An incident from my wandering days:🔗

When I was wandering in the villages of northern Bharat, I had often noticed the villagers using a novel trap to catch birds.

They suspend a stick horizontally from the branch of a tree. The stick will be hanging from the tree by a rope tied around its middle, that's all. This stick is the trap! You must be wondering how a stick can trap a bird!

Understand, when this stick is hanging freely, it is in a horizontal position. When a bird comes and sits on one side of the stick, the stick goes down on that side because of the weight of the bird. Like a see-saw, one side of the stick goes up, the other goes down, and the stick becomes almost vertical.

The bird will end up hanging topsy-turvy, upside down!

The poor bird is terrified of hanging upside down. But it thinks that if it lets go of the stick, it will fall head-first onto the ground and die! I have seen birds clutching at the stick for hours together, afraid to let go. It will be fluttering its wings, shaking its whole body, trying its best to get back to the earlier position. But it won't dare let go of the stick!

Have you ever heard of a bird falling and breaking his head and dying? No!

But the foolish bird does not know that if he just lets go, he can fly…! He can be liberated.

After a few hours, the hunter comes along leisurely, simply catches hold of the bird and puts it in his cage.

Understand: this is the exact story of you and your mind!

Just like the bird, you are hanging onto the very thing that is putting you into suffering!

Because the bird feels that the stick is its security, it hangs onto the stick. But when the hunter comes, not only does the bird lose the stick, but it is captured and caged too.

In the same way, you hold onto your mind, onto your life. You think these things are your security. But when Yama, Death, comes, not only does all your so-called security become worthless, you are also put to death.

Rarely, a bird which was once stuck in the trap but had the courage to let go and open up, comes back to save the other birds. It nudges the bird which is hanging upside down, saying, 'Let go! Do not be afraid. Once, I was in the same state as you. But when I relaxed my hold, I just started flying! I became liberated. All it will take you to regain your balance is a few seconds. Have courage and do it.'

Since the bird is hanging topsy-turvy, when it lets go of the stick, maybe for a couple of seconds it will start falling. Then it will just simply turn upwards and start flying. Courageously facing those few seconds, that chaos, is what I call tapas.

When you unclutch, there will be a revolution in your life, your thinking, your decision-making, your lifestyle. Courageously going through that transformation is tapas.

Understand, if the bird lets go, if it relaxes, it will be soon enjoying its freedom.

If you have the courage to let go, you can become a Paramahamsa this very moment.

I tell you this boldly with the courage, the authenticity, the Truth of my own experience.

When the words come from the inner space of genuine experience, even if your logic is fighting them, don't bother. You will have the experience anyway.

Whatever arises from the space of Truth will touch the same space within you - your true Self, your being. All you need to do is just let go, and you will live like a Paramahamsa.

Life lived in an unclutched way is what I call 'living enlightenment'.

May you all live enlightenment!

Question & Answer

Q. Whenever I try to unclutch, my whole system feels a slight tension. The moment I stop unclutching, I become relaxed, but I lose the awareness also!

A. Understand, trying to be unclutched is not causing the tension, it is only making you aware of the tension that is already there inside. Whenever you start witnessing your thoughts, whatever is there inside starts getting highlighted!

Normally, you are always carrying a subtle tension in your body and mind. Your entire system and way of functioning has become combative. You feel you need to protect yourself from the whole world. All your outer worries are nothing but excuses to bring out the tension which is already inside. You feel stupid accepting that you are tense without any reason, so you find some reason, that's all!

So if you are now becoming aware of your tension, that is good. Now just unclutch from the tension also!

Q. If I can see a ten-year dream during ten hours of sleep, does it mean that the movement of time itself is different in different states of consciousness?

A. Yes!

How you experience time depends entirely on your state of consciousness. In fact, time differs even from person to person living in the same dimension. Or even the same person experiences time differently when he is in different states of consciousness. That is why, in the Vedic system, time is considered a psychological phenomenon, not a chronological phenomenon.

Just like a ten-year dream happens in ten hours, there may be a different calendar where your 70 years of life may be just seven hours for somebody who is in a different space!

If the number of thoughts per second (TPS) is more, you will feel as if you have lived through a longer time. If the TPS is low, you will feel that the time is flying!

For example, if you are sitting with someone with whom you are completely in tune, you will feel that time is moving very fast, because your TPS at that time will be very low. But if you are sitting with somebody with whom you don't feel connected, what will you do? Every five minutes, you will keep looking at your watch! You will be restless. Your TPS will be high. So you will feel as though a lot of time has passed.

That is why, in the Vedic tradition, the unit of time is called kshana. It is not measured as a chronological second. According to Western understanding, chronological time is calculated in seconds. One unit of time is equal to one second. In the Vedic tradition, the unit of time is kshana. Kshana is the gap between one thought and the next.

