Part 2: Shiva Sutras - Sutras 06 - 09🔗

Let you be very clear, because we do not know this technology, we started suspecting the science itself. For example, in some way if the theory of gravity is useful, applicable in your life, you will not suspect the truth of the theory of gravity. You will not suspect the science of the theory of gravity. You will not suspect the formulas created by the scientists.

But, if it doesn't have any direct application in your life, if you don't have any direct benefit in your life from the theory, naturally, you tend to forget, you tend to question, and you tend to suspect. Finally, you tend to completely throw the whole science itself.

Just because we have not practiced this technology, this kind of truths and techniques in our life, we started suspecting the whole science of spirituality itself and we started suspecting, 'Is it really going to work for me? Is it really going to help me? Is it really going to do anything for me?'

Let you understand two things. Now, whatever I have spoken, it is not only going to help you for your death, it will help you every moment.

You may think, 'How?'You may think, 'How can it help every moment of my life?'

Actually, dream state means the low prana, means the prana moving towards the heart center, which is the time you fall, you drop into the dream state.

If you can be aware at that time, naturally, you will be able to control your dreams. Naturally, you will be able to control the prana. Not only will you be able to control your dreams, you can bring yourself up any moment. You can bring yourself directly up. Whenever you are aware that the low prana level is about to happen, you can increase the percentage of prana in your body.

Power is knowledge. The power, the prana is becoming low is enough to bring more prana into your body. That power is enough. That power is knowledge.

If you know that the prana is coming down you can bring the prana up by bringing in more awareness and more energy in the dream state, whenever you are falling into dream or falling asleep. If you are aware, you can immediately stop and bring it up.

Same way, when you are dying, relaxing from the body, when the prana falls to the lower level, you can stop and bring it up.

It is not only at the time of death, but also when you are sick that prana is slowly falling into the anahata. The more your prana falls towards the anahata, more you start falling sick. If you can stop the prana movement and bring it up, you will naturally heal yourself. You will heal yourself. It is the ultimate technique to heal your body and rejuvenate your body.

Next thing: if you can change, alter, if you have power over your dreams through the prana, you will be able to exercise the same power over your life and alter the incidents.

Altering the dream and altering the life is nothing but one and the same. Both are connected to prana. When you are able to handle the prana, naturally, you can handle the life itself.

Only when you enter into this technique, only when you enter into this meditation itself, you will start experiencing the depth of the truth expressed through this technology, through this technique. This one single sutra will not only lead you to liberation, it will bring the tremendous energy to heal you physically and bring tremendous energy to make your dreams into reality.

Let me give you the gist. By becoming aware of the prana in your forehead falling towards the heart center, you can stop the prana from falling down.

It falls on two occasions, once when you fall asleep and again when you are falling into death. Both when falling asleep and falling into death prana is coming down. You will be able to stop that prana just by becoming aware of it. Just by being aware of that prana movement you will be able to stop it from falling into the dream state or deep sleep. You can bring it back to life.

Same way, when it falls into disease or death, you can stop and bring it back to life. You can heal your body and mind.

The next thing: whenever you are aware of this falling, not only you can bring it back, you can even handle it and manipulate it as you want. You can start having the dreams of your wish. Same way, you can start having incidents in your life as you want.

You can repeat or create or remove, manipulate any incident in your life.

It may look like too big a promise from Shiva. But, I tell you, anybody who can enter into this technique and play with these techniques will understand the truth behind these techniques.

If you are constantly thinking about something, you will start remembering the same thing in the dream also.

For example, whenever you are frightened, if you have the habit of calling 'Rama' or 'Krishna' or some God's name, even in the nightmare time, you will remember the same name. How many of you have experienced this? Even in the nightmare, if you are threatened, you will remember the same name. You will remember the same God. Automatically, it will happen.

If you are doing anything strong in your life, it will impact and it will create an impact on the dream state.

Whatever happens strongly in the dream state will create its impact on your waking life.

Now, Shiva is asking you to work on the dream state so it will create the impact on your life.

Now, let us enter into the technique of working on the dreams, of stopping when your prāna flows into the heart. It may flow to fall asleep or to die. For both reasons, it may flow towards the heart. Now, how to be aware and how to bring it back, how to rejuvenate it, how to raise the consciousness, we will see in the meditation technique.

Now, it is time to enter into the meditation.

