“Lifestyle is all about the quantity of things that you possess .”

Lifestyle is all about the quantity of things that you possess . Life is all about the quality of your consciousness .Lifestyle is related to the way in which you live , talk , dress , behave , earn you money and spend you money . Things related to the worldly life . But life goes much deeper than lifestyle .We are so engrossed with our lifestyle , working so hard for our outwardly needs that we forget that we have a life .We measure our life by our bank balance . Especially in today's world , you can get any service by giving money . There is nothing you cannot buy with money . So your entire life is reduced to money . People get to believe that their whole being is nothing but their lifestyle . Many people come to me and tell me that whatever there was to achieve in the outer world they have achieved . Yet they do not feel fulfilled . This is because they have achieved everything in their lifestyle , not in their life .Life is not lifestyle , lifestyle is not life . For lifestyle only the outwardly things are enough .But to achieve more in life , you need more awareness , more consciousness . In school , college and university , you are taught how to achieve a better lifestyle , but nowhere can you learn how to achieve a better life ! The quality of you consciousness is never increased or supported by this so called education . There starts your problem . All our energy is drained and spent or is directed towards lifestyle . People are more worried about their name or their outward appearance . They have forgotten their being which is more important .Lifestyle is all about getting a bigger and better cot , life is about the quality of your sleep . In our pursuit of a larger cot , we forget to increase the depth of our sleep ! Why are we so bothered about lifestyle ? Because we know nothing about life , we give so much of importance to lifestyle . Lifestyle is a poor substitute for life . When I say lifestyle ,I don't refer to the worldly life alone . It is applicable to spiritual life also .In the spiritual world , lifestyle refers to rituals . If too much of importance is given to rituals only , if you are too engrossed in them , you are missing the whole point of spirituality . A small story : Mullah Nasiruddin was well known for his memory , or for the lack of it . He could never remember anything for long . One day , he wanted to do three things after getting home . So, he put three knots in his kerchief to remind him . After getting home , he did two of the things he wanted to do , but just could not remember what the third thing was !No matter how hard he tried he could not remember . He sat up the whole night trying to remember . Only in the early morning he remembered the third thing - he had planned to get a good night's sleep ! (laughter ) So , when you are caught in the lifestyle , you miss life . There are seven planes in which we lead our life . The other day I was reading a book about Hollywood movies . The author has conducted a research and found that all Hollywood movie stories can be classified into seven categories and each of these categories corresponds with the seven major emotions .All stories are adaptations or variations of these seven stories only . I was surprised to see that these seven emotions exactly coincide with the seven mentioned by Patanjali (a great saint of ancient Bharat considered to be the father of yoga ). In our ASP , the basic course in our system , we speak of these same seven emotions relating them to the seven chakras or energy centers in our body . Five thousand years ago Patanjali said that there are only seven major emotions with which we relate with the world . These are the seven planes that I talked about . In Bharatn mythology , they refer to the seven lokas (or worlds ). There are no seven lokas ,only seven different ways of looking at the same world . When you wear green glasses , everything around you appears green . When you are centered on a particular emotion , you view the world in that particular way . The first plane is that of sex . That is the space or plane from which you are born . At this plane , your lifestyle is filled with imagination and fantasy . If you are centered on this emotion , in any relationship , you will continuosly feel that your partner has cheated you . The other person never cheats you . It is you who project your imagination and cheat yourself . When you say you are looking for a life partner , you are actually looking for a dream partner . You are searching for a screen on whom you can project you dreams and feel fulfilled . You are looking for a lifestyle partner not a life partner . So when you search you are thinking , When I go to a party , I should have a partner who will glorify my lifestyle ! A life partner is one who is one with your being , your consciousness . Life is an energy ,it is an expression of your inner consciousness , it is living in a way that gives you total satisfaction and fulfillment . A small story