The new and clear message from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVA
Enjoy whatever life gives you. Wealth is energy, so are relationships. Be spiritual and blissful while being joyful in material comforts…. Let me lead you into Quantum Spirituality!
CONTENTS
- 1. Quantum Spirituality
- 2. Choose Bliss, Wealth follows!
- 3. How to Rise in Love?
- 4. Enlightenment: The Goal and the Path
- 5. Beyond Karma
- 6. Meditation is the highest form of worship
- 7. Death is not final, it is but a passage
- 8. You are not just matter, you are energy!
- 9. Master: Keeper of the Key
- 10. Age of Enlightenment
About this book
This book provides meditation techniques for enlightenment, but this book is not about techniques.
This book contains compilation from discourses of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, but this book is not about intellectual understanding.
This book is about creating a psychological revolution within you that breaks down the deeply engrained pseudo-value systems and beliefs so that you may be liberated from the clutches of your mind. It is the mind that stores these things and plays with them.
The discourses provide the understanding that is needed to create the psychological revolution; the techniques that follow provide the tools to make the understanding experiential.
Life Bliss Foundation conducts meditation programs regularly in its centers all over the world. There are three levels of Life Bliss Programs. Some of the meditations in this book are taught in the various LBP courses. Teachers who conduct the programs are qualified to explain all the meditation techniques explained in this book. They can also clarify concepts covered in the contents.
This book comes with an audio CD that has the music to do the meditations with. These meditations can also be done without the music.
Message from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM
When I was just 12, I had a deep spiritual experience. I felt I was one with the universe and boundaryless. I was too young to fully understand what had happened. I spent the next 10 years seeking what I had already received.
Ten years later, I realized that I was complete. I was in eternal bliss, nithyananda.
I spent the last five years in expressing my experience so that others may experience the eternal bliss as I did. I have traveled extensively in the Western world, especially the United States, to communicate the truth that I have experienced.
This Truth is timeless. I do not own it. Many great masters have experienced similarly before. Their expressions may have been different, but the Truth remains the same.
However, you need a key to unlock and understand the Truth as the great masters have earlier expressed. The truth has been conveyed to close disciples so that it may not get distorted. To prevent miscommunication, this truth is coded in metaphors, stories and aphorisms.
I now provide you the key.
Intellectual readers are not satisfied with anything simple and direct. The logical, rational and intellectual mind needs complexity to be impressed. The Truth that I convey, however, is very simple and direct.
All that you need is to drop your logical mind to absorb this truth; this Truth of your life and your Being. This is the Truth that shall set you free if you allow it to.
It will also raise you in wealth, health, relationships and joy.
May you be in nithyananda, eternal bliss!
-THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, 2008
Quantum Spirituality
Master, I feel that this cyber age is all about negativities. Yet, all the greatest advances of mankind seem to have happened in the last 50–60 years. How can all this progress be negative? Why am I so confused? Why am I not focusing on the positive aspects of the progress?
In the last years of his life, Albert Einstein, arguably the greatest scientist ever, was in deep depression. His discoveries and concepts, which he had hoped would change the world for the better, had been used for developing weapons of mass destruction. Einstein became more and more spiritual.
One of his students asked him during this period, 'I know that you believe in reincarnation. What would you like to be reborn as?'
Einstein thought deeply and said, 'I would like to be reborn as a plumber.'
People around him were surprised. Here was a great scientist, perhaps the greatest ever born. They had expected him to say that he would want to be the President of the United States or some such thing, but a plumber…whatever for?
They asked him 'But why a plumber of all things? You could be anything you wanted!'
Einstein said 'from childhood, I had always wanted to be a plumber, but unfortunately I got sidetracked. At least in my next birth, I would like to be what I really wanted to be rather than what someone else wants me to be.'
A man who wanted to be a plumber, ended up being one of the greatest scientists of the world.
His unfulfilled desire was to be a plumber. He wanted to be reborn as a plumber!
In his last days, Einstein was a disillusioned man. His great scientific discoveries were being used for mass destruction. He turned away from science to spirituality. After reading the ancient scriptures of Bharat, he said 'now I know that the very last step of science is only the first gateway to spirituality'.
Einstein's awareness developed after his discoveries were put to destructive uses. Unaware acts cannot result in benefit to humanity. People build churches and temples; they work feverishly on philanthropic projects that they are convinced will benefit humanity. Most of the time, the focus will be on seeing their names in print. Why they do what they do is not understood, except within the limited framework of some selfish motive.
