A small story:🔗

A prisoner escaped from prison after twelve years and reached his home. The moment his wife opened the door she started shouting, 'How dare you come so late! You escaped from prison twenty four hours ago. Where have you been? You should have come straight back home!'

All that the woman was bothered about was why he was not back home right after he had escaped. She certainly was intense, but only in creating conflicts.

Real intensity does not create conflicts. It is flowing but intense.

Intensity is integration. Intensity is focus. Intensity is sincerity.

Usually intensity leads to a solid feeling. You may be intense but you may have lost the ability to flow. Or you may be flowing but may have lost the intensity.

See, you may be intense but you may have lost the ability to flow – because you are driven by your ego. You are determined to achieve what you want but you have your own rigid ideas about how to get there. You fail to understand then that Existence can make events happen in a much more beautiful and effective way than you can plan.

I tell my disciples, plan in the best way to the best of your ability. Then, leave it. It may seem that all your plans are being completely trampled – don't get frustrated at that point. Something much more beautiful than what you had planned will come to life.

The other possibility is that you may be flowing but may have lost the intensity. This is the case with people who have no focus and waste their energies getting distracted by anything that comes by.

Understand, water becomes steam only at 100 degrees Celsius. Even at 99 degrees C, it is still water; it does not transform to steam. Same way, if you are not integrated in seeking, all your energies are not integrated. The total transformation cannot happen.

Take up something and follow it with full intensity. Intensity does not mean acting rigidly without scope for updating and change. Only when you are open to change you can make your way like the river flowing intensely towards the ocean.

'Being' is Intensity

What is being? Being complete, total, integrated, expressing your full energy, is what I call 'being'. If you are partial in your experience or expression, be very clear you are being hypocritical.

Even your anger is hypocritical. You just choose whether to express your anger or not. Your anger is also directly related to your logic.

You never get angry beyond your logic. It is always managed by your logic. You analyze, 'Am I going to lose anything here in this situation?' If you are sure you are going to lose something, you just suppress your anger. If you are clear, 'I am not going to lose anything. I can shout at this person. What can he do?' then you just explode and express much more anger than what is necessary. Whatever you have stored in stock, you open up everything and give!

Be very clear, when your logic manages your anger, you will have two problems. First, you unnecessarily shout or unnecessarily show your anger when it is not necessary. Second, even when you are not expressing, you will be suppressing it.

First, if you are expressing, you will be expressing too much, much more than what is necessary. Next, if you are not expressing, you will be suppressing it. Be very clear, both are wrong.

Suppressing and expressing both are not going to help. You may ask, 'Then what are we supposed to do?' You are not asked to do anything, just be.

Modern mystic, J. Krishnamurthi, says beautifully, whenever an emotion overtakes you, if even once you can just be without moving your body, without co-operating with your emotion, you will be liberated from that emotion.

If you stay without moving your body when you are flooded or overpowered by any emotion, even once, immediately you will be liberated from that emotion. I am not saying you have to constantly practice this. No, just once, only once, and you will be liberated from that very emotion.

Intensity does not depend on the nature of the work or action. It can be as complex as running a billion dollar company or as simple as cleaning the floor. It is not the 'what' that is important, but the 'how' that is important.

If you can do what you are doing with a totality and intensity that you are completely lost in the action, you have caught the thread of intensity.

The moment you are lost in the action, you become like a flute on the lips of Existence itself. The air that goes into the flute comes out as music because you become a channel for the energy of Existence to flow through you. Be total and intense. That is all that is needed for the arrow to hit the target, whatever it may be.

Interest Vs Intensity

What qualifies to be called as intensity? What is the difference between intensity and interest?

An interest can be lost, but never the intensity. Interest comes from the mind. Intensity comes from the being.

After a while, maybe short or long, you get fed up with your own interest. With intensity, it is a thirst of your being. It transcends the rationale of your logic. Intensity is a call from deep within. The more you have to wait for it, the more the thirst grows, the more the fire flares up.

See the difference between light and laser. Both are made up of the same light rays but the single-pointed intense focus of the laser comes from the coherence and the common frequency of the light rays.

