“Could u explain: what does it mean to be a Swami?”

Could u explain: what does it mean to be a Swami?

It is a wonderful question! The word literally means: The man who has realized Himself; who has realised his potentialty. All our difficulty on planet Earth is because we are not able to realize our potentiality. There is a saying that goes: The lion which is not allowed to be a lion will become a fox. If we are not allowed to realize our true potential Energy, we will start expressing it in a wrong way - either self destructive or destroying others. SO the creative Energy or the potential Energy shoud be allowed to express the way we want to express it. Society also should allow and we should also know the technique to express. Swami means a man who has realised his potential power, who is expressing himself as he is - which is completely in tune with his Being; who is Blissful!

That is exactly the Energy that you carry by the way Swami! Let me ask you a Question about that because in this country and in the world, we are very repressed. Can you tell us how we can release that repression and be all that we are and be that joy and that bliss?

Again and again we should start working with our mind. Again and again we should find what really gives joy for me. What really gives bliss for me? Feeling pleasure is different, feeling blissful is different. Blissful means, it will give you such a beautiful and intense feeling that you will feel you are in heaven. Again and again scan our mind and our Being to find out what really gives deep joy or deep bliss. Then start following whatever gives you deep bliss.

Swami, is it possible that we are afraid to even ask that question? We are afraid that we cannot have it?

Not only we can't have it. We are trained for the wrong things. You see, if I ask a youngster what makes him blissful, he will straightaway say drugs. See, it is not going to make him blissful. He will only escape from his problems. Drugs is only a method of escaping from his problems, it can't make him blissful. So, people don't know what exactly makes them blissful. This is because they have moved so much away from their path. They have gone away from their original thinking, away from their Life which is supposed to be. So I personally feel that we need to scan ourselves again and again. We need to work on ourselves continuously like housekeeping. We need to keep cleaning our mind in which we are continuously living. We are so bothered about cleaning the house we live in for a few hours a day probably 10-12 hours a day. But we are living in our body and mind 24hrs! We don't bother to clean that. We have to give some time to clean it and find out what exactly makes us blissful, exciting, loving, joyful, open. We must go behind it; we must have the courage to go behind it.

Swami, it seems from what you have been talking that really we have forgotten who we are and would you consider that our prime fear in this plane of Existence is mainly in search of a purpose?

Yes. Our stay on this Planet is just to find out or get a glimpse of that Bliss which is our Being. The whole thing is centered or directed towards that bliss only. We are all searching for that but in the wrong direction. Even the person who is after drugs is searching for the right thing but in the wrong direction.

Like we search for love in all the wrong places!

Yes, I feel our existence on planet earth is nothing but a search for a higer Self or Bliss.

Ok Swami, people might say, ok, what you say sounds great, you want me to search for my bliss, but I have a family, billls to pay, i have work to do, deadlines and this and that. How do you respond to that?

You have to inhale and exhale is it not? Am i right? That is enough! Start witnessing it, start observing that, it will lead you to bliss. Actually nothing more needs to be done to search for bliss. Just bring yourself more to the present. Whether you pay bills or your duty or whatever, you will surely have time to inhale or exhale? When you do the inhaling and exhaling, just add awareness also to it, it will put you straight away in the present moment. The present moment leads you to bliss. Living in the present, the power of NOW straight away leads you to bliss.

So the reason you are saying we are not in bliss is that because we are away from the present?

Yes. we are stuck in the past or in the future. We act from the reactive mind instead of the active mind. Being active is different from being reactive. We are continuously reacting. Either from past memories or from the anxiety of the future, we respond to the present and destroy the present, the beauty of the present. According to me, if you can bring yourself to present, that is enough, simply you will be in bliss. When we are not able to digest the present, we always hang behind the past or behind the future. See also, to be in bliss, you do not need any separate time. Even your daily activity is OK. You dont need to go away somewhere separately to a retreat or to a separate place. Just again and again, bring most of your energy to the present. Now, if you have 80% of your energy in the past and in the future, reduce it and bring about 50% to the present. Slowly bring maximum Energy to the present. The more you bring it to the present, the more you are alive, joyful. blissful, exciting.

I think especially in our culture, we feel that separation. We are searching in the wrong places, we are searching outside of ourselves and i think that is very true of our culture, wouldnt you say?