Now, if any of you have any questions, you can ask. Of course, there are one or two people who have given some questions but they are not directly related to this subject on which I spoke today.

Somebody has asked, 'If your heart says one thing and your mind says another thing, which to follow?' These type of questions which are not directly related to this meditation technique, you can ask when you come for ānanda darśan, when you come for energy darśan. If you have any other personal questions also, you can ask when you come for energy darśan.

Now, let us enter into the meditation. Before entering into the meditation, let me give you the instructions. Now, I am giving you the whole gist of this great wisdom or the science of life that Shiva is trying to gift us.

The prāna energy that is taken through air is the core of this technique. That is the main thread of this technique. The amount of air, the quantity of air which you are taking in, inhaling and exhaling, is in no way related to prāna.

Sometimes, you take less prāna with the incoming breath and leave more prāna through the outgoing breath. At that time, even if you are inhaling and exhaling, you are traveling towards death. You are not inhaling life; you are exhaling death. You are breathing for death.

If you are taking more prāna through the incoming breath and leaving very less through the outgoing breath or you are not giving any prāna at all to the outgoing breath, then you are breathing for life. Then, you are going towards the life. You are expanding.

Prāna is directly related to life and death and it is directly related to dream and deep sleep. The prāna moves towards the heart when you fall into deep sleep and when you fall into death. Both the times, it moves towards the heart center. Everyday, it moves towards the heart center when you fall asleep.

If you can be aware of that prāna movement when you fall asleep, you can stop it and control it. Hardly 10 days of practice! Very simple, beautiful practice! You can't say 'I don't have time' because everybody falls asleep.

This technique is so simple. Only one thing: you have to be aware when your consciousness is disappearing into the sleep. When you are falling asleep, when you are dissolving, you have to be aware; that's all. That is the whole technique. You can't say 'I don't have time' because everybody falls asleep. There is nobody who says 'I don't sleep'.

If you are aware, you will catch the moment when your prāna is slipping from ājña to anāhata, when your prāna is slipping from forehead to heart center. Not only you will stop it, you will rejuvenate. You will create a different energy. Your whole prāna energy will become different. This is the first step.

Next, second important thing: when you master this one, the same thing happens when you fall sick or you fall into death. So, you will be able to heal yourself and postpone your death.

Third thing. You may ask, 'If I can postpone my death, do you mean I will never die, Master?' Be very clear, when you understand about dream, you don't feel like dreaming anymore. When you understand the futility of the dream, you don't feel like dreaming.

So, when you understand the futility of life, you don't feel like living. When you understand the futility of life, you won't feel like living. Even if you live, you will live as long as you want to finish the responsibility or whatever it is that you must do.

When you want to live, you will not have any problems. You won't have any difficulties. Moreover, if you want to live and your prāna movement is towards death, you can alter it.

You have complete freedom in front of you. You have freedom; you have choice. You are liberated from the forced death. We call it iccha mrityu. Iccha mrityu means dying when you want. This is the technique to bring that iccha mrityu consciousness to your being.

Bheeshma is called iccha mrityu. They say that he was waiting till uttarāyaṇam to leave the body. Uttarāyaṇam means the sun moving towards the northern hemisphere, the northern solstice. When the sun moves towards the southern hemisphere, it is called dakṣiṇāyanam and the movement to the northern hemisphere is called uttarāyaṇam. Uttarāyaṇam starts around the 14th or 15th January. Bheeshma was waiting for uttarāyaṇam.

Be very clear, the very possibility that you are able to postpone or wait till certain date shows that you have control over your prāna. That can happen only if you have control over your prāna. That itself clearly decides you are already liberated.

There is a faith that if you die in uttarāyaṇam, you don't have to come back to another cycle of birth and death, you are liberated, you will have mokṣa. I tell you, if you have the capacity to postpone your death till uttarāyaṇam, naturally, you have control over the prāna, means you are liberated. Naturally, you won't take one more body. All these things we know only as a mythology or a story. Now, Shiva is making everything alive by giving the technology. By giving the proper technique, Shiva is making everything into reality, into life.

I have seen so many people, so many enlightened masters, who have predicted about their death, who are very clear about their death time because they know how the prāna is going out. While inhaling, the incoming prāna is very low and the outgoing prāna is more, so they know when they are going to leave the body. If they want, they can balance, they can handle. When they feel that the mission is done or the purpose is done, they say, 'Beautiful! Good bye!' They are very clear about their life.

