Mind an Obstacle to Yoga Practice🔗

Mind has to be handled very intelligently. Meditation is the way to handle the mind. There are stories of great saints that illustrate ways of handling the mind. Sometimes, we may have failure when offering a frontal attack to the mind. A direct attack is not always going to be a success even in military operations. Great wisdom is to be exercised. We have to retreat, we have to move forward; we have to become invisible for some time, if necessary.

The ways of saints, the methods adopted by masters and seekers of yore, are very interesting. They are not always logically rigid, but a beautifully construed methodology of handling the mind. There was a great mystic called Jalaluddin Rumi in the Middle Ages. He had many followers. He recited an instance of how a person can change himself by changing his circumstances. There was a Sufi guru who had several followers and disciples, many of whom were poor, but very devoted to their master. One of them came in the early morning to pay homage to his master. The master asked, "How are you, my dear boy?" The boy replied "Master, I am living in hell."

Master: What is the trouble with you?

Boy: I have one room only, which is a small area where I have my family, my wife and two children. There inside I cook my food. I have a camel that brays continuously, and there is a dog barking all night. We cannot sleep. You can imagine our condition. Don't you think, Master, that this is veritable hell?

Master: There is no problem; I can solve this difficulty.

The obedience of disciples to the master was so amazing, especially in ancient times, that they would not argue with the guru. Though his suggestions may look funny, irrational, and sometimes unusual, the devotion and submission to the guru supersedes rationality. The guru told the disciple, "Tonight you tie the dog inside your house when you go to bed." The man could not understand what kind of solution this was, but obedience is obedience. The dog made matters worse. It went on barking inside the room and howled throughout the night. Nobody slept even for a minute. The disciple went to the guru the next morning. The guru said, "Hello, how are you?" The man said, "I cannot say anything. It is worse than hell. The dog did not allow us to sleep."

Master: There is a solution for it. You have got a camel? Tie it inside.

The boy thought, "What is this? Am I going to be alive?" But the guru is guru, and he did not say a word against him. He tied the camel inside the room. There was no space to sit. The camel occupied the entire area, making kicks and jumps, and the dog was barking also, the fireplace was giving sparks, the children were crying, the wife was standing only, and he was also sitting. The next morning he went to the guru and said, "I cannot speak, Master. I am dying today. I think it is the last day for me. I thought it was hell; this is worse than hell."

"I will find a solution for it, the guru said. Tie the camel out; put the dog also out." He slept very well that night - no noise, no disturbance of any kind. The next morning he went to the guru. The guru asked, "How are you?"

"Heaven, heaven!" he said. The Guru laughed and said "Heaven? Hey! You came to me in the beginning, saying it is hell. Now how has it become heaven?" he asked. "Do not complain." The mind has to be handles intelligently so that it gets under your control.

Mind sees everything in relation to something else. We always see the comparative reality and not the absolute reality. Buddha said that things exist only in comparison. For e.g. you cannot say that table is a table till you compare it with the space that surrounds it. You cannot say that chair is a chair till you separate it from the space that surrounds it. The space around the table and the chair contributes to a large extent in identifying the table as a table and the chair as a chair.

Let us understand the details of the functioning of the mind and its parts in the next section.

Analysis of the Mind

How does the mind work? Just look at this diagram here (facing page). It is a diagram to show how the information that enters through the eye is processed; actually, not just the information through the eye but information through all the fives senses, that is through the nose, the ears, the tongue, touch and the eye. As an example, we are now taking the eye. Let me explain it to you.

When you see something, first, the eye sees it. There is something called chakshu in Sanskrit, which digitizes the information seen by the eye. It is something like a digital signal processor – the DSP. The signal or the input is converted into a digital file by this chakshu. This conversion happens to the information received through all the five senses, not just the eye. Then the file goes to the memory. In Sanskrit, we call this portion chitta. In the memory, a little more work is done on the file. For example, if you are seeing me now, the file is processed through the chakshu, then taken to the chitta, memory and the memory starts analyzing the information. It does a process of elimination on the file received. It starts saying: This is not an animal, this is not a plant, this is not a rock etc. The process of elimination is done by the chitta. Then the file goes to the mind or manas. The mind does the job of identifying the file. It says: This is a human being; a human being who is taking a class. The mind concludes 'This is it'. Next, the whole file takes a quantum leap to the Ego and your ego decides based on your past experiences what your next action or decision is. If you have past experiences with similar classes, say yoga or meditation, and they have been alright for you, if you think that it has helped, you will decide to sit here, else you will think it is better to leave!