from Einstein's life will explain this very well . On his death-bed ,Einstein was asked by his junior what he would like to be born as in his next birth . Towards the end of his life , Einstein became more of a mystic than a scientist .He started believing in rebirth even though he was a Jew . So to his junior's question he answers that he would like to be born as a plumber. Naturally the junior is shocked. Einstein tells him that whatever there was to achieve in the outer world, money, name and fame, respect , all these he had achieved. But he had missed his life. In his younger days he had wanted to be a plumber. But somehow he got to be a scientist. By running and running, he had reached the top but felt like a fool now. He says, " The greatest truth of the century was discovered by me but my life has become a lie ! " If he had become a plumber, he would not have received any recognition , he would not have achieved the lifestyle but he would have achieved the deep core of life itself. Life gives you such a deep satisfaction and fulfillment that you will not bother about lifestyle. Lifestyle is something related to your conditioning. If you are taught by the models or actors that wearing jeans is the lifestyle , you go for it. If you are shown that something else is the style, you go for that. So lifestyle is a condition given to you by society. Lifestyle is societal but life is natural. Lifestyle is superficial, only skin -deep, but life is the core of your being. If you keep in touch with your being, even your lifestyle will be more satisfying. Whatever style you may live in, you will be happy. But we always run behind lifestyle thinking that it will give us happiness. Problems in life can never be set right by changing your lifestyle. In class when I ask,What is worry?, people always give me the reasons for worry. If you work on the reasons for worry, there is no end to it. Only if you work on the subjective experience of worrying, will you get rid of it. So, when you have a problem, if you work on the lifestyle, it will never help. Work on life itself, create more awareness and consciousness. Man can never relax if he works on lifestyle alone. He cannot relax till he reaches his grave. Even in the graveyard he will still be worrying about the kind of tombstone that is put up for him ! I hear that people here buy plots for their own burial,even as they are alive. I believe plots overlooking the ocean are more expensive ! ( laughs ) . When you are too bothered about lifestyle, naturally you keep running continuously, just to fall into your grave. There is a beautiful story in Zen Buddhism. A person wanted an acre of land to grow vegetables. So he prayed to God but instead ,Satan appears in the form of God. He says ," I give you not just one acre of land but whatever you can cover by running from morning till night ". The poor man is very happy and starts walking the next morning. His initial aim was to cover 10 acres so that he could live comfortably. But as the day progressed, his greed took over and he wanted more and more. He thought he could own a small kingdom. He forgot his food and water . He denied himself the basic needs of his body. He would not even sit down for a few minutes to rest. Towards the end of the day, he saw a beautiful graveyard across a river. He wanted to acquire that too. So he pushed himself to swim across the river to get to the graveyard. Alas ! as he reached the graveyard, his body could take no more . He collapsed never to get up again. Look deeply , this is what happens in your lives too. You never relax nor enjoy your lives. You postpone enjoyment . When you are studying , you say ," I will enjoy after marriage ". After marriage, you say " After I have children". After children you say, " After his education "; then you say " After retirement I will enjoy social security ". By that time you are trained to run , you have created the mental set-up which will never let you relax and enjoy. I have seen many times , the son would have got married and even the grandson , but the old man will be going through the matrimonial column . He will be going through the entire paper from morning till night more thoroughly than even the editor of the paper !Why ? Because he cannot sit with himself . You can sit with the TV , with the telephone , with the paper , but never with yourself . The capacity to sit with yourself is what I call life . Only this gives you the first glimpse of life . If you have nothing else to do , you start thinking , either planning or worrying . Here also you are bothered about lifestyle . Either you are collecting data , or processing data , or conveying data ! You are continuously running and running , but never experiencing life . If you really experience life fully , you will never have even the fear of death . Because life and death are not two seperate things , but are two sides of the same coin . If you have experienced life , you will realise that death is not an end to life , but the climax of life , the peak of your life , an