See when you start searching things from outside, you are searching for the impossible. It can never happen. Its like trying to do housekeeping in your dreams! You buy a big house in your dreams, try to keep it clean and neat and suddenly we wake up and everything is lost. Like that, we have so many fantasies about the future and the past and suddenly we wake up and there is nothing. On Planet Earth, whenever you hang behind the past and the future, you are wasting the present moment, the precious present moment in which you can live, which you can just enjoy, where you can just feel the Existence. Instead we make ourselves continuously dull. Whenever we are drowned in the past or in the future, we again and again miss the present - the life, the Life Force. If you bring yourself to the present, even your inhaling and exhaling quality will be different. The moment the Energy shift happens in your Being, that energy shift is what i call meditation. Medtation is not sitting in a corner, alone, in a cross legged position, with back pain, knee pain, neck pain, complaints, saying - i am not able to control my mind - all these things! Meditation is all about making a shift in your Consciousness. The moment you bring yourself to the present, you feel enthusiastic, alive, joyful and blissful. So the cognitive shift or shift in your Energy is what i call meditation.

Swami, the people listening can't see you but obviously they can make out that you are very young. The picture that we normally have about Swamis is that they are ancient and would have sat on top of mountains for atleast half of their lifetime! And your message is essentially that it is not really necessary. So can you give us your background...

There are two things we have to understand: one is experience and the other one is wisdom. Experience means learning from incidents which takes a long time, as you say ancient and old with a long beard! Understand this one example, it will clear the whole thing. A person touches the cigarette end - and realizes that it burns. He then touches the burning matchstick and learns that oh, this fire also burns. He then touches the oven and learns that that fire also burns. He goes on and on touching all forms of fire and learning. By the time he learns that all forms of fire burn, his body will be ready to be burnt! This is experience. Wisdom means, when you touch fire the first time, you learn that all forms of fire burn. Learning from your experience is wisdom. Accumulating your experiences and processing it is experience. It is not important how much of experience you have had. It is important what messages you learnt from those experiences; what you got from those experiences. Some are wise and others are otherwise. The wise people pick up from one incident that all forms of fire burn. Not only that, because of this one experience, they will be able to see through the whole and see and analyze the whole thing. So to be wise, you need not be aged, you just need to be in the present moment. The more you are in the present moment, EXistence itself teaches you. Existence is the greatest Master. It can simply teach you. Life is a great teacher. Only thing, when we dont live in the present, we take our own sweet time to learn.

Yes, and we learn lives after lives after lives!

Yes! and that is why life gives hard shocks so that we will wake up and learn!

Our existence here - is it fate or is it our choice?

Hmm. a nice question! Your present moment is the totality of all your past decisions. Now you are here in ths studio. You decided to wake up early, take the proper route, check in here, sit here and continue to sit. Like this, all your past decisions form the present. So your future is going to be all your present decisions. Why do we think that it is fate? It is because we make decisions unconsciously and don't expect some results. But when that result happens, we say it is fate. When we make decisions which bring results that we did not expect, we call it fate. When we make conscious decisisions, we will be aware of the side effects and after effects. When we are not aware of the side effects and after effects, we call it fate. Actually, Life is your pure choice. It is we who make the decision, never somebody else for us. God is so gracious, even though the world is his, he allows us to have our choice!

Swami, let me ask you this because we come up with this often people. We feel that even feeling blissful or peaceful is a choice...?

Yes, it is a pure choice. It is our choice to be blissful. There are only 2 kinds of life. If you look at the side where you have not got certain things, which life has not given you, you can make a big list which starts with the limousine and goes beyond limousine, longer than the limousine! The other side is where you make a list of what all life has given us. YOu can start with your spectacles. So much..we have been showered with. Both the lists are endless, infinite. Even inhaling and exhaling is a gift to us, we have not earned it. Every singe day is a gift given to us. OK, now we have the two lists. It is upto us to decide which side of life we are going to see. Whether we are going to look at the things not given to us and make our live dull, dead, worrying and dragging and depressing or look at the things that have been showered on us and enjoy and make our lives beautiful, loving and blissful. It is purely your choice.

I want to go back to when you were a young boy, did you come in with all this wisdom or was all this taught to you?

Oh, I can say one thing: I didn't come in with wisdom, but i came in with a small key or technique - how to live in the present moment. That gave me everything. It is not that i brought all the wisdom with me. I brought the key to wisdom. That is the key i am spreading. Practically my whole life, 22 hours a day i am spending in just spreading this one single key - start living in the present moment. That will transform your whole Energy. You will start feeling blissful and start radiating bliss.

Swami, do you really believe that the inhaling and exhaling technique is the key to bliss?