Just try to understand this process: You are seeing me. The eye passes the information to the chakshu. The chakshu converts it to a digital signal. The memory then does all the elimination on the file – 'this is not…', 'this is not…'. Then, the mind does the identification of the file – 'this is it'. Then the whole file takes a quantum leap to the Ego. Here, you decide based on your past experiences, whether to sit here or leave the hall. Now, let us call the time for the process between the eye and the mind, as Tp. Tp is the time taken for the process between the eye and the mind to happen. This process between the eye and the mind is logical and conscious. You are completely aware of this process. It happens with your awareness. Now, the quantum leap from the mind to the Ego is mostly unconscious, that is the time when the actual decisions are taken is mostly an unconscious process for you. It happens without your awareness. Let us call this time Tq. During this time, you simply decide illogically; you decide against your logical thought process. You take a quick and illogical decision.

Why does this happen? Why do you decide unconsciously and regret later?

The reason is, this Unconscious zone is filled with negative memories and restlessness. All your past memories, which we call samskaras in Sanskrit, all your past thought patterns are stored in this zone as files. In the field of psychology they use the word engrams to denote these stored memories. There are so many files stored in this zone. Without any logical connection between them, these memories or incidents are stored here. What happens is, when the file takes a quantum leap to this zone, there is so much of data stored, which causes so much restlessness in you, that the file does not even reach the ego properly for a decision. These stored engrams simply start playing upon the information received. They just impose themselves and cause havoc in the decision making process. As a result, the Ego just takes a quick and hasty decision purely at the instinct level, and passes the file back. It happens as an unconscious and lightning-fast process. For example, according to the data that you have collected, you know that smoking is injurious to health; it is not good for your body or your mind. You hold on to this decision as long as you are in the Tp level. But once the mind takes the leap to the ego, the engrams just instruct you to smoke; you simply decide to smoke! The Conscious process says: No, it is not good for health. But the unconscious process says…actually it doesn't even say, it just takes the decision and you execute it! It is a pure instinct-level decision.

This Unconscious area is very powerful. It can be used in three ways – at the instinct level, at the intellect level or at the intuition level. As long as the Unconscious is overloaded with negative memories and restlessness, it works at the instinct level, as we just saw. You simply decide instinctively, unconsciously. When you are at the instinct level, you always end up regretting most of your decisions. You wonder: Why did I behave in that fashion? This is not me! How did I allow this to happen? How did I take that decision? This happens because the Unconscious is working at the instinct level. At this level, you just associate things without any logical connection and jump to a conclusion unconsciously. For example, if you have been disturbed by somebody who was wearing a white dress, the moment you see somebody wearing a white dress, the past memory simply comes up without your knowledge and you feel the anger. This is the instinct level. Without your conscious mind, without even you understanding, just like that it happens.

In the chakshu diagram, when Tq is lesser than Tp, when the time taken to go to the Ego and back, is very short as compared to the time taken for the process between the eye and mind, you are at the instinct level. No time is given for the quantum leap. As soon as the file goes to the Unconscious, the decision is taken. You will be continuously passing judgment without giving any time for Tq. Your Unconscious will be so overloaded with your memory files. When you function this way, you will also feel tired. It is something like this: When your hard disk is loaded with all high-resolution photographs, there is no scope to work further on your hard disk, is it not? In the same way, when your Unconscious is loaded with past thought patterns and memories, it becomes inefficient and simply takes superficial and illogical decisions.