intense experience . It is an intense energy undergoing a transformation . The Gita says death is nothing but the changing of your shirt , only a changing of your body . And this changing of the body will lead to an inner transformation . The second plane is one of fear . Your whole lifestyle is based on fear . Continuously you are afraid of something or another . Even when you are enjoying something you are afraid you may lose that enjoyment . If you have experienced life to the core of your being , then you will know that you have nothing to be afraid of , because you have nothing to lose . If something is to be lost , better to lose it fast . Anything that can be lost is not worth having ! The third plane is that of worry , what I call corrupted inner chattering . When your inner chattering or thoughts are corrupted and they disturb your inner self , that is worrying . All you worries are about your lifestyle . If you are centered on your lifestyle , you will be constantly worrying . If you have a car , you will worry that you may not get the spare parts , if you don't have a car , you will worry about not having one ! You continuously come up with something to worry about . The next plane has to do with attention from others . Now your problem becomes a little more subtle ,more emotional . The basic levels are those of sex , fear and worry . The fourth level is that of attention need . As long as you are a lifestyle based person , you will continuosely ask for other people's attention . You feel that you are happy or you feel in an expanded mood as long as other people give you attention . That is why people will give anything to become a celebrity . It gives you a boost , you feel more than lifesize . You get the attention of so many people . Attention is energy . That is the reason politicians feel so energetic when they are among their followers . You have heard of mob psychology. When you are in crowd you feel you can do anything and get away with it ! A person may scream 'Down , down ' to the principal in a mob , but if you take that person out of the mob he will not be so vociferous ! If you are more energetic in a group , then your lifestyle is based on attention . Lifestyle is designed by us . We always feel that the masses are led by the leader . But the fact is that the leader does what the masses want . Leaders are the worst slaves because their energy is not based on themselves but on the attention of so many others . So , if you are centered on this plane you depend totally on the attention of others . When that is withdrawn you feel so low , so deprived , so dejected . Low self esteem is also because you are dependent on others opinion of you. Your opinion of yourself is based on the opinion others have of you.If it is repeatedly said to you that you are a nobody, then you begin to feel like a nobody! Your opinion of yourself is based on others opinion of you because you dont know yourself.Opinions are poor substitutes for experience.If you have had a solid experience then you have a knowledge about yourself.But if you are based only on your lifestyle,then you want certificates from others continuously.The more certificates you recieve ,the better you feel.On the other hand,if you are based on life,you will get a deep satisfaction by what you do,not by what others say.When you get to know yourself and value it,you will be living for life itself and not for lifestyle.This forms the fifth plane.

The sixth plane is ego or high self-esteem.That means imagining yourself to be more than what you are.Again ,this is based on other's opinion of you.You weigh yourself by the cars and bungalows you have acquired,not by the level of consciousness you have achieved. Yesterday,a news reporter was asking me how I could have so much of wisdom at such a young age.I told him that wisdom is not based on the incidents that have happened in your life.It is based on what you have learnt from the experiences in your life.It does not depend on the number of incidents but the number of things you have learnt from the incidents.So,if you are aware,if you have your eyes open,you dont even have to experience everything.Life is too short to commit all the mistakes and then to learn from them.You can learn from others mistakes and experiences.Suppose you touch a burning cigarette,you realise it burns.Then you touch a furnace and see that that also burns.Then you touch a burning charcoal and realise that also burns.Next you touch a matchstick and find that it burns too!By the time you touch all types of fire and realise that all fire burns,your body will be ready to be burnt!This is learning from experience.The other kind of learning is when you touch one kind of fire and realise that all fire burns.That is wisdom.Experience is based on lifestyle,wisdom is based on life.When you have sharp awareness,total intelligence,consciousness of being,every incident reveals its truth to you.You become more aware of what is happening both inside and outside your being.You become more aware of what is needed