According to the Western calendar, your one second and my one second are the same. But according to the Vedic calendar, your one kshana and my one kshana will be different! This is because the gap between one thought and the next will be different for me and you. Here, time is not chronological, it is psychological.

In the dream state, you have too many thoughts or a high TPS. That is why you feel as if you have lived for a long time. In the waking state, there is a medium number of TPS. That is why it seems like time is moving at a normal speed. For someone in the superconscious state, e.g. for the celestial beings, the TPS is very less, and that is why their one day will be one year for us! You can see this difference in the Vedic calendars.

DOORWAYS TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS Working with thoughts and emotions QUESTION & ANSWER

Q.I can see the truth of your words, but my ego is too strong. It is not accepting…

• A. Understand, your ego is not as big as you think!
• Your ego itself is an illusion.
• Just like we want to be at the top in everything, we want to be at the top even in our suffering!
• All seekers love to think that nobody can have an ego more powerful than theirs.
• Then they struggle to conquer the ego.
• When you create a powerful enemy for yourself, you feel very powerful. You feel solid.
• Be very clear, this whole thing is the clever game of the ego itself!
• You are creating an imaginary enemy and fighting with it, that's all. The ego itself is a pure illusion.
• Ego is nothing separate from your thoughts! It is just a name we give to the process of creating the shaft.
• Ego is the shaft you use to connect all your thoughts. When we create a shaft and connect our thoughts, it gives us a false sense of personal continuity. This gives us the illusion of the ego.
• Are you able to understand?
• Your thoughts themselves are random and disconnected.
• The shaft that connects them is imaginary.
• The joy and suffering arising from it are also imaginary
• So how can the ego that is built on this base be real?
• If you really look deeply, you will suddenly see that what you think of as your ego does not exist.
• By your very nature, you are free, unclutched and already enlightened.
• Your ego is too small to take away your enlightenment!
• Stop giving so much importance to it, that is enough.

Q. Unclutching is ok in spiritual life, but how can it work in the material world? Even if I try to live in an unclutched manner, the people with whom I need to relate will be living life in the same way…

A. First of all, there are no two separate worlds called material world and spiritual world. Wherever you are living, if you are carrying an identity, you are in the material world. If you are not carrying an identity, you are spiritual, that's all.

If you are carrying an identity, you are in hell, if you are not carrying an identity, you are in heaven!

The moment you drop your identity, you enter into bliss.

There is no need to renounce anything externally. If you can renounce your identity, it is enough. The identity you are holding on to is the only reason for all your fear, all your suffering.

When you live in an unclutched manner, every incident is new. Every experience is fresh. You stop taking people and things for granted. When you are unclutched, nothing can make you suffer.

Understand, I am not saying that if you live in an unclutched manner, you will never have any problems in your life.

No!

Every single person experiences both pain and pleasure in life.

We don't have a choice in that.

But we have the choice of not connecting these experiences and creating imaginary shafts.

Understand, nothing or nobody can disturb without your silent permission. You are attached to a person or thing only because you have already created a shaft about them in your mind. Because of the shaft, you have expectations about what you can get from that situation, from that person or from that relationship.

DOORWAYS TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS Working with thoughts and emotions QUESTION & ANSWER

And if the reality turns out to be different from what you imagined, you suffer, and blame the other person for your suffering!

Especially in your close relationships, you will see this happening all the time.

I always say, when you meet a new person, you experience them as they are only for the first few weeks or months. During that time, you form your own idea of what the person is like.

After that, you will be relating only with your idea of the person, not with that person himself!

For the next twenty years, you will be relating to an idea, not to a person. In the same way, the other person would have formed an idea about you, and will be relating to his idea of you, not to the real you.

Can you imagine the confusion?!

You don't realize, the relationship which you shared with someone three years ago, the relationship which you shared one year ago and the relationship which you are experiencing now are independent events. At each instant, you are experiencing a new relationship! Because we are unclutched by our very nature, at each instant, two new people are relating with each other, experiencing each other.

The real problem is not caused by pleasure or pain. It is caused by our creating shafts and trying to break or extend them.

In the life of an enlightened person also, there is both pleasure and pain. But the big difference is, he does not carry them inside. If there is pleasure, he will enjoy the pleasure and forget it. If there is pain, he will suffer the pain and forget it, that's all. So he is always open to the future as it unfolds.

When you create a shaft, it means you already have an unconscious expectation of what the future will be, with a particular person or relationship or thing. You are not open to the experience as it unfolds. You only experience it through the filter of your own ideas.

Opening yourself continuously to the present moment is what I call living enlightenment!