enlightened masters. But the palaces that were constructed by the same kings for themselves no longer exist.

Understand, the same king and the same architect who built the temples to hold the enlightened energy, also built the palaces for the king to stay. One might think the king would have used better material for his own palace! But today, if you see, the temples are still standing while the palaces have disappeared with time.

In my own village Tiruvannamalai in South India, the village in which I was born and brought up, we have a temple that has twenty-five acres of built up area. The palace built by the same king is not there. It is just ruins. But the temple built by him is still alive because the enlightened master’s energy is there.

The greatest service to mankind - keeping the science of enlightenment alive

The biggest service you can do in your life, the best use you can make of your life is to keep this science of enlightenment alive on planet earth. Planet earth is alive today in spite of all the atomic weapons we have piled up, all the depletion of forests, minerals, and natural resources. It is so because of the presence of enlightened masters. As long as there are enlightened masters on planet earth, planet earth can never be destroyed!

Top 10 Reasons to Get Enlightened

1. No Worries; Be Happy!

Express spontaneous creativity for assured success!

1. Intensely Enjoy Life!

Enjoy every moment of life with pure excitement!

1. Always Auspiciousness!

Whatever happens in life will be auspicious!

1. ‘Always-Right’ Strategic Planning!

Relationships, business, or life – always make right decisions!

1. Ultimate Experience Every Moment!

Expand and explode in all dimensions of life!

1. No Study, Just Download!

Science, arts, religion, business, cooking… Just download from the Cosmic archives!

1. No Greed,

No Fear!

Nothing to gain or lose – get all you want right here, right now!

1. Unclutch - the Fastest Gear!

Master-mind – Forever free from the clutches of the mind!

1. Being God!

Master of your destiny – create your reality!

10.

Beyond Space, Time, and Mind!

Enjoy being in the lap of eternal bliss!

You are eternal bliss -nithya ananda!