The power of this intensity is what gives the laser the tremendous power to even burn a hole through metal. At the same time it is a controlled focus. This is what gives it the power to do even a delicate task like removing a cataract in the eye.

If in a desert your thirst for water becomes really intense, you are ready to pay with your life for a glass of water. When your thirst for realization becomes that intense, you are ready to pay with your life for the Truth.

A beautiful Zen story:

A student approached a Zen teacher to learn Zen. The teacher told him, 'Hear the sound of one hand clapping.'

The student tried for three years and did not succeed. He was depressed that he could not do what his teacher had told him. He came in tears to the teacher saying he had to leave because he could not do what he had been told.

The teacher said, 'Wait for one more week. Meditate constantly.' The student stayed for one more week and meditated. Nothing happened. The teacher said, 'Try for five more days.'

The student stayed further, yet nothing happened. The student came in despair begging to be released. Then the teacher said, 'Meditate for three more days. If you don't get enlightened, you had better kill yourself.'

The second day, the student was enlightened.

When your whole being is burning with the single intense desire to realize the Ultimate, you will simply absorb the master's instructions. The magic of transformation is bound to happen. Only then will you be open to receive him. Till then it is just an interest.

Be intense in whatever you do

Tantra, the mystical science of meditation techniques, says that to know the truth one needs only one condition – intensity. Be total in what you are, what you do.

Live intensely in the moment and taste the real life. Otherwise, you are not living. You are just waiting for death.

When you eat, intensely eat. Let your whole attention and energy be on the food. Do not divert your attention and thoughts to what you need to get done at work tomorrow or where you want to go for your next vacation.

Enjoy the food with all your senses. Taste the food in your mouth, enjoy the feast in front of your eyes, touch the food with love, and smell the aroma of the food. When you eat this way totally, you will enjoy every morsel and you will actually feed into your system the living energy the food is meant to give.

If you are drinking water, drink it intensely. Become the thirst. Feel the coolness of the water going into your mouth, throat and down your food pipe. Let each drop of water that goes into your mouth give you the feeling of fulfillment.

The Tamil classic, Periya Puranam, describes the stories of the Nayanmars, the ardent devotees of Lord Shiva. There are so many instances of the devotees realizing the Ultimate by simple activities like making garlands for the Lord. An example is Gananaatha Nayanaar, a devotee of the Lord, engaged in simple services like plucking flowers for worship, making garlands for the Lord, sweeping and washing the floor of the temple and keeping the lamps in the temple burning. Just this simple life led him to reaching the Ultimate and brought him his name 'Gananaatha' meaning the chief of the ganas (attendants) of Lord Shiva.

When you pray, be real and spontaneous. Whatever you feel, feel totally and offer it to the Divine. Don't cheat yourself and be hypocritical by not admitting what you feel. You cannot hide anything from the Divine. He knows you better than you know yourself.

Your intensity is the only thing that decides when your object of seeking will happen. If the intensity is total, it will happen that moment. If the intensity is not integrated and total, it will take more time because the intensity has to gain strength in that time.

If you are intense enough, it does not need time to reach the Ultimate. Where you are, who are you is irrelevant. You can reach here and now.

A beautiful story:

There was a dreaded bandit who was a terror in the kingdom. After looting a large number of people, he started feeling restless and uncomfortable with his actions.

He approached a master and asked him, 'Master, I am a sinner. Is there any way out for me? Can I be liberated?'

The master looked at the bandit and asked him what he was good at. The bandit replied, 'Nothing.' The master asked, 'Nothing? You must be good at something!' The bandit thought for a long time and then said, 'Master, I only know stealing, that is what I have done all my life.'

The master smiled and said, 'Good! Then you will use exactly that now. Go to a quiet place and rob all your perceptions and ideas and opinions. Steal all the trees and rocks and rivers on planet earth. Steal all the planets and stars in the sky. And dissolve them in the vast emptiness inside you.'

The bandit sincerely followed exactly the instructions of the master. Within 21 days, the bandit realized his true nature – he became enlightened.