Part 4: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
All sages agree that in the final analysis Truth is formless. Whether it is Sankara who propounded Advaita, or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who was constantly with the form of Mother Kali, or Ramana Maharishi with his self enquiry process for liberation, all these enlightened Masters unanimously agree that the Absolute Brahman is formless. The formless Truth is not possible to achieve with any process involving words and physical activity.
Dhyana or Meditation is a non verbal technique that is subtle and is focused on awareness and the present. Dhyana is the path to shed Maya, our illusions and fantasies and to reach enlightenment.
Patanjali's yoga sutras define various steps to enlightenment. The first step yama alone comprises five steps, all quite strenuous: celibacy, truth, non violence, not stealing, not possessing. Only after you practice all these steps and master them, are you qualified to move up to the next step in yogic accomplishment. In the present day world Patanjali's techniques take a lot of time. To realize Truth through yoga of any form would probably take many births, and you will forget what you started in this birth, when you start your next!
Dhyana or meditation is the answer to enlightenment in this age. It's foolproof and without side effects. The only side effect is bliss and realization of your own Self. To start dhyana, all you need to be is a human being, nothing more. A Being with Consciousness is the only requirement to embark upon a spiritual path. The very desire that you wish to start on this path is a true indication that you are qualified.
We are all part of the cosmic energy. Atman and Brahman are cosmic energy at different planes; one at the cosmic level and the other at the individual level; both are of infinite potential.
Says the Taittreya Upanishad: From the Atman came Akasha; from Akasha came Vayu; from Vayu came Agni; from Agni came Apa (water); from Apa came Prithvi; from Prithvi Aushada (herbs); from Aushada came Anna (food); from Anna came the human, the man.
Man can access four out of the five elemental energies listed above directly; from the earth he gets food; from water he quenches thirst; from agni he derives warmth; through vayu he breathes; however he has no means to abstract energy from akasha which is the subtlest, and the most expansive of the five elemental energies. The only way he can do this is through dhyana, meditation.
Cosmic energy is not just power. Power or bala is animal strength; energy or Shakti is power with consciousness; energy is intelligent. Humans are the only species on planet earth who have this potential for Shakti, as they alone have consciousness. For them to be in this energy field, they need to meditate.
Meditation is the greatest art or science to make your Being beautiful and blissful. It is not a faith system or a religious belief. It is something that can directly touch your life and transform your Being. Meditation is a science to transform your life.
A simple meditation technique that you can practice straight away is a Buddhist technique called Vipassana. Vipassana is to look inwards as opposed to Upassana which is looking outwards. Puja and mantra are all Upassana techniques.
You have to inhale and exhale is it not? Am I right? That is enough! Start witnessing you breath, your inhalation and exhalation; 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. Whatever else you do, work, bathe, dance or sleep, 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.
This is Vipassana, a very powerful meditation technique that all can use safely.
See, when you start searching things from outside, you are searching for the impossible. It can never happen. It is 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 you 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 en joy, 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. Meditation 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.
Just consciously inhale and exhale as long a possible, whenever you remember. The moment you consciously start breathing, you start witnessing your thoughts. No thought can escape from your Being. Usually, we continuously create negative inner chattering. We create negative 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 positive 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 positive Energy.
What we do not realize is that even our thoughts have power. Brihadaranya Upanishad says: as our thoughts are so are our will; as our will is so is our action; as we act, we become. Our lives are driven by our thoughts. Thoughts are energy.
Cosmic energy is linked to individual energy. The separation we see is only our illusion. It is possible for us to tap into the inexhaustible cosmic energy, instead of which we choose to live in shackled compartments of depleted energy.
There are a number of other meditation techniques that we teach in our courses; each will have a specific objective. In the Ananda Spurana Program we take you through meditation techniques to energize the chakras, the energy centres in the body. We take you through meditations that are joyous and fun; they are dynamic and easy to follow. These techniques are eclectic drawn from all major spiritual practices of the world. These have been practiced for thousands of years by generations of our ancestors; they are foolproof in execution and have no side effects. All you lose if you do not practice the meditation for a day is the loss of that day's experience. Once you have picked up this magical fruit and tasted it, you never want to put it down.
Meditation techniques that we teach you in ASP are the know-how that the pilot has to have, to fly the machine of your mind body system, using the chakras which are the engine and the transmission system. Even if we do not wish to utilize the full potential of the powerful machine that we are, for even reasonable performance of our well being we need to keep the chakras in good order. Most o f our ailments, physical and mental are a result of blocked chakras.
All it takes is a few minutes each day once you know how to energize your chakras through meditation.
Sleep provides rest to our system by lowering the metabolic rate by 8%, which is enough to rejuvenate you for about 16 hours. In contrast, meditation lowers the metabolic rate by 24%. Effects of even simple meditation techniques, on overall body and mind health has been well established.
These techniques make Bliss flower in you by throwing out cerebral layers. What exactly are these cerebral layers? They are the complications in the mind created by media that include the television, the radio, the newspapers and the billboards. Consumerist ideas are continuously being injected into your Being. You are hypnotized and mesmerized. You read and see the same things everywhere you go. In a half-dazed condition, you go to the shop and ask for the same thing as well. You need to unload these suppressions and desires in order to be able to sit calmly. Be very clear that I am trying to force out the insanity in you and not trying to force in sanity in you. You are already THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM (Eternal Bliss). That is your natural state. We just need to cut the layers of emotional bocks covering this bliss, so that you realize the state that you are already in.
```sanskrit AngaM gailatM pailatM mauNDM dSanaivahInaM jaatM tuNDM vaRWao yaait gaRih%vaa dNDM tdip na mauHca%yaaSaapiNDM || ```
angam gallitam palitam mundam dasanavihinam játam tundam vruddho yáti gruhitvá dandam tadapi na muchyaty-áshapindam
The body has become decrepit; the head has turned grey; the mouth has been rendered toothless; grasping a stick, the old man moves about. Even then, the mass of desires does not go.
Bhaja Govindam 15