Actually, when you master the prāna, another one important thing happens to you, you understand that death as you think doesn't exist. Death as you think doesn't exist.

As on now, you are afraid of death mainly because of the uncertainty. It is not even about death, it is the uncertainty. That only creates more and more fear.

See, everybody knows we are going to die. We have to die and nothing can be done about it. All of us know that death is sure. But we don't know when, how and after that, what. The uncertainty behind these questions is what creates a big problem in our being.

So, the psychological suffering that we go through when we remember death or the idea of death is more associated, more related to uncertainty. It is not related to directly death itself. It is not related to directly death itself.

Once this uncertainty is clear through this technology, the very idea of death is totally demystified. The idea of death is totally demystified. The negative impact, the idea that death has in our being will be completely cleared. It will be cleared.

You will have more freedom not only to choose, but also to postpone or predict and to know the death itself. This is the ultimate gift you can have from any spiritual technique.

Above all, even when you fall sick, the prāna directly may not go completely into the anāhata but it will start traveling towards anāhata. You know you are falling sick and you can bring it back.

It is enough if you aware of the flow of prāna. It will automatically come back to the higher energy and your body will heal itself because the flow of prāna is directly related to all your diseases.

All the prāṇāyāma techniques are nothing but bringing the prāna back to the consciousness or back to the higher energy, back to the higher space.

So, now, Shiva is giving us a beautiful technique. He knows human beings are the only animals in the planet earth that can give reasons, especially these computer consultants! They constantly go on doing the project plan, project plan, project plan but never will the project get done. You can become a great consultant if you can just sell project plans but never implement them. If you implement, then you are in difficulty.

See, in Bharat, usually, to do any work one decides and straightaway the work is done. Here in USA it is not like that. The other day I was sitting and talking to one of our devotees. I said, 'Try to do this work in Bharat and hardly it will take any time. To create a brochure in Bharat will take ten minutes. I just call a devotee and dictate and he takes it down and does it, over. But here, they will put a big project plan and a deadline and the last date. They will do so many things and finally the job is not done. Except the job, everything is done!' Really, sometimes, I am surprised.

They say, 'No, no, Master! This is the only way you can sell yourself. If you do the work without showing how big it is, you can't get paid. Before doing the work, you should frighten the person that it is too big a job, it can't be done unless are involved and it is not so simple as you think. Only when you hypnotize him that you are giving a big plan and idea, then if you do it, you will get paid.' And the whole attitude and the whole work, I was really surprised about all this.

In Bharat, I think people are not so intelligent. I can't say not cunning; they are cunning but not that much intelligent. They don't know how to frighten the other person. They don't know how to exploit the other person's fear.

Here, nicely, they have a clear plan, that big thing on that computer presentation which nobody understands. I was just trying to create our website and I was struggling for the last six months with these computer consultants. I get only the project plan, project plan, project plan. Finally, one day, I got fed up and took two hours and finished the job. Hardly two hours and it was done! Because their mental setup has become such, things are completely complicated.

Corporate means nothing but complicating simple things. And there is a big link, big chain. The more problems, you are a big guy.

Of course, the same thing starts happening with your body also. Please be very clear, never think your profession is related only to the outer world. Your profession impacts your body, your health, your mental setup, everything.

When you learn to complicate small things in your profession, you start doing the same thing with your body also. With your body also, you start playing the same game. Even if it is a small thing, mentally, you start brooding over it.

I have seen in my young age, even if there is a serious fracture, the elders will just put some herbal leaves and tie the broken part using a wooden support, like the measuring wooden scale that you use in schools, and tie it. Done, that's all! And, now you can't think of this type of treatment.

Yet, even now in Andhra, there is a place called Puttur. I don't know if you have heard of this place. Each day, many fractures are treated. fractures and not a single failure! Please understand, each day patients with multiple fractures, different kinds of fractures are treated free of cost; that is another great thing. Free of cost, nobody is charged. Just one family takes care. You should go and see the miracle.

No instrument, nothing! They will have some leaves and maybe they may ask you to get an egg to mix with that medicine. For any type of fracture, all they use is two or three stones. For example, if it is a leg fracture, few people will just hold the leg, one person will just beat your body around the fracture with the stones and adjust the bone! To adjust the bone, they also use a hammer sometimes!

