Q: Does that mean that all the people who follow astrology are weak-minded?
No, you can't say that. But the majority are weak-minded. Even people who are normally intelligent sometimes behave foolishly in these matters. They come and ask me, 'Swamiji, if I wear such and such a stone or gem, will it be lucky for me?' How can you depend on a stone! You are live consciousness. You are nothing but God! I can't imagine… I am teaching you the science by which you can harness this whole cosmic energy, and you ask me about stones!
You might have heard about Swami Yateeshwarananda. He was a great man, an enlightened person. When he traveled abroad for the first time, he started out during rahukala - an inauspicious hour of the day, calculated by using the positions of the planets.
Someone asked him, 'Swamiji, how can you start during rahukala?'
He answered, 'You fool! I am the energy that guides the planets! How can they control me?'
See the courage of the man! It is a courage that comes out of deep understanding.
I am teaching you the science by which you can control the planets! So why do you bother about where the planets are and how they will affect you? Pick up the science of meditation, that's enough. Then nothing can touch you.
The Dukkhaharana Meditation
Go by consciousness
All our values are nothing but a substitute for consciousness.
If you are conscious, aware of what you are doing, you don't need values to tell you what to do. You don't have to follow any rules. Rules will be following you! If you are conscious, all virtues and discipline and spirituality will happen to you and you will naturally flower into a state of spiritual elevation.
Somehow, whenever we hear words like consciousness or spiritual elevation, we always think, 'No, no, this is not for me!' Without even trying any meditation technique, any practical way of elevating the consciousness, we come to the conclusion that this is not for us. So we go in for a substitute, for pseudo-consciousness – which is called morality, conscience, values.
Values are fine when you are at the starting point – but not as the ending point!
Vivekananda says beautifully, 'It is good to be born in the church, but not to die there!'
We should first drop the idea that to be spiritual is very difficult and different.
There is a song by Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened master from Bharat:
Ayyae, ati sulabham, atmavidyai, ayyae, ati sulabham!
It means, 'Oh, so easy, this spirituality; oh, so easy!'
In a later stanza he says,
If you want money, you need to work hard.
If you're looking for name and fame, you need to work hard.
If you want self-realization, all you need to do is keep still!
If you can slip into deep laziness, you will fall into divinity! This laziness is not what we normally know as laziness. It is not physical laziness. It's a kind of… mental laziness! If you can completely – I mean completely – calm yourself, you can verily be spiritual.
To be spiritual is neither easy nor difficult. It's just the idea that you have. If you think it's easy, it's easy. If you think it's difficult, it's difficult. To be as you are, what is needed? Is it difficult or easy?
You cannot even use the word easy! It is as you are, right? You are already that, then how can you say it is easy to become that?
Just look in. Turn inward. A little trust in spirituality and a little meditation; that is enough! When you drop the fear that to be spiritual is very difficult, you will get the confidence that, 'Yes, I can be spiritual. I can be conscious.' Then the question of 'is it right to drop my values', will not arise at all.
Right now you are afraid to drop your values because you have nothing else to hold on to! We know, once we drop our values, all the suppressed desires will jump as if the Pandora's Box has been opened! And we know, if the Pandora's Box opens, there will be only chaos! We are afraid of our subconscious.
If you continuously practice meditation, your subconscious will be cleared. Then you will see, even if you open the Pandora's Box, there is nothing in there to jump out. You will see your face reflected in it; you will see a clear mirror!
Now let us enter into a meditation technique called the Dukkhaharana Meditation that will act upon the muladhara chakra and awaken the energy in it.
Emotion: Lust, desire, greed
Chakra: Muladhara chakra
Location: Base of the spine
In Sanskrit, muladhara means 'the root and basis of Existence'. Mula means root and adhara means basis.
This chakra is locked by fantasy and imagination and it flowers when you drop your fantasies and welcome reality!
Meditation Technique to transform lust to love: Dukkhaharana Meditation – a technique from Kulaarnava Tantra