Q: We have read in many books that our mind is nothing but maya or illusion and that all our questions are only an illusion. Please can you tell us something about this?
The famous question about maya is asked one more time! First thing: don't confuse yourself with complicated reading. Second thing: understand very clearly that there is nothing to be understood with the mind. The mystery of life cannot be solved with your mind. You cannot know the purpose of your life with your mind. That is why they say that your mind is an illusion.
The first step to solving the mystery of our life is 'dropping your mind'. If you allow your mind to play, you will continue to play, that's all. Life after life, you will play. Your deep inner thirst will remain unquenched. Probably your seeker ego will get fulfilled, but that is of no use. You become only more confused inside you.
Try to move your centre of operation from your mind to your heart or being. If you operate with your mind as the centre, questions and more questions will follow. With questions, you cannot know. Only with awareness you can know.
If you operate with your heart, awareness and understanding will happen in you and then automatically your questions will start dissolving; like when the sun rises, the darkness simply disappears. When awareness happens in you, understanding will happen and your questions will dissolve.
You will start understanding things even before you come to the question! In this way, the questions will dissolve. It is difficult to understand this, but once you get an experience of it, you will know exactly what I mean by awareness. Questions will disappear and understanding will continuously engulf you.
If you understand this much, you need not worry about maya or illusion. In addition to intellectual understanding from my words, meditation can help you switch to the mode of awareness easily. We can talk for hours about maya and illusion, but you will only get more confused.
Instead, it is worthwhile learning the solutions that will help us to live intelligently; that is enough. One thing I want to tell you: maya or illusion is everything that your mind projects, so that is why I say, don't bother about knowing maya. Instead start living with more awareness, more consciously. Then the question of maya itself will not be relevant.
As I said earlier, bliss is continuously happening in us. This is the actual truth. But we continuously stop the flow of bliss, and as a result, we suffer. Bliss is not something that you can get from outside and keep inside yourself. No. It is your inherent nature. When you arrive in this world, you are in a state of bliss. As society conditions you, you move far away from it. Then you start searching for ways outside of yourself to get it back.
We will see how to stop the stopping of bliss. When I say bliss, I don't mean the ordinary happiness that we feel in our everyday lives. Ordinary happiness is a result of something that happens outside: some happy occasion, some material benefit, some happy news, some relationship that worked out, something to do with a person or thing in the outside world. This kind of happiness is purely dependent on the people and circumstances outside of us. And this kind of happiness is what leads us to sadness also, because people and circumstances keep changing. They are not the same. Their behaviour is different at different times. And when their behaviour changes, our happiness too changes!
The bliss that we are talking about is different. It is purely a state inside yourself, which is in no way connected to outer world incidents. It is your core, your permanent state. When you find this, you will become a blissful watcher of the outer world. You will participate in it fully but without losing your bliss.
A small story:
There was an old man in a family who could not be pleased at any cost.
He remained stubborn and grumpy, no matter how much his family tried to keep him in good spirits.
His children and grandchildren would come and visit him and try to cheer him up, but he would remain grumpy.
Suddenly one day, he became very gentle and cheerful.
His family was surprised at the sudden transformation.
His grand daughter asked him, 'Grandpa, how come you have changed so suddenly?'
The old man replied, 'All my life, I tried my best to get a contented mind, but never succeeded. So I have decided to be contented with it now.'
Everything is a projection of our mind! We can decide how we want to be. It is all in the mind. With the help of our mind, we have stopped the flow of bliss from within. That is the truth.
Understand: there is a universal consciousness that fills the entire cosmos and there is an individual consciousness that fills us. Man's whole purpose is to establish a connection between these two. When this connection happens, man is said to be enlightened or in eternal bliss or in THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM means eternal bliss.
Through listening to all the great masters' words and practicing all the meditation techniques, we become more and more aware of this connection and try to experience it. Because once the connection happens, everything becomes easy in the inner and outer world!
There are two types of people: those who fight with others and win and those who fight with themselves and win. It is easy to fight with others. It is not a big deal. But it is difficult to fight with yourself. When you are courageous, you will fight with yourself and win. You will destroy what you are not and emerge as a blissful being; you will flower.
The greatest challenge for man is to realize his entire potentiality. This can be done only when he moves inwards and keeps purifying himself again and again until he becomes intelligent enough not to gather more.
Actually, the word swami means one who has realized his full potential. All our difficulties on planet earth are because we are not able to realize our potentiality. There is a saying that goes: the lion that 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, the potential energy, should be allowed to express itself in a free-flowing way. Society should allow us, that is one thing, and we should also know the technique to express it. Swami means a man who has realized his potential power, who is expressing himself as he is; who is completely in tune with his being; who is blissful!
You have tremendous potential in you. Time and again psychologists and mystics have said that man is not living up to his full potential. Where are we missing it? Where are we stuck? Why are we not able to realize our full potentiality?
We need the courage to let go and explore, that's all. We will then know the answers to all these questions. When you start exploring sincerely, you will experience a shift in consciousness and this shift will open a space in you where you flower.
When you flower, you become a king. You will live like a lord on this planet. People may have all the possible comforts, money, knowledge and what not. But they will remain beggars if they have not found their inner space. To find your being is to become rich. Inner richness is real richness.
We have become so engaged with what goes on outside that we remain completely ignorant of our inner space. We are so caught up in the outer world adventure that we miss the wonderful adventures of the inner world. We miss what the great rishis and masters experienced in their lives. This experience is what I want to share with all of you.
Q: How would you define spirituality in a nutshell?
Spirituality is nothing but the flowering of four things in you: physical health, mental health, smooth inter-personal relationships and the ability to respond spontaneously (what I call responsibility).
Physical health is being free from disease. When you visit a doctor, he should give you a report saying that you are clinically alright.
The second – mental health, is being free from all subconscious and deeply engraved negative thought patterns and being free from worries, pain, jealousy, discontentment, ego, lust etc.
The third – interpersonal relationships, is having a smooth relationship with everyone around you. It is not enough if you are just cordial with everyone. You should be able to go through any amount of interaction with any kind of person, without feeling pressure or pain! The moment you feel pressure or pain, it means that there is some block inside you, some block in your mental health.
The fourth – The ability to respond spontaneously, what I call responsibility. When you are able to take on responsibility, when you are able to say 'yes' to anything spontaneously, you will expand that very moment and energy will flow through you to accomplish it! Of course, it is up to you to use that energy to accomplish that task. When you keep doing this, you keep expanding.
So if these four things flower in you, then you are spiritual. And when this happens, it does not matter which profession you are in or whether you are married or unmarried or whether you are young or old.