They just adjust the bone and they know when it is fixed just by feeling with the hand. If things are clear, they will put some leaves, put the small wooden scale and tie it, over, done! Each day, many fractures are getting treated. What I am saying is a fact. It is not just a story. This is not from the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra or from Shiva Sutras. I am saying it is happening in Bharat in Andhra in Puttur. patients are treated and not even a single case is a failure! I have not seen a single case being a failure case.

Things are much easier, much simpler. One more thing, if you believe in your mind that things are simple, things will be simple. If you think in your mind that things are complicated, your body also behaves in the same way. It complicates.

The other day, I was reading a beautiful book called 'Biology of Belief'. The book's name is 'Biology of Belief' and a great doctor, scientist by the name of Bruce Lipton, writes it. He has written that book after thirty years of research in biology. He says, cells or genes do not control the body as you think, as biology teaches you. Body is controlled by your faith, belief and positive and negative emotions. I was shocked but there are so many other researches, studies that he also quotes to prove and to validate his statement.

There are so many other researches. I read another research paper recently. We all believe that many diseases are transferred genetically. You inherit the disease from your father or your mother, that the disease is transferred. There is a detailed research done to study this.

Without the knowledge of the parent and the child, the doctor removed one child and left it with another couple. After thirty years, the person gets the disease of the person who he thinks as parent, who he thinks as father or mother, not the biological father or mother. He did not get the disease of the original, biological father or mother, but he got the disease of whom he thinks as father. So, there are so many researches of this kind that say that your body is directly related to your faith, your emotions.

The eastern rishis were successful in creating a society where the ultimate truth is day-to-day reality. They tried their best and they were successful. Maybe in the recent days, due to too much of Westernization, there are some truths that are lost but basically, they were successful in bringing the ultimate truths into the day-to-day life of a common man.

There are so many examples I can say. Even a common man in a teashop or who is working in a farm in Bharat, knows concepts like 'everything is maya', 'everything is Brahman', 'only God can decide'. The ultimate truths, even he has some idea about it. That is the greatness of the rishis.

All right, it is time to enter into the technique.

This technique is in two parts. One that you are supposed to do when you fall asleep, when you are lying in the bed and second one which you can do whenever you can remember during the whole day.

The first one will create more energy to do the second meditation. The second one will create more energy to do the first meditation. Both are complementing each other. It is actually two parts; same meditation but two parts.

Discourse 8

Meditation

I will explain the first part that you need to do when you fall asleep. When you lie down, before falling asleep, just remember the area near the ajna chakra or the third eye, the center of the forehead.

Remember. Please do not concentrate. If you force yourself, if you start concentrating, your sleep will be disturbed, you will have headache. Don't concentrate. Don't create stress.

Just remember that area in a relaxed way. Just like you look at a flower, just casually, in a relaxed way, in a very relaxed way, remember that area, be aware of that area, the third eye.

And slowly, you will see that you are disappearing. You are relaxing, you are disappearing into the deep sleep state or you are slowly dropping into the deep sleep state.

Just be aware when you are sleeping. Put your awareness in the third eye region.

Practice, you can start practicing today itself. When you are putting your awareness in a relaxed way in the third eye region, the ajna chakra, you will clearly see how you are relaxing, how you are slowly falling, how you are slowly relaxing into the body, how you are slowly falling into the deep sleep state.

Just be aware of the prana movement, that is enough.

First day, you may feel that you are not falling asleep at all. Your sleep is getting delayed by ten or fifteen minutes; don't bother about it. Don't worry about it. Just be aware completely about this third eye, about this ajna chakra, means the prana movement in this ajna chakra.

Naturally, you will see you are aware when you are falling into the dream state. Maximum ten days is enough to experience this. Ten days is actually too much. You may think, 'How can it happen?' I tell you, ten days is too much. Just today, you can experience. Today, you can see, in the dream, suddenly you will see you are dreaming.

You will be aware that you are dreaming. If you want to continue the dream, you will continue. If you don't feel like, you will come out. But, you will not have nightmares. The depth of the dream will not be there.

As on now, your dreams can shake not only your mind but also your body. You can see many times when you wake up from a nightmare that your heart is beating fast, your pulse rate is high and your blood pressure is high. The impact of the dream will be there on your body. You will not have that effect if you are aware of dreaming.

This is the first effect of this meditation. The next step, you will start having the dreamless sleep. That is the deeper level. Whenever you start having the dreamless sleep, you will start having the dreamless day. Dreamless day means without daydreaming, means your energy will be conserved.