The next is the intellect level. At this level, Tq will be equal to Tp. Here, you are conscious; you take decisions logically, but you don't have any extra enthusiasm or energy. You are just there with a conscious mind, that's all; you are not creative, not innovative; you don't take big steps; you don't grow. You are like a faithful servant. Einstein says: The intellect is a faithful servant. You can be a servant throughout your life. You can be just a servant, but nothing more or big can be done through you. At this level, you will just be collecting the data, processing it and delivering it; you will be nothing more than a computer. When your Unconscious zone is at the intellectual level, Tq will be almost equal to Tp. You don't take hasty decisions out of restlessness and overloading of your Unconscious zone; you take decisions in a logical and conscious way. When you are at the intellect level, you are not tired but you are not energetic either. You are in a break-even state. At this level, you are still not using your potential to the maximum – the extent to which it can be used.

The next level where you can actualize your entire potential is the intuition level. If you can infuse a deep silence and awareness into the unconscious zone and replace your engraved memories or files with silence and awareness, you can be at the intuition level. When you can be free from your memories, and be empty and blissful in this Unconscious zone, if you can be alive and fresh every moment without the burden of your past, without the burden of these engrams, the Energy of your Being will express itself in its purest form. When this happens, we can say that your intelligence is at its peak, because Energy IS Intelligence. When this happens, you take decisions out of an Energy called Intuition, where you simply know with tremendous clarity. When you are at the intuitive level, Tq will be greater than Tp and you will take decisions from the energy of your intuition, from deep awareness and peace, from bliss! This concept needs a deep understanding. You need to go deep into the whole Science, only then will you be able to understand what I mean by the word Intuition. Intuition is something which happens in you beyond your intellect.

What is Intuition?

Let me explain. Suddenly you know for sure that something is the right thing and you feel that you have enough Energy also to do it, but you don't know the steps involved in doing it. You don't know the steps that led you to the conclusion but you know for sure that your conclusion or decision is right. This is Intuition. This Energy of Intuition is needed whenever you are faced with a situation where there is no precedence. When you are stuck with minimum data and you need to take decisions, or you have many choices and you are not able to decide what you are supposed to do – in such situations, the Energy of Intuition helps you. Not only in such situations…if you can be in this plane of your Being continuously, you will be totally present in every moment and you will give birth to future moments also in the same fashion. If you try to assimilate what I am telling you now, if you can just spend a few minutes sitting with yourself and feel how your stored engrams are causing havoc in you and burdening you, if you can just see the truth in what I am saying, you will slowly know the knack of how to get out of this cycle and move to the higher plane of your Being. One more thing with intuition: It gives you the Energy not only to take the decision but also to execute what you have decided. When I say this to people, they ask me, "Swamiji how do I find out whether I am having an intuition or I am just being intellectual." They tell me, "Swamiji, I am confused about whether it is Intellect or Intuition." I tell them: Be very clear: If you are confused, it is only intellect. The very confusion shows that it is only intellect. When you have intuition, you will be so confident and brimming with Energy that there will be no room for confusion. With intuition, the potential power which is inside your Being is simply unleashed. You open up and just like that you start expressing it, executing it. If you read about scientists and CEOs who have been involved in major breakthroughs in their fields, again and again you will find them attributing their success to something beyond their intellect, which gave them the Energy or the guts to take those decisions. Know one thing: Each and every one of you has the power of intuition in you. Let me ask you: How many of you have experienced at least once in your lives, that when you are thinking of a particular person, the phone rings and that person is on the line; or you enter a place and you feel you have been to the place before; or similar intuitive things? You see, these are the moments of intuition that you have experienced accidentally in your lives. During these moments, you are accidentally in a meditative state. Through these things, your Being tries to relate with you. But what do you do? You brush these things aside as coincidence and ignore your Being. We completely ignore the higher dimensions of our Being. How can something that has happened to 80% of you be a coincidence?

