Gratitude is flowering from form to formless
We relate and we worship through the idol; not the idol, understand. When you see the deity the idol is not remembered. If you remember the idol, the deity is not remembered. When you see a stone elephant, you will not see the material. If you see it as a material, you can't see it as elephant. An artist will see it as an elephant, but will not see it as a material.
If there is a wooden elephant, a elephant carved on the wood, a person who is involved with the wood business, if he sees it, he will say 'oh sandalwood, wonderful wood, high cost, this must be the cost.' He will be talking about the wood, but he can never see the elephant. If an artist, if he sees it, he will say 'oh beautiful sculpture, beautiful carving, elephant, amazing.' He will not see the wood.
So the moment you see the wood, you will not see elephant. The moment you see the elephant, you will not see the wood. It cannot happen at the same moment. It can happen only in the next, next moments. Even if you see wood-elephant-elephant-wood one moment you can see only as elephant, only in the next moment you can see it as wood, the next moment you can see it as an elephant.
When you see this as God you will not see it as the world. When you see this as the world, you will not see it as God. If you see this whole cosmos as the world giving you fear and greed, you cannot see this as God. If you see this whole thing as God, you can't see this as the world; there won't be any fear and greed.
The whole thing happened in Ramakrishna's life; just an ordinary deity, statue, he started seeing it as God. He was never able to see it as a stone or a statue. And it might have started in a very raw level, but slowly, slowly, slowly, just because of his very intensity, the whole thing became alive and led him to ultimate enlightenment.
In the villages of Bharat they burn the dead bodies using a big stick to turn the bodies. Once the whole body is burnt, they will throw the stick also in the same fire and that will also get burnt. Same way the Master's form or God's form is used to burn the attachment with all other forms.
When all the other attachments to the form is dropped, this form is intelligent enough to disappear by itself or to guide you beyond the formlessness. The Master's form or the God's form is intelligent enough to lead you to beyond all the forms, and to lead you to the very form itself.
This is the moment of ultimate gratitude. The Master's or God's form has liberated you from everything and liberates you from himself also. Then suddenly you will see that His form will not be there anymore in your inner space; but you know He is there, He is there, He is there, intensely present, intensely present.
As long as you feel connected with the form, sometimes you will see that He is present, and sometimes you will see He is absent. You will struggle to feel connected; maintaining that feeling connection continuously. You will struggle to feel the connection continuously.
When you are able to feel connected to Him beyond His form, you are liberated even from that form, you will suddenly see His presence is there intensely, continuously and guiding you and radiating.
Question: What is the reason we do puja at the Gurus feet? Why do people want to touch the Gurus feet?
Swamiji answers: It's an ancient tradition in the Vedic tradition. When you are showered so much by the Guru with His knowledge, experience, love, blessings, and everything. When He showers you, out of overflowing gratitude, you don't know what to do, so you offer whatever you have at His feet. That is the way the tradition of Guru puja started in the Vedic tradition. This is the oldest ritual.
Understand, the oldest and sacred ritual is Guru puja. The moment the first disciple was initiated; Parvathi-Adi Shakthi is the first disciple. The moment she was initiated with the experience of Shiva, in that extraordinary gratitude she fell at Shiva's feet, and offered whatever she had at His feet. So the first ritual of Guru puja started
Because of the overflowing gratitude you pour yourself at the feet of the Master. And the same way touching the Guru's feet is also the feeling of offering yourself at His feet. There is no logical reason for why Guru puja is done, why people touch the Guru's feet. It is an emotional feeling connection. For some people it looks like why should I do it? For some people it is life; they can't live without it.
Understand, it is the individual's emotion. I also wanted to tell you one more thing. Do all this only if you feel intensely connected to it; not otherwise. It should not be done as a ritual. See, as far as yoga is concerned, whether you want it or not, it has to be done, because you are working on the body. But when the Guru puja comes, it is in your mind. Your mind itself should feel it. Out of ecstasy and joy, you should be pouring it.