When a person who is aware does something, it will always benefit humanity and Existence. An aware person cannot do otherwise. When Krishna advises Arjuna to wage war against his own kinsmen, Krishna spoke from the awareness of the ultimate Truth, that the body as matter will always perish. It is only a matter of time and space. It is only a question of when.
An enlightened master benefits humanity even if he seemingly destroys. His act of destruction lays the seeds for regeneration and rejuvenation.
An unaware being destroys even when he is seemingly engaged in a beneficial activity.
In another context Einstein said, 'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and forgotten the gift.'
The rational mind or intellect, the servant, is tuned outward. Its focus is acquisition, whether knowledge or material benefits. The sacred gift of the intuitive mind is the spiritual quest that is inherent in us. This gift drives us inward when unpacked. In general, it lies unopened, forgotten and dishonored.
You can use everything, whether it is mind or body, or energy or matter, in both constructive and destructive ways. You decide as the user how to deploy the energy, whether as a positive energy or as a negative power.
Energy is like a knife; in a surgeon's hand it saves lives; in the hands of the fanatic it kills.
When you attempt to use the mind, when you deploy the mind thinking that it is under your control, it is the mind that manipulates you; it plays games with you; it leads you in circles. You can never win when you try to control the mind.
You need to understand the mind and transcend the mind to become its master. When you realize the true potential of your mind and use your mind as a sacred gift, your mind stops using you. Then, you are in control.
When you are in control, your mind is always used as a positive and constructive energy.
Yes, there are many negativities in this age.
But then, in which age have there not been negativities?
If you study any mythology – Hindu, Egyptian or Greek – you will find that all of them refer to the greed and violence of man. Even their gods are violent gods; they are lusty, they are jealous, they plot against one another. They cast their gods in the image of man; they cast them in their own image!
In the tabloids recovered from the ruins of the ancient Sumerian civilization, it was written in cuneiform: the youth of this age are uncivilized, they do not respect elders, they are after only one thing – their own pleasure.
Nothing has changed in thousands of years!
Whatever Rama and Krishna, the great incarnations of Hindu mythology, did tens of thousands of years ago, we do even now; actually no more no less. Those days, fewer people knew about what others did. There was neither television nor Internet. The world was not yet a global village. It took years for Rama to travel from Ayodhya in the North of Bharat to Sri Lanka in the South, in the same way as it was for Krishna to travel from Brindavan in the middle of Bharat to Dwaraka in the West.
Today, you can do that in a couple of hours.
Throughout history, from the earliest days of mankind, from the days of mythology, mankind has been at war. Man has been killing other men and women. Probably, there has never been a decade in the entire history of mankind without a war in one part of this planet or another.
All that had changed was the way man killed another man. When he lived in caves, he perhaps killed with his bare hands; later with stone and wood. Today, he kills by pushing a button. The entire world can be destroyed if the deranged head of a powerful nation sets off nuclear missiles by pushing a switch.
That is all the difference there is really. Human nature has still remained the same more or less. There has been growth in the way man receives and enjoys sensual pleasures and enjoys material comforts. There has been a setback in areas like the intuitive power of human nature.
Otherwise, we remain essentially the same, with the same emotions and with the same basic abilities to think, to sense and to act.
It is our interpretation and perceptions that change. For one group of people, science can do no wrong. For another, science can do no right. There are communities still living in the United States who refuse to undergo professional medical treatment. They say that god will cure them.
There is no doubt that god will cure them, but you need to give Him a chance!
A small story:
A monk was bathing in a river. He suddenly slipped and a strong current carried him into the fast-flowing river.
'God, oh god! Please save me!' he pleaded.
A log of wood drifted past him. He ignored the log and kept shouting, 'God, oh god!'
A boat came toward him, and the boatman extended his oar so that the monk could grab it. The monk turned his back on him and kept shouting, 'God, oh god!'
A dolphin came up to him and nuzzled him and he shooed it away, still shouting, 'God, oh, god!'
Finally, the current proved too strong for him; he drowned and died.
His spirit rose to the heavens and cried out, 'God, you have failed me! I had such trust in you!'
A voice rang out: 'I sent you help thrice, not just once. What more did you need?'
Medical advances are also god's gift to us. What makes the difference is the use we put them to.
I always instruct our Nithya Spiritual Healers, who have been initiated by me, never to tell anyone to stop following their doctor's prescriptions. The energy of Nithya Spiritual Healing supplements the medical treatment. It is a different matter when the medical treatment fails you, and you come to me as a last resort.
I am there to help, always, but not as a replacement for whatever facility that is readily available. Of course, when supreme faith is there, healing can work miracles.