Yes. just consciously inhaling and exhaling as long a possible, whenever you remember. The moment you consciosuly start breathing, you start witnessing your thoughts. No thought can escape from your Being. Usually, we continuously create negative inner chattering. We create -ve thoughts about ourselves. We create guilt, we create negative patterns of thinking. Our thought structure is very powerful. Your life is nothing but your thinking structure. You can create or destroy anything just by your thoughts. So, the moment you are aware of your breathing, you will be aware of your thoughts. The moment you are aware of your thoughts, you simply alter it to a \+ve thinking structure. You don't have to waste time in correcting or altering it. The moment you are aware, automatically it gets corrected by itself. The power of awareness simply transforms your thinking structure into \+ve Energy.

So I imagine that when people to come to your ashram in Bharat, breathing is a part of your training to them?

Yes. We have a two day meditation program where people are taught how to be aware of their mental thinking system, aware of their breathing, how to heal themselves, how to change to a positive system of thinking. We have different workshops and classes. Even in Seattle we are going to have a program Eternal Bliss Flowering - how to experience eternal bliss in reality!

So if someone were to visit Bharat and your ashram, what experience would they have there?

You should ask them! In the last 2 years, more than 2 1/2 lakh people have visited our ashram. Again and again they repeat that it heals them physically, mentally and connects them to themselves. Overall, it gives them a new joy and bliss to live and face the world.

What makes your Energy attractive to us is that we are familiar with older models in terms of our religions where we are told how exactly we have to experience our bliss, but your message is that it is our choice how we experience our bliss.

Yes.

Swami, we have all been through a lot of religious teachings. We understand that they should inspire traits in us like love, understanding, being non-judgemental but we find ourselves in such turmoil all over the world. Why isn't it working?

See, whenever we give importance to principles, we always enter into bliss and we catch the thread. Sometimes we give importance to personalities. If we give importance to the message of Krishna, we are doing the right thing, we are spiritual. But if we give importance to Krishna himself, then we become religious. Two things: some are religious nuts and some are spiritual fruits! When you give importance to the Bible - the message of Christ, then you are a spiritual fruit. But if you give importance to Christ himself - the personality, then you become a religious nut. So that is where we miss. Giving importance to principle and philosophy is more important than giving importance to personality. Whether it is Krishna's message or Mohammed's message or Jesus's message, the message is one and the same. There is no contradiction or difficulty or any problem. But when give importance to personalities, we are stuck. We create complication.

We start idolising the personality and don't embrace the message.

Yes, that is the problem. Each one wants to spread peace in their own way! We become piece of this and piece of that - piece piece! So the peace as people want is different and the peace as given by us is different. That is where the problem starts. We force our peace on others.

Swami, you talk a lot about healing. You said that people get healed and people are able to heal. What does it take to become a healer?

You see, it is you who created the disease in your system. No one else created it. We give place for disease. Physically or mentally, when we feel uneasy with ourselves, we fall into disease. When you are not at ease with your body and mind, you create disease. When we fall in tune with ourselves again, the disease simply disappears. Throug yoga or breathing techniques that I teach, alI I teach is to make yourself at ease with yourself, then naturally, the physical and mental diseases disappear. We have 1000s and 1000s of testimonials in Bharat that say that even fatal diseases disappear - they fall in tune with themselves. It has been scientifically proved and researched. Medical reports and documents are available. Only experience of the self can prove all these things. We can't even say or claim all these things, because it is such a subjective experience, such a personal expereince, such an individual experience - even claiming looks very odd. There is so much sanctity to all this meditation that we are talking about that you don't even feel like marketing it. The moment we market, the sanctity is lost. So we always feel that people should feel it and experience it. Only then they can understand the value of all these things.

Swami, you are really carrying a message which is completely opposite to all that we have been taught. We are always told that we catch cold and catch diseases.

No no. It is our choice, purely our choice. You forget that you invited it. It is like you send an email to disease, make a telephone call to it, you invite it and then when it comes to your doorstep, you forget that you invited it and say no, I did not invite you.

We have understood that our pain and discomfort is a message to us. That's how we've been taking it and i think in our training or culture, we run away from pain..

Escaping will not help us. Pain is like a shadow. The more you try to run, it will follow you. The moment you stop and try to penetrate it, you will understand that it's simply a shadow, it has no existence.

Another thing we do is when there is pain, we make the person lose his Consciousness to the pain.