to fulfill both your life and your lifestyle. There are people who run and run to fulfill their ego . They run to achieve something but once they achieve it , they feel like fools because it gives them no fulfillment . The other day , a man told me that when he first came to the US , he had an agenda for himself.He had a list of things to achieve and he gave himself 20 years to do it.But ,by God's grace,he had achieved all that he wanted to in just 8 years.Now,inspite of all that,he felt a deep void in himself.He had achieved 'what' he wanted to achieve but not 'what for'.The reason he wanted to achieve was for joy and bliss.That he had not achieved . Depression of failure is much better than depression of success. In depression of failure there is hope that you may achieve tomorrow , but depression of success leads you straight to truth.Hope acts as a buffer to truth . But when you have to face truth directly , it hurts . You have nothing more to achieve , nowhere else to go . Deep hopelessness descends on you . From there 3 paths are open to you . The first is the path of addiction , drugs , or alcohol , or even food . Even obesity is a result of depression of success . Atleast with drugs and alcohol you realise you are addicted . But when you are addicted to food you dont even realise it . That is why there is such a high precentage of obesity in developed countries . Here you have achieved whatever there is to achieve in your lifestyle , but have achieved nothing in your life itself . Life is sold for the sake of lifestyle . Like Faustus selling his soul to attain wealth and comfort , you sell your eyes to buy a painting , your tongue to buy good food , your legs to pay for the dance class ! Lifestyle is achieved but not the core of life itself . Life becomes a rat race . The problem is , even if you win , you remain a rat ! To bolster your ego , you continuously run but in the end feel a fool . When you pursue something , you will find that once you have attained it , your desire for it has disappeared . If you want a car very badly and stay focussed on it , once you have acquired it you realise that it no big deal afterall . Quite frequently you find that you have paid too much for the desire , too much of time and energy . As long as you are running behind lifestyle , you will be under pressure , under stress . You will have no time to rest and enjoy your life ,leading to deep discontentment. Discontentment is the seventh plane . If you are based on lifestyle only , then you will get only dicontentment . In the Mahabharatha (an Bharatn epic ),there is a beautiful story about a king called Yayathi . This king enjoyed all types of pleasures for a hundred years . But when death came , he was not willing to go . He pleaded with Death for a hundred more years . Death agrees provided one of his sons is willing to die in his place . One son agrees and Yayathi is granted hundred more years . At the end of it , again Death comes to take him and again Yayathi pleads for hundred more years . Again he gets it . This continues for 10 more times , he keeps getting extensions and yet Yayathi is not satisfied . In the end Yama says :"You are pouring ghee (clarified butter) to put out the fire ". Is that possible?Can you quench your desires by pouring more sensory pleasures onto it? Can you quench your discontentment by increasing your lifestyle? At that moment Yayathi gets the first glimpse of enlightenment or Satori . So , lifestyle can never fulfill life itself . The quantity or number of years can never fulfill you , only the quality of life can fulfill you . Dont add more years to your life , add life to your years ! You can add life to your years in three ways : Live in the present moment, have more awareness about what happens in the outer world and be more deeply conscious of the changes in the inner world. There three ways will give you a glimpse of life, of the energy, or an experience of Samadhi. If your life is based on consciousness you will have a deep satisfaction. At the level of sex or the first plane , instead of fantasies you will have a deep intimacy with your spouse. At the level of death, instead of fear you will welcome Death so that it can bring about a deep transformation in you. At the level of worry, instead of corrupted inner chattering, you will have clarity of thought. Instead of psychological worrying, you will have chronological planning in your life. At the level of attention instead of seeking and asking for attention, you will start radiating peace and energy yourself. Instead of others being the source of energy for you, you will start generating your own energy. At the level of self - esteem, instead of having low or high self-esteem, you will know who you are are and you will start expanding or flourishing in your own way. At the level of ego you will never work to increase what you possess , never to expand your lifestyle . Instead of that , you will start enjoying the things that you have .At the highest level deep discontentment will give way to deep