Millions of people live longer today than ever before. Many dreaded diseases have been eradicated. Sure, new ones have come about, but medical sciences have sufficient understanding today to develop new cures. Medical sciences need to understand, however, that the mind–body system is holistic. It is not a machine in which replacement of a part solves the problem. In the human body, each cell and limb is intrinsically linked to another, and the mind pervades all these parts.
A surgeon cannot think that by cutting off the tumor in the stomach, the problem gets solved.
Intelligent doctors have realized this and are integrating the mind and the body holistically in their treatment. This is what the ancient Hindu medical science of Ayurveda is all about. In Ayurveda, the physician tries to understand your psychology in addition to your physiology and only then starts to treat you.
Similarly, every other scientific advance has had great benefits. If I am here with you in the United States today, it is because of technology. What else is the alternative? I would have to either do astral travel or swim the Pacific Ocean!
I do know that in ages past our great sages – the inner scientists – had known the secret of flight. They talked about the celestial flying machine – pushpaka vimana – in our scriptures. It was not a myth. It was a fact. They used weapons such as the brahmastra, similar to nuclear weapons then. This again is no figment of imagination; it was true. Sushruta, a great surgeon who lived over a thousand years ago in Bharat, carried out plastic surgery, and records are available!
But then, we have lost the codes today. So, we cannot go back in time and say that we shall do what people did a few thousands of years ago. It is not practical. You need to live where you are today, with the knowledge and tools that you possess today. There is no other way to live.
Science and technology are tools of today. We must use them. After all, the human mind invented and discovered these things. There will be good and bad uses.
We cannot say, 'what have we achieved in the name of scientific progress? What have we achieved as the number of billionaires in the world increases year after year?' Every media you are in contact with, talks without rest about destruction of one kind or another. You may then ask, 'Is destruction progress?'
Yes, these too are true, no doubt. Once laser was invented, its most profitable use seems to be in guiding weapons of mass destruction. Only a smaller part of its use is outside weaponry. It is used for eye surgeries and so on.
Many things that we do are driven by fear and greed, and 'progress' is a label that is used to mask the fear and greed. But, this is not the fault of science.
The most powerful country in the world seems to stand paralyzed against terrorism. Its leaders use the fear of terrorism to sanction killing more people. This country already spends more than half its wealth on weapons of mass destruction in the name of maintaining peace. Is science responsible or the leadership responsible?
How can we ever achieve peace through the violence of killing people? Time and again, history has shown that this is impossible. Even in modern days of recorded history, from the Crusades to the World Wars, one war has always led to another.
The period between two wars can never be called peace. It is just a period of preparation for another war.
Thousands of people come to me in every country I visit. They say, 'master, we have everything; we have money, we have cars, we have houses; but we do not have stable relationships; we are not happy'.
We seem to have houses, but no home; we have beds, but no sleep; we have children, but no relationships. What can we do, what do we do?
Those who are more introspective say, 'we have achieved all that we wanted much earlier than what we thought it would take'. But now, we don't remember why we wanted, what we wanted in the first place. All our acquisitions have not brought us happiness. We are so used to acquiring that we cannot even stop now. We are like robots; we have become money-making and acquisition-seeking robots. What to do?
What to do?
We live in an age of contradictions. We classify those below 18 years as non-adults. If one is below 18 years, there are restrictions on what that person can do and what can be done to that person. A non-adult cannot drink, cannot smoke and cannot watch movies that are rated adult-content movies. However, they can watch any amount of violence that is not rated. Violence is allowed but sex is not. Love is taboo but killing is ok.
There are countries that compulsorily enroll 18 year olds into the military forces. They are taught to kill. At 18 you can kill, but you cannot love! Society accepts this; it does not condemn forcing people to kill at 18. It is more concerned about whether birth control is ethical or not.
Understand, I am not recommending free sex. Sex is an energy that can be used productively. I am only saying, violence is a product of the unconscious.
Some people talk about collective consciousness at the mass level. You see, consciousness is always at the individual level. At the mass level, there is only collective unconsciousness. The collective individual consciousness is what is called collective consciousness.
When people make collective decisions, it can only be from their unconscious. That is why governments get away with wars in the name of patriotism. In the name of saving a country, other countries are annihilated; races and people are eliminated.
It is so easy to stir up the negative emotions of people. All you need is fear and greed. Hitler did it crudely. Today's leaders do it with democratic authority. But the destruction remains the same.