As on now, the night with dreams will create the days with dreams because if you are dreaming in the night, you will do the same thing in the daytime also. In the daytime also, you will be sitting and dreaming. Your mind will be moving from this side to that side and from that side to this side.

You will notice that when you are driving it is only when you see the cop's car that you will become aware. Till you see the cop's car, you will not be aware of what you are thinking. Your mind will be somewhere doing something. Neither do you know what you are doing nor does any one else know what you are doing.

The daydreaming and night dreaming are directly connected. This technique will give you the dreamless, deep sleep. Because of the dreamless sleep you will naturally start having dreamless daytime, which means the pure awareness. You will start living in pure awareness.

Above all, when you are able to change your dreams, when you are able to handle your dreams, you will have the intense power and energy to handle the incidents of your life.

As on now, you are just a victim of your life, victim of your dreams. You can't handle anything. You can't stop even a small sneezing. Not only in the waking state, even in the dream state. You can't stop anything. Just things happen to you, that's all.

At the most, you can have a feeling, the wrong feeling that you are doing things or the illusion that you are doing things. If you can be aware of the dream state and have the power to work, to stop or to manipulate the dream state and your dreams, you will have energy, capacity, and awareness to work on your life in a much deeper way.

Even now, you can work on your life a little bit; the freedom is very limited freedom you have on your life. Your freedom will become more, your choices, your consciousness will become more expanded with this single meditation technique. It can do miracles in your being.

Now, let us start the meditation. I will guide you; you can just do it for ten minutes so that you can go and do it in your house when you fall asleep.

It has to be done only when you fall asleep but let you understand at least the technique so that when you fall asleep, you can do it.

Please sit straight, close your eyes. After the meditation, I will tell you the second part so that you will not get confused.

Please sit straight, close your eyes. Be aware of the third eye, the ajna chakra. Please do not concentrate, do not force yourself. Just be aware in a very relaxed way.

Be aware of the ajna chakra, third eye and be aware of the prana movement, how the prana is flowing into your body, how the incoming breath is bringing more energy and the outgoing breath is relaxing your body. Just feel it.

Do not concentrate. Just be aware in a very relaxed way.

Just flow with the incoming breath and the outgoing breath. Be aware of the ajna chakra, third eye and just flow with the incoming breath and the outgoing breath.

Just be aware of the third eye, ajna chakra. Without concentrating, be aware.

Om shānti shānti shāntihi

Relax. You can open your eyes.

Now, let me explain the second part. The first part is doing the same thing what you did now. Very simple thing, be aware of the forehead, third eye when you are falling asleep. When you are falling asleep, when you lie down in the bed, switch off the light, when you decide, 'Yes, now I am going to fall asleep', just be aware when your consciousness is getting diffused, when you are just disappearing into the darkness, into the deep sleep. Just be aware.

Just be aware of the prana movement. If you are aware of the third eye that is enough because that's where your prana is. From there only, it will start moving. Naturally, you will be aware of the prana. This is the first step to be done when you fall asleep.

The second step, the whole day, whenever you remember, remember and think this whole thing is maya, you are just dreaming. You are just dreaming. Whatever you are seeing is just a dream. Just try to think again and again and again.

Please do not bother whether it is fact or not. Immediately, you will think, 'How can I think that Master? It is not a fact. This world is a reality.'

Please be very clear, two things, one is a fact, another one is truth. What I am saying that the whole world is a dream may not be a fact according to you because your scale, the scale that you use to measure whether something is a fact or not, that itself is not fact.

The scale that you use to measure or the logic that you have to evaluate whether something is a fact or not is not a fact by itself. So, you may not understand what I am saying is fact or not.

Once you try to practice, in a few days, you will understand the truth behind these words. It will lead you to the truth. It may not be fact for your logical mind or the scale with which you analyze whether something is fact or not. With that mind, it may not be fact.

But, it is a deeper level truth. Whole day, just think whenever you can remember, think this is a dream; this is just a dream. And, slowly, you will see it just gets diffused and you will see the screen on which this whole dream is going on. The screen you project this whole dream upon and see is what I call consciousness or prana.

When you start seeing the screen on which you are seeing this whole dream, you will see the same screen with awareness when you are dreaming.

I am trying to help you from both the corners. Shiva is giving you the technique to work on the dream and through that to realize that the dream and the life are one and the same.