Be very clear: These moments of intuition are clear signs of the latent power in you. If you recognize and encourage it, you can express the higher dimensions of your Being. The other day I had an opportunity to have a meal with Dr Charles Townes, Nobel laureate in the field of LASER and MASER. I asked him 'How did it happen? How were you able to do this?' He answered in a beautiful way. He said, "I was just sitting in a park in Washington DC and suddenly something happened in me. The conclusion was there in me. Suddenly the conclusion was revealed to me. I immediately penned down what I got. I then realized that I had a difficulty - I had the conclusion but not the steps! I was not able to present it to anybody else because I knew only the conclusion; I did not know the steps. Then when I sat down, I was able to get the logical steps." Not only with Charles Townes, even Einstein says, "Whatever new happened to me, it came through intuition, not through intellect." He says beautifully, "The Intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant." We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. Whether we believe it or not or accept it or not, there is something called Intuition in us. Of course, even Einstein calls this as a gift because he didn't know whether it can be consistently had. He is not sure when it will happen and whether it will happen or not. But Yogis, the great Mystics, again and again say that you can very well work for it and you can be sure about having it all the time. You don't have to think that Intuition is a gift. You can work for it. It can become a part of your life.

When intuition happens beyond your intellect, your whole Being is integrated. You are at your peak. When you are at your peak, something opens. You may call it a revelation or an Intuition or anything. Yogis have again and again said that it is a Science. If you can tune yourself to this Intuition or this Energy, which is continuously available in your Being, you can use this in your regular life. Intuition is the Energy of your Being. When this pure Energy starts coming out from the Unconscious level, it also heals you physically, mentally and emotionally. Apart from healing, it reduces stress and helps you to take decisions spontaneously. Spontaneity has nothing to do with data that you collect; it is something to do with the way in which you process the data. The same data, the same information can be processed in many ways. Intuition is all about how you process data and how you come to the conclusion beyond your intellect. We can prepare ourselves, we can tune ourselves to this Energy of Intuition through techniques and methods.

These techniques are what we call meditation. In the East, we use the word meditation, to tune ourselves with the higher Energy, which is in our Being, which continuously invites us again and again to experience it. Whenever you find time, just sit with yourself and observe... We are always ready to give an appointment to others, but never to ourselves…! If you just sit with yourself, you can always see that some part of your Being wants to express, wants to do something more; but we never give the chance or time to that part, to that portion of our Being. We are so caught up with our intellect. We think that our intellect is the Ultimate, but again and again Yogis prove that something more than intellect is possible.

Vedanta declares that the world is nothing but a dream. Everything is just Maya. In Sanskrit they say beautifully "Yama, Iti Maya". Means something, which is not there but gives you a feeling as if it is there is Maya. This is an important thing to understand. It is due to the force of Maya that man lives in a deep illusion, in deep ignorance. We need to analyze this in greater detail. People get away easily putting the blame on Maya for their mistakes. The real problem is that when we make mistakes we always want to catch somebody on whom we can attribute the mistake. When we don't find anybody we try to put the blame on God. This does not work for majority of people as God is something which they hold very sacred and putting the blame on God would be like a blasphemy. So naturally the next scapegoat is Maya. Its very easy to put the blame on Maya as it is just a concept we have created to justify our actions. Because of our samskaras we keep repeating the same mistakes again and again and put the blame on Maya. An action is never pure or impure. It's the intent behind the action which is pure or impure. It's the idea about that action which is pure or impure. There was a saint and a prostitute who used to stay just opposite to each other. The prostitute was a very devoted lady and

We live in a deep illusion, a deep ignorance about our own selves. We need lies in order to continue living. As it is man cannot exist without lies. He has to build around himself an imaginary structure of hope in order to live. Man needs dreams and illusions in order to live. He finds it difficult to live with the ground reality. When man builds this imaginary structure, he does not understand that this structure can collapse anytime. And when this happens he ends up in misery. Yoga is a way to enable man to get rid of this false identity he has built upon himself and to realize his true nature, his true self. We are caught so much in dreams that we forget that there is something called existential reality and start believing our dream world as the truth. Once a gentleman was confronted by a ticket collector in a train. The ticker collector asked the gentleman to show his train ticket. The gentleman started searching his pant pockets for the ticket. He could not find the ticket. He again and again searched the pant pockets but never bothered to search the shirt pocket. The ticket collector enquired as to why he is not searching for the ticket in his shirt pocket. The gentleman answered that the shirt pocket was his last hope. If he loses that hope then he would be totally shaken. This is exactly what we do in our lives. We build hopes and live with them. We are afraid to approach the reality and we continue to live with these false hopes throughout our lives. When you live with hope you miss the present moment. You never live, the hope lives through you. That hope gives rise to worry which sucks your energy and in fact makes it difficult for you the achieve what you would like to achieve. If there is a legitimate desire within you, the desire would have enough energy to fulfill itself. And you don't need to think of the result once you know the path. Again and again thinking of the result makes you deviate from the path. Only when you start enjoying the path to live in the present. A great saint Mahavira said that God sends an individual with enough energy to fulfill his desires. Then why don't all our desires get fulfilled. The reason is that we take other people's desires thinking them as our own and try to work for them. We never sit back and think whether it is our desire or somebody else's desire. We blindly follow all our desires. If it is really our desire it would result in a deep fulfillment and feeling of bliss. If it is not our desire then when the desire gets fulfilled one of the two things can happen. Either we feel guilty or we feel empty.