Every country in this world, however tiny, has its military forces. Many countries spend almost half their national wealth on their military forces. If you add up all the nuclear weapons in this world today, they are enough to destroy the world many times over. Yet, all weapons are declared as defensive. If all military forces are for defense only, then who is on the offensive? Will that country please stand up?
The entire planet lives on its lower energy centers of greed and fear. It has lived in this state for a long time now. It is time to change; it is time to be human once again.
The cyber age has made people richer; it has made people materially better off; it has made communication simpler, travel faster, life longer.
But why has it not made people happier? Many do not even understand what happiness means. They keep running behind things and then find themselves behind where they started. They succeed in getting whatever they want, and then start wondering why they wanted those things in the first place.
Our true nature is bliss. Why then do we end up unhappy?
Why should we feel disturbed at being wealthy?
Why do we feel spiritually bankrupt?
Spirituality is not a mystical word or concept. It is our total well-being. Being well materially with wealth is as important as being well emotionally in relationships and being well internally in self-awareness.
I tell you, 'you can be materially well off, enjoy your wealth and still be happy in all senses of that term, including spiritually
', I call this Quantum Spirituality.
It is the leap from materialism to spirituality, and handling both simultaneously.
The concept of Quantum Spirituality clearly defines the really spiritual person of the cyber age, as different from the traditional ideas of poverty and meekness being the hallmarks of a spiritual Being. It conveys that wealth and the right use of wealth are equally spiritual. It is time we stopped feeling guilty about being wealthy. It is time people stopped making us feel ashamed about our being well off.
It is also time we learnt how to use our wealth with awareness. It is time that we learnt to use our energies positively.
You cannot make others rich by making yourself poorer and by distributing your wealth; this will only make everyone poor, including yourself. This is the false logic on which many religious systems and a few political systems are based.
None of this will work for a simple reason: denial does not lead to happiness, only fulfillment does.
Denying something to the body–mind system while the mind hankers for it only leads to suppression and depression. Instead of leading to divinity as many religions may claim, it will lead to demonic behavior.
The way to make others also wealthy is to transform their mindset from a mode of failure to one of success.
True renunciation is renunciation of greed; it is renunciation of avarice and fear, as well as guilt and envy. True renunciation arises out of the genuine understanding that this entire universe is ours, so why be desperate to acquire this or that for selfish reasons?
True renunciation is the understanding that we are all a connected, integral system on this planet and that true happiness comes from sharing and not hoarding. It comes from the understanding that one must trust.
When one genuinely trusts that one cannot be exploited then there is nothing to exploit.
Spirituality is not about poverty; it is not about denial; it is not about meekness. It may require to turn the other cheek at times, but not out of anything but the courage to be crucified!
It should not come from the fear of getting hurt.
Spirituality is not about escaping into a monastery or a forest. You can be equally spiritual in a sprawling suburban home, living with your wife and kids.
A middle aged man came up to me after one of my discourses in the United States.
'Master', he said, 'I came to this country 20 years ago. I came with nothing. I came here to study and I had enough money for a one-way ticket. Today, I am a millionaire many times over. Yet, I feel only discontent.'
I asked him, 'Why, haven't you achieved what you wanted?'
He said, 'Everything, every single thing that I wanted, I have achieved, many times over. I have got what I wanted; at least, what I thought I wanted. But now, I am not able to understand why I wanted all that I wanted. Whatever I have acquired makes no sense to me. That is why I am discontent.'
He was an intelligent man! I looked at him closely. He was balding; his hair was grey. He looked older than what he probably was. His eyes were dull. He looked unhappy.
I asked him again, 'So, have you stopped seeking possessions then?'
He said sadly, 'No, that is the problem. I am programmed now to keep acquiring, whether it makes sense to me or not. To stop acquiring more money and more things makes no sense because at least that keeps me occupied. I am so occupied most of the time that I do not have time even to feel discontent. Otherwise that is all I will be thinking about.'
He kept talking. He apparently traveled a lot and spent very little time with his family. His role as a father and husband was to bring home money. His work and making money were his passion. One of the reasons he had come to see me was that he had heard I was a healer. He had a number of health problems, including diabetes and a heart ailment. He needed medical help.
I meet many people like this in the United States; immigrants who have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams after arriving here. They have acquired wealth, respect and possessions, and yet they are deeply unhappy. Because of their Hindu and other similar traditions, they have managed to retain their spousal and family relationships together but that is more to prove to the society than out of mutual respect and affection.