So there is no logical reason for – 'what is the reason we do puja at Guru's feet? Why do people want to touch the Guru's feet?' There is no logical reason. Just, that's the way it is; that's all. That is the way it is.
Gratitude is Prayer. Generally our religious life starts in prayer and ends in gratitude. Prayer has got different dimensions. It gets matured as you get matured. Prayer is the bridge towards your higher Consciousness. Prayer is the bridge to take you beyond the sufferings of the planet earth. Prayer is the technique, is the method to lead you to the Super Consciousness state. Let us understand the various dimensions of prayer step by step. Prayer has many different forms. Nothing is higher, nothing is lower. Whatever way you can start, you can start. But naturally you will be growing towards the higher level of consciousness.
First thing prayer starts in the physical level – going to the temple, praying to God, praying to the moorthis of Gods and Goddesses and doing some puja, doing some havan. The first level of prayer is the physical thing. Prayer should be started in a physical way. First prayer starts in the level of physical worship.
Then next it goes to the level of verbal worship - you chant the stotras, you chant the mantras, you do the naama japa - chanting by words, you worship the Divine, you pray. Now you come to a little higher level. First puja then japa - stotra and repetition of mantra. All these things are verbal prayer.
Verbal prayer plays a major role in keeping the mind in higher form, in the higher level - remembrance of some sacred syllable - continuous repetition with awareness. That is an important thing; without awareness repeating will become an unconscious habit. Please don't do that.
The more your mind is filled with some sacred syllable, sacred words the more your inner chattering will be cleansed. Your inner chattering has almost become like junk. So much unnecessary things you throw into it. So much suppression, so much anger and violence you suppress inside your being. Where will all that go? It will go and disturb your inner chattering.
Your inner chattering is made out of the stuff that you suppress inside. If you suppress too much of violence, if you suppress too much of sex, if you suppress too much of anger, those things only will come out in your inner chattering unconsciously.
All your inner chattering is made of the same stuff that you suppress inside. What you put inside, that only will come out. If you put mantras inside, the sacred syllables inside, the Divine words inside, the stotras inside, good words inside, you will see you are radiating the same beautiful words, the same beautiful feeling, the same beautiful bliss. The more you chant the right words; less you will be chanting the wrong words.
31 Gratitude is experiencing oneness
The third level of prayer is mental prayer - when prayer reaches the third dimension it becomes mental. First it is physical, second it is verbal and third it is mental. In the mental level it is called meditation.
In the physical level it is called worship or puja. In the verbal level it is called japa.
In the mental level it is called meditation – dhyaana.
When you reach this level neither your body needs to be involved nor your inner chattering needs to be involved; just your being will start relating. In japa it's a communication, in dhyaana it's a communion. In prayer it is communication between you and God, in meditation it is the communion with you and God.
You start experiencing the taste of the Divine, you start experiencing the glimpse of the Divine, you start experiencing the glimpse of bliss.
The Important thing – as long as you do puja or japa, you and God are different. The moment you enter into dhyaana, you start realizing godliness in you, you will start experiencing the Divine in you, you start getting the glimpse of what you worshipped all these years. A unique communion starts between you and you; it is not even between you and God, because God becomes part of your being, you become part of him. The drop merges into the ocean, the ocean merges into the drop. You start experiencing the glimpse, you start feeling you are the part of the whole, the advaithic experience; advaithic means non dualistic - a feeling of oneness starts happening inside your being, a different kind of experience.
As long as you do japa, you are worshipping. The moment you enter into dhyaana you merge with the object which you worshipping, with that you become one, you start experiencing the consciousness. The final step comes the fourth thing, where neither you nor God exists. Both disappear into one experience; that is what I call gratitude.
In the fourth level - the spiritual level, you experience not only the oneness, even the idea of oneness disappears. There is only one thing remaining, gratitude; towards whom? Towards nobody! Just gratitude! Not even addressed to somebody. As long as the gratitude is addressed to somebody there is two person; person who gives, person who receives.