Four States of consciousness

Man builds his entire life on dreams. Not only when he sleeps even while awake he is dreaming. All the time man needs to dream in order to survive. He thinks that by dreaming he is creating an identity for himself. He thinks that if he stops dreaming he would lose his identity. He does not understand that the identity created by dreaming is a false identity and it can collapse anytime when confronted with reality. Most of our nighttime is spent in dreaming. If we stop dreaming then one or two hours of sleep is enough to keep the body and the mind fresh throughout the day. Dreams take a lot of our mental toll. It's an unconscious activity going on and on. If we were to record all our mental chatter throughout the waking state we would make a fifteen hours cassette. If we listen to this cassette we would realize that almost 10 hours in unnecessary. It's absolutely absurd, irrelevant and illogical. It has no relation with the things happening around us. If we can get rid of the unnecessary portion of the mental chatter then we would automatically fill our being with bliss. Dreams are a way to forget oneself. Because we are uncomfortable sitting with ourselves, because we have lost the habit to sit with ourselves we dream so as to forget ourselves. If we were not allowed to dream a continuous agitation would be caused within us. We always want to escape from ourselves. We are not comfortable to rest with our true self. As per Vedanta the self passes through three states. Its called Jagrat (Waking State), Swapna (Sleep State) and Sushupti (Deep Sleep). In the Jagrat state the man experiences the material world outside him. In this state man sees the physical objects and interacts with them. In the Swapna state man sees the subtle objects and interacts with them. By subtle objects, I mean the objects you see in your dreams. In the Sushupti state the man does not see any objects. We spend very little time in deep sleep. Because of our continuous habit of dreaming we spend most of our time either in the waking state or the dream state and very little time in deep sleep. There is also a forth state called the Samadhi state, the super conscious state. Actually this state is not a state separate from the other three states. It's a state that encompasses the other three states. The other three states appear and disappear in this forth state called Samadhi or Turiya. It is only our wrong identification with the state that the self starts thinking that either it is in waking, dreaming or deep sleep. Let us understand the four states of consciousness using this diagram.

We need to understand a concept called I-consciousness. I-consciousness is a sense of awareness, a feeling of existence of the self. I-consciousness is an experience of "I am" or "I exist" not as such and such a person but rather an experience without any attributes. So when we have the I-consciousness and we have thoughts we are said to be in the waking state. Since the self is confronted with the objects of the world in this state, automatically thoughts keep rising and falling in consciousness based on the sensory input received from the sense objects. As per the psychologists this is the most conscious state, though the mystics say otherwise. The next state is the dream state in which there is no I-Consciousness but the thoughts are present. This is a very subtle thing to be understood and it's more at the experiential level. When you are dreaming you are not aware. Simply the thoughts are coming and going and continuously you are flowing with the thoughts. Important thing to understand is that when the awareness starts coming in the dream you immediately get transported to the waking state. For e.g. when a lion in a dream confronts you, what happens – you get up screaming. This happens as a result of fear. Both fear and greed make you aware and you get transported to the waking state. As long as you are not aware you are dreaming. This is also sometimes true in the waking state. That's what they call as daydreaming. When you are not aware in the waking state you are said to be daydreaming. When somebody just pinches you, then you regain your awareness and come back to the waking state. In the dream state the frequency of I-consciousness is very low as compared to the waking state. For a person who has low awareness level in the waking state or the frequency of I-consciousness is low in the waking state, he is dreaming even while awake.