fulfillment. So many great masters have left the body at a very young age , like Sankara at 32, Vivekananda at 39, Yogananda, Ramakrishna at 50 .They had such a deep satisfaction because they experienced life fully. If you are centred on lifestyle you will add more things and more years to your life but if you are oriented on life , you will continuously radiate energy. There is no solid proof for this in science. It only has to be experienced. It is beyond logic like all great things. You cannot prove the presence of God through logic. The moment that is done, logic will become greater than God ! God is great because He cannot be proved by logic. In the same way, life also is beyond logic, it is paradoxical.When you try to see it logically, you miss life itself. Let these ideas sink into your being , let this consciousness and awareness flower in your self ; let you experience life in eternal bliss, Nithyananda. Thank you. Q: When a person is very successful and then goes into depression, you said there are three ways of dealing with that. The first is addiction .What are the other two ? A: The first is addiction. The next is suicide, either just killing oneself or slowly dying within, the living dead. The third method , only very few intelligent people choose and that is meditation. You have to go into the depression to get to know it, to analyse it and then to come out of it. These are the three paths to get our of depression. You have to choose your own path. Q: But isn't that very difficult, Swamiji ? A: Just change the programming in your mind ! Instead of always saying it is very difficult , start saying it is easy. It is you who creates the word ' difficult' in your mind. In the beginning your mind will not accept that it is easy. It will resist. But if you go on telling yourself that it is easy, you will find that you have become more positive in your outlook. Ramana Maharishi ( a great saint of South Bharat )sings a beautiful song- " O, so easy this Atmavidhya , so easy this enlightenment ". His followers ask him how he can say that it is easy. To this he replies that to achieve in this outer world , to have a good lifestyle , you need to work very hard. But to achieve in the inner world you only have to relax and be quiet, that is enough. So we have been trained to achieve so many difficult things but we forget the simple things ; look into yourself. You cannot say that you are so poor that you cannot even address your own mind with good words, cannot even speak kindly to yourself.Of course, you can ! Q: To do meditation stillness of the mind is necessary. They say Pranayama ( controlled breathing techniques ) helps a lot . A: ' Stillness of mind ' , ' Pranayama ' , all these are big words which create more complications. Meditation is very simple. Now , as you are sitting , just become aware of your boundary. Not going where you are not, is meditation . Being where you are , that is meditation. Usually what happens is that when you are here, you are thinking of your home. When you are at home , you are thinking of the evening discourse. At the discourse you are thinking of when you can go back. At home you are thinking of the the next day's office. At office you are planning the evening outing. When outside you are thinking of home again. We are never where our body is. So being in the present , living with awareness and consciousness is what I call meditation. We are always disturbed by too many words and ideas . Just relax and be where you are .Feel the ground , feel how you are sitting, feel all the parts of your body. Just experience the present. By just being totally in the body you will start experiencing life. Because this idea is so simple it is very difficult to understand . (Laughs). Q: All our lives we are used to this and it is very difficult to come out of it. A: If you are used to living in the past and in the future, don't be bothered by it. When you say it bothers you , you are not used to it ; that it is not your nature. Here is a small logical example ; when you have a headache, you try to come out it. You take some medicine to come out of it because painlessness is your nature. In the same way, if worrying and thinking about the past and the future is your nature , then why do you want to come out of it ? Because it is not your nature. Why are you associating yourself with the worrying ? Associate yourself with living in the present. You have come from Hyderabad and settled here for the past 30 years. As you have no practise, you have forgotten how to speak Telugu. Suddenly if somebody starts speaking to you in Telugu, will you not remember ? In the same way , bliss and living in the present is a language more close to you that your own mother tongue. Upto the age of 7, you were in that state. So start reclaiming that forgotten language, that forgotten state. Thank you for coming and sharing with me.Let you all experience life. Let you all experience that Eternal Bliss, Nithyananda. _______________________________________________________________________