Pain is nothing but your body requesting for attention. When someone wants your attention, they create tantrums. The body too throws tantrums because continuosuly you are living outside your body. Because if you are in the house, you are thinking about office, and when in office about your vacation and the beach and when in the beach and vacation, you are thinking about what has to be done next at the office! If you are here, be sure you are not here!

So it goes back to really being in the present and being grounded in your body.

Yes, grounded in your body and your Being.

Swami, when we are in pain, if breathe into that pain then will that bring the pain out?

If you bring your Consciousness to the pain, you will simpy see that the pain disappears. The 2 techniques are: bringing the Consciousness to pain and dropping the word 'pain'. Just see like a child with curiosity, what is happening there? You will see that the pain disappears and dissolves and you will start feeling the ecstacy and bliss.

So what i understand is, we are actually our own healers and if i referred to you as a healer, then what essentially you are doing is showing us that it is our job right?!

Yes. See only we can heal ourselves. All others can do is remind you and help you as to how you can heal yourself. I can give only the key. Opening with it is upto the individual.

So where does humour fit into this?

See, man who is in the present will always be humorous. People who are serious about the past and future will be loaded with suffering. A man who is sincere will be always humorous. Sincerity and humour always go together. According to me laughter is one of the highest spiritual qualities. When you are present, you just start laughing because the whole thing is so light, ecstatic and blissful. Nothing matters. See after all, we are going to be here on planet earth for 80 to 90 years. Life is too precious. We can't afford to waste our lives in serious moments. We can't afford to waste out lives in suffering and dullness. It is so precious that we have to enjoy continuously by being in bliss or in a humorous mood.

So being humorous too is a conscious choice?

Yes, it is a pure choice.

Someone might say Swami to you, OK, at this moment, I decide to be humorous. But there is nothing around that is humorous. So how does that choice really relate at the feeling level?

When you really come to the present moment, even your very existence is very beautiful. We are continuously inhaling and exhaing, our body is moving, it is continuously converting bread into blood. All these things that are happening continuously in our system are enough to feel the bliss and lightness. You dont' need a separate actor or comedian to stand and make you laugh. Just coming to the present moment is so blissful. You start laughing for no reason. Humour is something when you start smiling or laughing for no reason, you are in a humorous mood!

And its very catchy! Theres someone there with a big smile and this whole energy.. you cant help it.

Yes infectious.

And when people come in with a bad mood...?

Again that is infectious. That is why doctors again and again fall sick. They catch the sickness or the mood of sickness from their patients. Doctors should meditate. It is a basic thing for doctors. Those who are in the healing profession - doctors, nurses, pharmacists - should meditate because they are continuously seeing people who are sick. Unless they meditate, there is every possibility or danger that they may catch the sickness.

The radio jockey reads out the Seattle programs and Swami talks on the discourse titles:

From intellect to intelligence.... We are continuously trying to live with intellect - trying to collect data and facts and coming to conclusions, but we forget something called intelligence - the spontaneity. In the course of our training, we lost something called intelligence. In all the universities and schools, they are training us only to sharpen our intellect, not our intelligence. Intelligence is all about how to be spontaneous, how to be in the present moment. The ability to respond spontaneously is what i call responsibility. You can't be responsible purely by just intellect. You need something more than intellect to be responsible. You need somethind beyond intellect to be responsible and that is what i call intelligence. Enter into the realms of intelligence in your reality.

From caterpillar to butterfly... Thisis about how to expand the Consciousness. We have one body. With that one body, we are able to enjoy and live blissfully! If you had one more body, your joy will be doubled! You can enjoy twice more and eat twice more - that too without being obese! So its like expanding your Consciousness. Its all about how to feel one with the whole, how to feel ecstacy about having more and more bodies.

NSP... See we are made up of 7 bodies. The physical body is made up of flesh and bones. The inner layer is the breathing layer. The next inner layer is to do with your inner chattering. YOu are not just the physical body, you are something more than that. You are spirit and the Energy in it. We will be working on all the layers. First - cleaning the physical layer to clear it of all the toxins and energizing it to be active and alive through yoga method. Then we will work on your breathing and make it fall in tune with your Being. Then we will work on your inner chattering, the mental layer - to make you more in tune and happy with yourself. Then the causal layer - our deep sleep. We will make you feel more comfortable with your sleep. Like this we will work on all the 7 layers to centre ourselves well and feel blissful and joyful. Our body is a temple where we are living. It is like cleaning and energizing this temple. Infusing Spirit into the body is what i call spirituality. I infuse the spirit into the body so that it can radiate compassion bliss and love and heal itself.

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