Actually fear and greed if rightly used can get us out of this dream of illusion. That is the exact motive on Yoga and Tantra. In Tantra the greed aspect is used to make you realize the self and in Yoga the fear aspect is used to make you realize the self. In Tantra no restrictions are imposed whereas in yoga as you may see in the proceeding chapters a lot of restrictions are enforced. Both are techniques to liberate you from the illusion that you have created about the world around you.

We have read in many scriptures that the world is an illusion. This may be misunderstood, as the world does not exist. But what it actually means is that the world is not as we may imagine it to be. The world we see right now is just a projection of our past and the imagination of our future. We never see the world as it is. We always see a projection; a projection of our mind. There was a sage lying on the ground. He was in deep meditation. A thief happened to pass by and he saw this sage lying on the ground. The thief thought that the person lying was a thief and during an attempt to steal the person has fallen down unconscious while running. Some time later a drunkard passed by the sage and thought that the sage is a drunkard and due to excessive consumption of alcohol he has fallen down on the ground. After some time a sage passed by the area and he correctly recognized that the person on the ground was a sage in deep meditation. He immediately gave him some water and started taking care of him. As we see in this story, each person created an impression about sage based on what they were. The entire world is our projection. We look at things based on our previous conditioning. When Columbus's ship first arrived to the United States the red Hindus could not see the ships even when the ships were very close to the shore. The reason was that the red Hindus had never imagined and seen an object like ship floating on the surface of water. Only after continuous observation for a month or two they could see the ships. Previously all they could see were ripples on the surface of the water. This is what it means when they say that the world is an illusion. We never see the world, as it really is but rather always see based on our past memories and experiences.

In Vedanta there are two theories: Shrishti Drishti (Vision – Appearance) and Drishti Shrishti (Appearance – Vision). In the former, it is believed that first the creation came into existence and then the seer. In simple language it means that the world exists as it is and we see the world. It means that the existence of the world does not depend upon whether we see it or not. If you accept this theory, you start running after the world. You become a materialist. In the later it is believed that first the seer came into existence and then the creation. In simple language it means that we see what we want to see; the world is what the seer imagines it to be. If you accept this theory, you will start running away from the world. You become a so-called spiritual person. In both the cases you miss the reality as both these are concepts at the level of the mind. Both these theories are explanations for creation; the cause of creation. Both these theories are incorrect because the truth is uncaused. There is no cause-effect relationship between the appearance and the vision, between shrishti and drishti.

When we operate from what we want to see mode we forget the consequences. Nitti Mudaliar goes into a restaurant and orders his fill. As he gets up to leave he is presented with a bill. Startled he says: but I didn't order the bill. Like the unordered bill consequences of our actions follow without asking us. This is karma that our mental set up that drives us to our unfulfilled desires, which if they are to be experienced now will no longer be desirable.

When we feel we have mastered some skill and are proud of it, we become solid; we become dull, stop enjoying. Children on the other hand are always liquid, always full of joy; they are intelligent.

40-year-old father is dying his graying hair. Child asks why his hair is white. He says if you tell a lie one hair turns white. Child looks at grandfather whose hair is all white and wonders aloud what a liar he is!

Intelligence is simplicity, it's also innocence; being intellectual forces one to be complex. Intellect is like left over food, tamasic(dull), whereas Intelligence is fresh, satvic (equilibrium). In the gurukul system in ancient Bharat there were many child sages as there was no linkage seen between age and wisdom.

Rich people have money but not happiness; they are constantly afraid of losing their wealth, and their wealth losing them when they die. Poor people have no such problems. They are happy to be alive. Their perspective of life is very basic and much larger than money.

A Zen master had to choose his successor. He drew a small black dot on a white board and asked his disciples to tell him what they saw. Almost all saw only the black dot. One disciple alone told him: what I see is a huge expanse of white, in which there is an insignificant black dot. He was chosen as the successor.

We forget all good things that happen to us, we take them for granted, and only remember the negative incidents. Problems become status symbols. We would like to boast that we are on sleeping pills or anti depressants or whatever, as these are symbols of our apparent prosperity. Children learn these from us; it is neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

We do not realize how powerful our words are. If you listen to good words you find peace. That's how satsangs (company of the truth) work; if you are not aware they bring peace to you.