When their children especially daughters reach teenage, some of them run back to Bharat, because they wish to bring up their daughter in a country with some sort of cultural heritage, like Bharat. They don't want to allow her to date and later allow her to make her own choices in life. They are prepared to give up all that they built here to retain what they think is control over their daughter.
I ask some of them when they come to me with their problems. I ask them, 'What is it that you are afraid of?'
They say, 'We want them to grow up amidst rich cultural heritage, with a sound value system. We do not want them to lose their culture.'
What is the point in talking about one's culture when your own priorities are so mixed up? This is a country that is steeped in personal freedom; it is to the extent, that a child can now divorce its parents! If you live in a culture like this and if you wish to make it your home, you need to accept that reality. Your children see what you do, and they do not care about what they hear you say. When they find time and again a serious contradiction and gap between what you say and what you do, they lose respect for you. That is natural, whether in Bharat or the United States.
When Westerners come to me for advice, their problems are no different. Their outward expressions may be somewhat different, but the underlying issues are similar.
These days, it is becoming casual to see people changing spouses, cars and houses every few years! Just like how the car manufacturer announces a new model and everyone wants to change their model car to that one, they have started to change their spouse too in the same fashion. On top of it, they say that they change their spouse every 3–5 years because they can no longer relate to her!
Change is in your very blood! I can understand that you want to change your car and even your house. You want to keep up with your neighbor and friends. You have no emotional attachment to these things. You wish to move up in life and so on. But why your spouse?
What are you looking for? The latest model? When you find that latest model, how sure are you that the latest model wants to stay with an outdated model like you?
A small story:
An old man was sitting on the beach day after day for hours on end. All he did was to watch all the women who passed by, with great interest. He would sit there till well past dusk, then get up and leave.
A young man working in the beach-side restaurant watched this old man for many days. One day, when the old man came in for a drink, this young man asked him, 'Sir, I am curious. May I ask you something?'
The old man smiled expansively and said with a wave of his hand, 'Sure, go ahead, ask me anything.'
The young man said, 'Sir, every day I see you watching the women. That is all you do. I can understand a younger guy doing this. But at your age, I am curious about what you might be looking for. How long have you been doing this? Why are you doing this?'
The old man sighed and said, 'I have been doing this for years now. I am looking for a woman of my dreams. That is why, day after day, I come to this busy stretch and look for that woman who will make me happy.'
'Oh, now I understand', said the young man, 'but, in all these years did you not find that woman?'
'Well, it is a long story', said the old man, 'I did find her.'
The young man asked, 'Then what was the problem?'
The old man replied, 'Well, you see, she too was searching for her dream mate!'
When you are an out of date model yourself, why look for the latest model?
In the Vedic culture of ancient Bharat, there was no concept of divorce. In fact in Sanskrit, there is no word for divorce. It is not that the Vedic sages were idealistic and felt that man and woman will live together happily ever after.
They did not believe in changing persons; they believed only in changing the personality.
The entire Vedic education system was about removing fantasies and instilling reality. They taught that as long as your inner man and woman are not expelled, you would never be satisfied and fulfilled. They taught techniques that helped bring about this inner change.
Whether it is a material possession or a human relationship, we no longer have time to stop and enjoy what we have acquired. We are far too busy acquiring and moving on. What for do we then acquire? Is it the thrill of the chase? Or as the person who came to me said, 'I do not know what else to do; at least this keeps me occupied.'
Is this a sufficient and valid reason?
I tell my followers that life as such has no purpose. Do not for a moment believe that you are born to achieve something. No, you are born so that you can live. Life has no other purpose. While on this planet, enjoy the journey; that's all you can do; that's all you need to do.
If you have wealth, enjoy it; if you have health, enjoy it; if your relationships are good, enjoy them. Do not hoard these energizing factors that you have in your possession, as if you will use them on a rainy day, and then go chasing after more.
When you keep running after what you think is your life's goal, it is always ephemeral. It is a mirage. Every other minute, no every second, it changes. That's why you can never be content as long as you are chasing a goal, an object or a possession. You do not end up possessing anything; the object ends up possessing you; it ends up destroying your happiness.
This is what I call 'Depression of Success'. Nothing depresses like success. It is like an addiction, the more you have of it, the less satisfactory it is. It follows the law of incremental dissatisfaction. You can never succeed with purely material success; that is a myth. You may succeed in material terms, but in emotional terms you will always fail.
You may acquire all that you wanted to. You will then wonder why you wanted all that you acquired!