But at the ultimate level it is not even addressed to somebody, it just overflows. Energy expresses itself in the form of gratitude; energy expresses itself in the form of bliss, deep feeling of fulfillment. That is what we call Samadhi.
Samadhi means, the Being after getting totally fulfilled, expresses itself in the form of energy. There is nobody who expresses and there is nobody who receives; just experience. In this level, the experiencer and the experienced merges into experience. In that moment only one thing exists, that is simply the experience; neither the experiencer nor the experienced. Both merges into one Being. That is what we call experience.
You feel so much life is showering on you, you feel 'it is too much, I can't tolerate any more', it is so much of joy, so much of ecstasy, you start losing your identity. You start losing your boundary. You can have identity as long as you have a trace of suffering. The moment suffering disappears you lose your boundary.
An important thing you need to understand, you can have ego only if you have suffering. Your ego cannot exist without suffering. Suffering is the root for your ego. It's an important thing you need to understand. We always think the other way - Ego is disturbed by suffering. No! Ego is enriched by suffering. One important thing – if your suffering is less your ego is less.
You feel you are too small, so you increase your suffering. You increase your suffering so that you can feel you are somebody. When the ego disappears you will merge inside the bliss. When you merge inside the bliss, ego disappears. When you go really deep into your being, when you become one with the existence, when you experience, only gratitude flows, only grateful feeling overflows. It is just gratitude.
There is a beautiful meditation in Sufism. They say - the only way to relate with God is gratitude; because with gratitude you start experiencing Him. With prayer you only start relating with Him. With gratitude you start experiencing Him; the deeper level of your Being, you spiritual layer starts experiencing with gratitude.
Understand a few things. How many things you are showered with in your life. How much God has showered? But we never look into the things that are showered on us. We will always look 'what next?' When you really live with a deep sensitivity, with understanding, without taking things for granted, you will experience a new space in your Being. You will experience deep joy in your being, you will experience different gratitude towards life, towards people, towards situations; ultimately towards the whole existence.
32 Gratitude is having faith in existence
Whether you accept it or not, Existence is taking care of you and all you need to do is place your faith in it and do your duty with gratitude. You will then be showered upon by Existence. We are simply not ready to place our trust on Existence! The very quality of trusting the universe in your being will make you live like God on earth!
If we consciously feel a sense of continued gratitude towards the cosmic energy, we will be able to feel ourselves being take care of it in its very lap. We will feel ourselves being cradled by this energy, like a child is by the mother. Whether you accept it or not, this is the truth.
You have to just become gratitude! The best way to become gratitude is to learn to enjoy without a reason. Enjoy everything that you see, everything that you hear, and everything that you do, with the supreme confidence that Existence is taking care. Life will then simply transform in front of your eyes and you will be overflowing all the time because you are always enjoying it. Learn to enjoy life without questioning, although I don't mean that you should drop all your work and only enjoy all the time. You need to work, no doubt. No one is going to give you everything if you only enjoy. I am only saying don't look for reasons to enjoy, that's all. Simply enjoy everything without questioning. Let enjoying become your very nature, and then gratitude will become you very being.
Existence showers. If you choose to enjoy it, you will. It is purely your choice. You choose wrongly and then complain or blame someone else. Remember, no one is responsible for anything that happens to you. Everything is a conscious choice that you make unconsciously. Because of the lack of awareness in you, you make unconscious and monotonous decisions and land up complaining about life.
Remember heaven and hell are not geographical locations in the outside world. You create them within yourself. The moment you lose trust over Existence, you alienate yourself from it and carry hell with you wherever you go.
Just remember - try living with gratitude and watch the miracles happen. Existence gives, if you are ready to receive without a question, with just a brimming heart.
33 Gratitude is living in auspiciousness
One thing has to be understood very clearly: the whole of Existence is an auspicious happening. You are part of Existence, so everything happening around you is also auspicious. This is the truth of existence. Nothing that happens in Existence is inauspicious.