Doctors particularly should be careful, they should meditate; they have so much negativity being poured into them. The way they are particular about washing their hands they should also wash their minds. "what you think you become"

Our eye vision extends only 120 degrees. Life though is 360 degrees. By confining ourselves to this 120 degree vision we become solid, dull, without joy; people see us being serious, they think we are ok; if we laugh without reason they think we are crazy. By being serious, we make our life our graveyard.

When we look at ourselves and others we tend to look down, not up. By looking up towards high standards we grow. By focusing on negatives we drag ourselves down.

God is one who remembers one good thing we did and forgives and forgets millions of bad things we do. Only man remembers the one bad thing of others and forgets million good things.

Don't judge people. Don't worry about what people think of you. Drop preconceived notions about time and place: office is hell, beach is fun; mornings are tough; evenings are cool. Then you will be happy wherever you are, whenever it is. Live and enjoy life as it is. Drop all your prejudices of people including yourself, events, time and places.

Every 11 days your emotions go through a cycle; that's why the Ekadasi vrata of fasting was introduced. For the next eleven days think only good things about your body and see how it changes your perception. Just be aware of all its greatness.

A couple got fed up of their home and called a realtor to sell it. The realtor worked hard and placed an ad to sell the house. The next day the couple called to say that they do not wish to sell, they are happy with the house. Realtor, puzzled asked why. The couple said: when we read your ad we realized this was our dream house. Why would we want to sell it? Seeing the advertisement again and again, unconsciously they started believing what was written.

In Tibet there are communities where a man of 130 considers himself young. People live to 300 years in that community. Their perceptions change their expectations; their expectations make their life.

Let us move from the ephemeral to eternal; all we need to do is to deal with things as they are, as we find them, and not try changing them. We need to change ourselves, not others.

Man has forgotten how to relax. When people come to me for some life solutions I sometimes tell them, just relax and everything will be fine. They ask me "How to relax". Now people also want a technique to relax. It's a pathetic situation man has found himself into. Relaxation happens not by doing or not doing. Relaxation happens when we just surrender to existence. When we just start flowing with existence we relax automatically into our inner space. There cannot be any technique to relax. Relaxation techniques might give you temporary relaxation, just a feel good feeling but it won't be permanent. True relaxation happens when we start accepting reality as it is and not based on our dreams.

There was a person with three sons and all had been to a neighboring village for business. On his trip back he saw that his house was on fire. He started weeping and wailing in sorrow. Then one of his sons suggested that we had just sold the house and so it is no longer ours. On hearing this, the father suddenly became alright. His mood changed immediately and he relaxed. Then the second son said that the person who bought the house has not yet paid for the house. The deal is still on paper. Again the father got tensed and starting weeping. Then the third son said that he just checked the bank account and the money had been deposited. Now we are absolutely safe. Again the father became alright. In this story the incident which happened was the same. Only the idea of mine and not mine created the whole psychodrama. It was just an idea which was causing the mental trauma. This is what we do throughout our life. Throughout our lives we have lived with ideas; ideas which are absolutely fleeting and impermanent. There is nothing wrong in having ideas. The problem happens when we clutch to that idea, when we get attached to the idea. Our ancient mystics have identified 7 chakras or energy centers in our body which are directly related to human mind. Though this subject is not directly related with Patanjali's yoga sutras, it's a good understanding on the reason for human suffering, why it happens and what can prevent it. This science of chakras has been greatly expounded in one of the famous scriptures called yoga vashishtha; a discourse between the great sage Vashishtha and Lord Ram. Now we will study briefly the science of the chakras.

Chakras

Inside our bodies there are 7 energy centers or chakras

Anahat Chakra

In Sanskrit, Anahata means 'that which cannot be created'. This chakra is located in the heart region.

The Anahata chakra is concerned with love, sentiments, and similar emotions. This chakra gets locked when we constantly seek attention from others instead of exuding love from ourselves and it flowers when you express selfless love without expecting anything in return!. Its very meaning is 'that which cannot be created' and it signifies that real love can never be created from outside and put into you; it can just happen in you, that's all. It can only happen when a deep awareness enters you.