In material societies, you value everything in terms of money – rupees or dollars or cents or pounds or pennies. Enjoyment is not based on emotional satisfaction, it is based on what the enjoyment costs. A painting is not celebrated because it is beautiful, it is enjoyed because of its price tag. You cannot even judge a wine by its taste, you need to look up your wine book to find out its year before you decide whether you can like it or not!
Someone told me that Imelda Marcos, wife of the former Philippine President, had thousands of shoes. It was said that she never had to wear a shoe a second time. It is nice that at least she did not dislike her own feet so much! Otherwise, she may have had an even more serious problem!
On the other hand, a poor farmer whether in Philippines or Bharat would be delighted to have even one sandal to protect his feet. He would wear it till it becomes unfit to wear again, and that would be the only reason he would need to acquire another pair of footwear.
A wealthy man rarely enjoys his food with fulfillment. He may pass comments and exclamations about how wonderful the dish is, but that pleasure remains a pleasure of the senses. We cannot call it a sign of fulfillment.
There are different kinds of people in this world. There are a few like me who have left all and walked out. People like me are rare in this day and age. I tell my disciples that when I left home, I left one home; in the process I gained this entire world as my home! Wherever I went, people welcomed me and let me make their homes my home. I am not talking about now, when people know me. I am talking about the time when I was a mere wandering monk, when the monk's saffron garb I wore was a passport to hospitality. I may now and then wear these fancy clothes they put on me, but my comfort lies in the two-piece kavi (saffron) robes I wear.
In this day and age, in this cyber age, you do not need to live like a monk. In fact, in most cases, you cannot live like one and be happy. You leave everything because you read in some scriptures that renunciation and poverty alone lead to liberation. You will then find that what you thought you gave up, still bothers you in your mind; this puts you in deep depression instead of happiness.
That is why, the single biggest problem that celibate monks of all religious denominations face is lust and sex.
They can only suppress the desires; they cannot overcome them. They cannot transcend them.
The point is that you do not have to renounce anything. Enjoy whatever you have and whatever you have acquired. However, understand well what for you are acquiring all these things.
Most often, you do not have the time to enjoy what you have acquired. You are already chasing more acquisitions. You know that when you die, there is nothing you can carry with you.
However much you may love your spouse or children, you will have to leave them behind. However much you love your wealth and however hard you may have worked for it, you cannot carry a single dollar with you when you die.
You are going to leave everything behind. If you do not enjoy, if you do not have the time or mindset to enjoy what you have accumulated, then why accumulate? Why acquire?
You acquire not because you need what you acquire, but because you see others having it. Envy drives you into acquiring what others have and you don't have. You wish to feel that you are equal to them, that you are better than them. You do not feel you are worth anything till you have everything that someone else has.
You acquire because you have no respect for your own self, because you have no self-esteem, no fulfillment. Your entire measure of what you are worth is based on what you possess and what you can show as what you possess, and this has to be bigger, better, more beautiful, and more everything than all others you know. Understand that this can never happen. You may become the wealthiest man on Earth, you may become richer than Bill Gates, but does that make you better than everyone else on this globe. Will it make you happy?
This desperate need to acquire is like cancer. It spreads without cause and reason. It is worse than cancer, because it is infectious. You cannot rest till you have that.
Sit back and think about this: how much of what you have acquired, you really have the time to enjoy?
One of my disciples was telling me about the fund raising they did in Bangalore a while ago for my mission. They had what they called a garage sale. It was mostly the ladies who organized this. They are always more active, more useful and more practical than men.
So, they went around collecting all the stuff that people no longer used. This disciple told me that many of his clothes and shoes were just taken away for the sale. His wife told him that anything that was not useful in the present moment was to be given away. She had absorbed my teaching well.
He said he decided to stay away from Bangalore for a while. He said, 'Swami, it was very much possible that she would have put me also up for sale with a tag around my neck. So, I decided to travel out till the sale was over. It was safer.'
I did not want to tell him that the reason his wife may not consider putting him up for sale was that she knew no one would pay anything for him!
We acquire because we have no opinion of ourselves. It is our material possessions that seem to create our identity. They do not have to. Material acquisitions and possessions do not have to bind you. Enjoy what you have, enjoy every bit of your wealth and what it can bring you, without guilt. But, do not get bound by them.
You can use the power of your wealth, as well as your personality, power and beauty, to be happy yourself and to bring happiness to other people. Remember, unless you yourself are happy, you cannot make other people happy. Unless you are yourself rich, you cannot make others rich. Unless you are powerful yourself, you cannot make another person powerful. Unless you are yourself wise, you cannot impart wisdom to another person.