Everything is a only a blessing for which we have to feel grateful. If this is understood clearly, your very eye becomes a grateful eye. It sees everything as extraordinary. Nothing appears mundane. Everything appears as a miracle.
Miracles are continuously happening in front of our eyes. But we continuously miss them! Only because we miss them, life itself appears to be dull sometimes. When we start perceiving them, our entire life becomes a miracle. The truth is, there are too many miracles happening around us in our lives.
Just accept and celebrate Existence with all its different dimensions and paradoxes. Don't judge anything. You continuously judge what is going on: something is right or something is wrong, something should have happened this way or something should not have happenened that way. Become aware that whatever happens in Existence is auspicious. In the whole world there are only two kinds of people. The first kind feels that whatever is happening in the world is auspicious. The second kind feels everything is happening against their will, and things have to be slightly altered all the time.
Such people will try to alter, judge, criticize, and develop the things happening in the world according to their ideas. These people continuously suffer because of trying to change things all the time.
Everything has a message for us including death and disease. Everything has something to teach us. Every incident raises our intelligence, raises our frequency of consciousness. Existence wants you to be here. You are not an accident here,; you are an incident. You are a miracle of Existence. This is the straightforward and simple truth.
Don't think this is positive thinking. No. This is the plain truth. If you trust this truth, you will automatically become positive, tat's all.
Understand that you are a fulfillment for Existence. If you are not here, Existence will miss you. All your wealth, relations, etc. are not an accident. Existence wants you to have all these; it wants to live through you, fulfill itself through you! Understand this.
Existence is not an accident. It is independent intelligence. When you understand that it is an independent intelligence, when you understand that it is a profound mystery to be experienced and not solved, everything in your life will open itself and reveal to you the lesson it has brought with it.
The best way to express deep gratitude is to live your life in this way (as described above)!
When you live with overwhelming gratitude in you, you have found a space wherein nothing else is needed. It means that you have fallen into mediation. Then you will not worry about anything else. You are on the right track.
Activity
This is a powerful meditation technique to experience gratitude as a prayer:
Sahasrara Dhyana (Gratitude as Prayer) Heals the chakra (energy center): Sahasrara ('thousand petalled') Location of chakra: On the crown of the head Chakra locked by: Discontentment Chakra unlocked by: Gratitude & Bliss Duration: 30 minutes
Sahasrara Dhyana is the simplest possible meditation technique! It involves the effortless process of paying our gratitude to Existence for everything we have in life, and which we have taken for granted till now. Although the meditation is deceptively simple, it has profound effects on our conscious and subconscious minds.
When we recognize that we are part of the total scheme of Existence, and that we are lovingly being taken care of by Existence every minute, we are overcome with gratitude.
We become truly thankful for what we receive every moment, even if it is as basic as the use of our very limbs and senses.
Gratitude is your response to recognizing the abundance of Existence. It is a wonderful flowering energy within you.
Everyday, just sit by yourself for half an hour. Close your eyes and allow any thought, person or situation to come to your mind. If it is a positive thought, a person you love or a situation that you cherish, feel deep gratitude for it and see it go away. If it is a negative thought, or a person you don't like, or an unpleasant situation, feel gratitude for that too and bless it. Anything that comes to your mind, bless it with deep gratitude.
You will see that in a few days, your whole attitude becomes soft and compassionate. You will start seeing things with great compassion and receptivity.
Gratitude is the Ultimate Prayer. Gratitude is the Greatest Attitude.
Gratitude is the Greatest Attitude that you can have towards God, towards human beings, towards life, towards people, and towards situations.
When you live with overwhelming gratitude in you, you have found a space wherein nothing else is needed. It means that you have fallen into meditation.
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM conducts INNER AWAKENING, a 21-day transformational program that unlocks the FOUR POWERS in you, through practical teachings and 21 powerful initiations for kundalini awakening.