When real love happens, we will stop seeking attention from others and become a source of Energy ourselves. What do we mean by attention-seeking?

You see: Whatever we do, whatever we think, we are subconsciously seeking concurrence and approval from the people around us - in some subtle way. We are very keen that we should earn a good name from everyone. We may not do this in a very obvious fashion, but if you analyze deeply, you will not be at ease without the appreciation and endorsement of the people around you. This endorsement, this approval, is what we call 'attention-need'.

80% of our problems is due to this asking for attention or approval. If you just sit and note down, in a day, how many things you do to get a good name, to maintain your reputation in society, you will see.

You will find that all the 24 hours, all your lifetime, you are involved in getting approval from others. All your activities, all your efforts, are to get the signature of the others around you. In a big register you make a column - Good Father, and every thing that you do for your children, you do, and expect their signature of approval under that column! Then you go to your wife, to your boss, to your friends. You prepare columns with suitable headings like Good Husband, Good Employee, Good Friend etc. and wait for them to sign under it*.* You are requesting for approval signatures all the time, that's all.

Of course, all these people also come to you for your signature! You too need to sign on their registers under the columns applicable to you! Each of us is continuously on a signature campaign. We need to collect as many good opinions as possible from society and prove our worth to ourselves and to society.

The Bhagwad Gita beautifully says: Karmanyevaadhikaarasye maa phaleshu kadaachanah

It means, Your job is only to do the work, not to be concerned about the result.

You need to keep doing things because you have so much of loving Energy inside you. You can just exude Energy without any reason or any expectation. When you are like this, you are not bothered about the results.

When I say you are not bothered about the results, I don't mean that out of a frustrated or cynical conclusion, you are not bothered. What I mean is, you don't even know to expect results because you are continuously moving and expressing your blissful inner Energy, that's all. So we can't even say that you don't expect results. You are just flowing joyfully, that's all. This flowing Energy is real love.

When you start expecting from other people, there will be no end to it. And let me tell you: The most difficult thing is to satisfy all the people around you. Do you think you can satisfy all the people, all the time? Never. It is the most impossible thing to do on Planet Earth.

We need to stop asking and start giving. We need to radiate Energy instead of asking for Energy. But we don't even know how to shift the focus from us to the other. We are so used to seeing ourselves as the center of attention. We need to start seeing the world outside as the center of attention. How to do this?

Real love knows no object. It is simply there whether there is an object or not. Real love is the subject itself. It does not know any object. You are the subject and you have become love, that's all. Any object that comes in touch with it, feels it, that's all. Like how a river flows naturally and people enjoy it at the different places that they encounter it, real love exudes from a person and the people around the person will be able to feel it.

There is absolutely no room for conditionings in real love. The Energy in you should overflow and express itself as love. It is then that you can break through the highly knotted boundaries of relationships and express yourself beautifully, as a loving Being! Do you understand? Yes…

In order to discover the quality of your Being that is love, two things can be done. The first thing: Repeatedly listen to words like these so that they create a conviction in you about what is being said; so that they create a space in you to start the process of transformation. Second thing: Meditate so that the transformation can actually happen.

Just try to understand one thing: Your inherent nature is love. Love is permanent. All other emotions simply come and go, that's all. You are caught in thinking that all the other emotions are real and that they are destroying love. Love can never be destroyed. If love could be destroyed, it would have become extinct long ago.

Also, when you really love, the opposite emotions cannot enter into you. They will simply be excluded. When there is bright light in a room, can darkness be brought in? No! Only when you dim the lights, darkness can enter. In the same fashion, only when real love has not happened in you, the other emotions can take over. When you are brimming with love, there is no way another emotion can enter. And this chakra, the Anahata chakra, is supposed to make you brim with love, because it is overflowing, energizing, loving Energy.

Love is not an object, it is the subject, it is you. You become love, that's all. Then you will start loving without a reason. You will love the trees, the flowers, the earth and what not. You will simply radiate love. You then become one with the whole Universe. All boundaries disappear and you merge with Existence.