When you acquire, do it for your pleasure and for your enjoyment. Do not acquire to hoard and show others that you have exceptional possessions. It would be like buying a book and displaying it unread at a prominent place in your home, so that people can think you are well read.
Acquisitions should be for the here and now; they should bring you joy in the present moment. This is not merely about material possessions. I see so many parents who have no time to be with their young children in their formative years. That is the time you truly enjoy your children – their innocence and their joy.
Unfortunately, parents are too busy chasing careers and wealth to enjoy their time with their young ones.
When the children are older and are richer, parents find that they do not even know their own children. They are already alienated from their children. What is the point in giving birth to children if you cannot enjoy them? Is it to fulfill some sort of a timetable?
A lady asked me once whether she should have a child. She was in a hurry since she was already in her late thirties.
I asked her simply, 'Ma, are you happy yourself?'
Her face fell. She replied softly, 'No'.
I asked her, 'If you are unhappy yourself, what is the point in bringing another unhappy Being into this world?'
Planet Earth already has so many people who are unhappy. There is no need to add to the existing population of over 6 billion.
Those of you in corporate and business careers, especially have it engrained in you, embedded in you, that you must set and achieve goals. You entire life revolves around establishing goals, targets, milestones or whatever you may want to call them. They are not milestones; they are millstones around your spirit.
When you reach those goals, you are expected to set higher and bigger goals and achieve them. It is much like the acquisition addiction we talked about; but this will never be accepted as an addiction, because it is considered standard business practice.
What you do with business is bad enough, but then, you are so enamored by these concepts that you start applying them in your personal life. It is then truly disastrous. You start calculating: you will get married by such and such age, by which time you would have saved so much money; you will have so many children by this time; the children will do this and that and so on. You have a life plan, all documented and ready for execution as if you are executing a business plan.
This has spread even to Bharat.
A young couple with a small child had come to me. While talking to me, the father was outlining what he wants his daughter to be when she grows up, who she will marry, how much dowry he can afford to give her and so on. This daughter had just started walking. And he was planning some 20 years ahead instead of enjoying the simple innocence of the child!
This kind of goal setting is a pernicious invitation to suffering. It is not essential; it is purely speculative.
In corporate life, people ask me how they can exist if they do not plan. I do not say do not plan. Plan, if it is needed in your work. But once the planning is done, focus on what needs to be done; focus on the process, the action, not on the goal. Do not get obsessed with the result that you are aiming for; it will only lead you astray.
I learnt from my disciples in business management field that during the eighties and nineties the Japanese overtook the Americans in manufacturing technology by learning from Hindu gurus. All that they did was to focus on the process. They focused on the action instead of the end result and end product.
They showed that even if you inspect your end product 100%, you will end up with defects of 1% or 2%. But, if you inspect the process, you can achieve zero defect.
I was told that this was the philosophy behind the six sigma movement or zero-defect movement. The philosophy was to be in the present moment.
If I tell you that this is what Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita, you will probably say, 'Ok, tell me another one.'
Time and again, Krishna says in the Gita, 'do what you have to do, focus on your actions, but leave the results to Me, and surrender the fruits of your actions to Me'.
'Act without attachment', is the gist of the Bhagavad Gita.
When He says 'leave it to Me', Krishna is not telling you to transfer your salary to His bank account! He is merely asking you to trust Existence and leave the responsibility of the end result to Existence.
Think again: you cannot even be sure that you will wake up breathing tomorrow morning. It is not in your hands. Yet, you want to control everything, not only in your own life, but in the lives of everyone around you as well.
The power of Krishna's words, whether in your corporate life or your everyday life, is enormous. Once you let go the obsession with the result, you feel liberated and you have no stress. Without the stress, you are able to focus far better on what you are doing. You are not looking over your own shoulder. Your entire mind and body is on the work that needs doing. You are able to do better, faster and still be far more relaxed.
Living in the cyber age is mainly about two things: first, it is about how to manage the information that floods you and how to live harmoniously in spite of all the negativities that are being hurled at you every second, whether you like it or not.
Second, it is about how to manage relationships, parents to children, spouse to spouse and amongst friends.
All else is secondary. If you effectively manage these two, you will manage everything else that is material, quite successfully.
Both these issues, one of managing information and the other of managing people, are about managing your own self.
It may seem strange to you when I say this. But, how you manage your own self determines the way in which you interact with information and people. When I say information, it is not just what you hear on television or read in the newspaper, it is all what is there in your mind also.
The secret of success in this cyber age is to live without fantasies, to live in reality.
