Q: Swamiji, earlier you mentioned about drinking. My husband drinks ever so often claiming that he drinks to forget his worries. What do I do?
As I told you, this is a common problem and if your husband were here, it would have been helpful. If you analyze the habit of drinking, you will understand how self-contradictory you are in this habit. Let me try to explain:
You drink to feel joyful, but you end up becoming miserably miserable.
You drink so that you can be called sociable, so that society will accept you, but you land up becoming argumentative!
You drink so that you will look sophisticated but you end up looking insufferable.
You drink so that you can sleep forgetting all your worries but you wake up feeling more exhausted than ever!
You drink to experience ecstasy and end up feeling depressed!
You drink to feel confident but end up becoming afraid of yourself.
You drink to maintain the conversation but end up becoming incoherent.
You drink to see your problems dissolve but end up seeing them multiply!
This is the truth and you know it better than I do! Now tell me honestly, is it really worth drinking? This is how self-contradictory you are in not only this matter but in all matters in life. If you clearly knew what you wanted to do and spent every ounce of your energy in that direction, you would grow steadily and experience joy. You would then never be self-contradictory.
Every time you drink, drink with complete awareness. Every time you drink, drink consciously, slowly, watching every movement of yours, tasting every drop of the drink, and watching the reaction of your body to it. Make it a process filled with acute awareness. I assure you, if you do this every time you decide to drink, you do not have to drop the habit, the habit will drop you forever.
Addiction to anything is an unconscious or mechanical process. It is not just addiction to drinks or tobacco. It is addiction to even religion. People who pray unconsciously and mechanically, following a routine, will find it very hard if they miss even one day's prayer. For them, it is an addiction and so it causes anxiety when missed. In the same way as an alcoholic who misses his evening drink starts trembling in insecurity, the mechanically religious person will feel a big void if he misses his routine prayer.
The key is to understand the difference between doing things with awareness and doing things mechanically, out of fear. Doing things in the former fashion will never bring you under any sort of binding. It will not bind you in space and time. You will be a master. Doing things in the latter way will bind you and cause misery to you. You will be a slave.
To drop an addiction, flood it with awareness. It will transform in the right way. Never think that you need to drop an addiction. Anything that you resist will persist. You simply need to transform it through deep awareness. When you understand the language of transformation, you are on the right track; you are on the path of openness.
What I say is most practical!
People tell me, 'Swamiji, it is very inspiring to listen to you talking. Now we have to apply it in our day-to-day life and see if it will work.'
I always say only practical things. Never think that I say things that can't be done in day-to-day life.
If I am a person who is sitting in the forest and telling you these things, then you are free to think that I am saying impractical things. But here I am running a worldwide movement for transformation! Actually, all I am doing is repeating the same vedanta – ancient scriptural texts - but in different words, in the modern context, so that you feel comfortable listening to it; so that you feel that it is relevant to you and you follow it. If you read these ideas in a book, they will simply be moving from the head of the writer to your own head. There is no scope for any experience. But when you listen to these words from an enlightened being, from someone who comes from the experience of the soul, they will enter deeply into you and give you the desired result.
I am not sharing my knowledge with you. I am sharing my experience, my life, with you. When I speak from my being, it has to touch your being. It will transform your life. There is no other way.
Vivekananda spoke in Chicago in the World Parliament of Religions for the first time, 'My dear American brothers and sisters…' It is recorded that the auditorium thundered with applause! A lady wrote, 'It was not just the applause. He had won an entire nation. We felt as if a current of love was passing through us, through our being…!' She later asked Vivekananda how it happened and he simply replied, 'Because it came from within me.'
Vivekananda spoke from his being. When words emanate from the brain, it will touch the brain of the other person and this is called 'communication'. When words emanate from the heart, they touch the heart of the other person and this is called 'communion'. Communication is not enough. We need to know how to commune. I talk from the bottom of my heart, so that you will listen whole-heartedly.
When the speaker speaks with totality, the listener is bound to listen with totality. His life is bound to be transformed. If your life has not been touched by my words, I have no authority to speak. You are free to doubt the truth of my experience. If you feel that my words have not been able to transform your life, there is no need to hide your feelings. Come out with it. But there is no possibility that you will not be touched!
If you listen with your heart, you will see these words working out in your life automatically, when the time comes. Only a teacher who is unsure of himself needs to urge his disciples to go back and practice his words. When a master speaks, simply listening will do. Listen totally and the transformation will happen.
The Chandogya Upanishad describes this beautifully. The master tells the disciple: tat tvam asi - you are That. Just by listening, the disciple actually attains the spiritual experience! When both the master and disciple act with totality, this is possible.
When you are around a master, words are totally irrelevant. Just being around a master in silence and absorbing him is what brings about actual transformation in you. But what to do? You are so caught up with your inner chatter. So I use words to silence you. Because if I don't talk, you will talk continuously inside yourself, dissecting and analyzing the past, worrying about the future, concluding, judging and what not. If I talk, you will be intently absorbed in my words for fear of losing track of me and I can use that time to enter you!
When a master talks, he is actually silent within himself. But in others, even if they are silent, they will be talking inside themselves! The inner chatter will be there. That is the difference. Just observe what is going on inside you when you are silent. Your silence invariably is just inaudible scrambling. Inside you, you jump like a monkey from one subject to another without any correlation.
Now let us enter into a meditation technique called the Manipuraka Shuddhi Kriya that will cleanse the manipuraka chakra.
Emotion: Worry
Chakra: Manipuraka chakra
Location: Navel region
In Sanskrit, manipuraka means 'The City of Jewels'.
This chakra is locked when you constantly worry and it flowers when you stop worrying about your worries!
Meditation Technique to expel worries: Manipuraka Shuddhi Kriya – a technique from Christianity.