In this cyber age, the easiest thing is to lose yourself. You lose reality and immerse yourself in fantasies. It is so comforting to fantasize about what we should have been or what we could be rather than think about what we are. Fantasizing is not about liberation, it is about escaping. In life, there is nowhere to escape. You always come back to yourself.
When you find yourself, when you are centered, you can no longer fantasize; you get stabilized in reality. To be able to center yourself and to find yourself, you need to move out of the past and future into the present, into the here and now. When you are in the present, you are centered, you live in reality. You then learn who you are and what you are here for. There is no longer a purpose in life that drives, but there is a meaning for your life that makes you aware.
The cyber age is a very powerful age if you allow it to be. You can use all the technologies and scientific advances without being ruled by them. You can be connected to the whole world at the click of a button. Instead of using the power of these devices, I see people clinging on to their laptops and cell phones all day and night with no relief. Their companies have them on call 24 × 7.
Science and technology are powerful tools when we use them as effective servants. If we allow them to be our masters, we are making a big mistake.
We seem to have lost the power of discriminating between the two. In our search for materialism, we have succumbed to technology as slaves instead of being masters of them.
Stop wearing your watch for a few days. Stop carrying your cell phone for a few days. Stay out of touch with your email for a few days. See what happens.
Life will not end. It will not end either on planet Earth or for you. Both will continue. In fact both will continue in a better fashion once you have gained the awareness that you can be set free. If you are so afraid, try it over a weekend. Stay without your watch, phone and computer. You will get out of the clutches of the cyber age.
How you lead your life is in your hands. You are responsible for your own transformation. No one else is. No one else can be. Nor can you be responsible for someone else's transformation. You can change no one. You can inspire them to change. Ultimately, they have to change themselves. You can change yourself, that's all.
That is why I call this the Age of Enlightenment. We have gone so far down that we could only go up. Finally, we have realized that all the advances that we talk about cause as much if not more suffering as the comforts they provide. More factories means fewer trees; fewer trees means lesser oxygen and more toxic gases. This leads to Nature's violent response – be it in the form of cyclones, tsunamis or earthquakes.
We then ask, why god is not compassionate.
Give god a chance!
As I mentioned earlier, there is no need to give up any of your possessions. There is no need at all for you to renounce science and technology, wealth and power. Whatever you have, please enjoy without guilt. Forget about all that you may have read in various scriptures about renunciation, forget about all that.
Do not renounce anything that you have; just renounce your fantasies that are mere fantasies and which you don't have.
As long as you acquire and enjoy what you have acquired, you will have no suffering. You will live in the present in your enjoyment. In fact, the more you enjoy what you have, the richer you become.
Bliss brings fortune! This is a natural principle.
When you are in causeless bliss, your mind is focused on the positive aspects of wealth and automatically, more wealth comes to you. Therefore, if you have the wealth, spend the wealth so that it benefits you and others. Do not be afraid that indulging in sensual pleasures will make you a sinner. Suppression is far more dangerous than indulgence. Indulgence with awareness will surely lead you beyond the need for sensual pleasures.
Be comfortable with your uniqueness. Be comfortable with what you have, instead of worrying about what your neighbor has. It is when you fantasize about what you do not have that the problem starts. When you see what others have, you start thinking that you have to be better than what you are; then, you step into suffering. You are no longer in the present; you slip into the future, over which you have no control.
The ability to acquire, enjoy the acquisitions and be in the present moment is what I term Quantum Spirituality. When this happens, you make a quantum jump from the material plane into the spiritual plane. When this happens, you start handling both the planes with great joy! Then you know that you can enjoy all that you have and still be in a state of spiritual well-being of body, mind and spirit as I described earlier.
In Newtonian Physics, matter alone mattered. It was Einstein who linked matter to energy. Even then, many considered these two to be separate states. They said that something was either matter or energy, not both. Later, it was accepted that something could be matter at one time and energy at another time, that it could be matter in one space and energy in another space.
It is Quantum Physics that conclusively established that something could be matter and energy in the same time and space simultaneously. Today, this is commonly understood and accepted.
Yet, it is not yet understood and accepted that you can be wealthy and spiritually blissful at the same time. It is possible. People think that you can benefit from what science and technology offers and still feel the bliss of god.
Just be in the present moment and do what you have to do, in awareness. If what you wish to be is to be wealthy, I guarantee you that you will be wealthy, that you will have emotional fulfillment, you will have physical health, wellness and beauty and over and above everything, you will be spiritually blissful.
This is my promise of Quantum Spirituality!
Let me now tell you how to practice Quantum Spirituality.