I am adding one more step with my experience. Only one simple thing I am adding, even in the daytime, whenever you remember, just remember this whole thing is dream: your eating, your sleeping, your walking, your drinking. Whatever you are doing, whether you are driving or whether you are sitting in office, whatever you do just remember you are dreaming.

Next question, the mind will ask, 'If I am dreaming, why should I do what I am doing?' Why should you not do? If you are dreaming, why should you not do? In the dream also, you can do; nothing wrong.

You don't want to do because you take it seriously. If you remember you are dreaming, your dreaming or non-dreaming is no way going to change anything. Let it happen. Let you do what you are doing.

Just be very clear it is a dream. Suddenly, you will have the intelligence. Your intelligence will be awakened. You will be awakened to the truth that the whole thing is your projection.

Let you start doing these two things, simple things. You will see you will not be the same person again. You will never be the same person again.

These two are so powerful, so energetic, that they can just transform your life.

When Shankara says, 'The whole world is maya', He is not stating a fact so that we can validate whether it is fact or whether it is right or wrong. He is not stating a fact. He is just giving you a technique. If you digest, if you accept that as a technique; you will realize the truth behind these words.

Immediately, if you start validating, 'Oh, if it is dream, then what is this world?', if you start validating a statement, you will miss the truth behind it.

As on now, even the scale that you are carry to validate whether something is fact or not is not fact. So, you cannot know whether it is fact or not.

All you can do is to just accept this as a technique and try. In few days, you will see the truth behind this statement.

If you see the truth, naturally, you won't forget. It will become your experience. If you are not able to see as truth, naturally, you can throw it away; what is there? You will forget about it. Don't bother thinking you are trying to grab some word that is not fact.

The so-called intellectuals or people who think 'I don't do anything unless I see the truth behind those words' think that they are very intelligent and they think their life are very logical. They are completely wrong.

At least in Bharat, somehow, whether people want to believe it or not, they have to, they are made to listen to these truths because the culture is such. Even if you don't want, even in your village, some purana, some Bhagavatam, some lecture will be going on, some swami will come and you have to touch his feet at least for the sake of your mother, at least for the sake of your father. Even if you don't want to go there, the loudspeaker will be so loud you will be able to hear from your house! Something will be happening; you can't do anything about it. And all these things will be going into your life.

But, here USA, somehow because you are distanced and you are away from the constant repetition or constant remembrance, you tend to sometimes think that, 'I don't do anything unless I know it is a fact and unless I am very clear.'

There are some things that may not be fact according to the logic that you have now. But, if you are awakened to the higher intelligence, you will see the truth behind that statement. You will realize the truth behind that statement.

Now, when I say, remember this whole world as a dream, I am not stating a fact. If I say I am stating a fact, then you will challenge it with all your logic, with all your vengeance, with all your facts. You are all waiting to fight and you will start attacking me. I am not stating a fact. I am giving you a technique. Try it and play with it. You will realize the truth behind this technique.

These two techniques will change your whole life. One attains the supreme goal, you conquer the death itself, and you reach the ultimate goal of the life. You live beyond death.

One more thing, when I say death, when Shiva says death here, not only he means the death that happens at the end of the life, he also means the death that happens during life.

For example, if your money is taken away from you, the identity that you are a millionaire dies in you. If your brother dies, the identity that you are brother of somebody dies. If your father dies, the identity that you are son of somebody dies.

In all those moments, you feel you suffer; you go through the terrible pain. You go through half death. Some part of your being dies. Please be very clear, the whole, the complete death happens at the end of your life. Even during your life, partial death happens, some part of your being dies.

Even those moments, at that time also, you will not go through the pain, suffering. You will not be tortured. You will overcome death if you can handle the prana, if you can live with awareness. You will not only be able the final death but also be able to handle the death that you face everyday in different ways, in different contexts. You will be able to work, manipulate, postpone, move or even stop those deaths.

So, let this great truth and technology of Shiva liberate you from death and give you eternal bliss. Let you be in and become one with and radiate eternal bliss, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. Thank you!

Q: Much has been written on interpreting dreams by experts like Freud. There are theories on dream harvesting. Can you comment on these?

What Shiva says here is that our entire life is a dream. It is a long dream no doubt but still a dream.

Shakespeare meant the same thing when he said that, 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players'. Some of you may think this is a cliché. Some may ask what if I hit you and you are hurt. You fell the hurt. You may even bleed. Is it still a dream?

As long as your identity is in control of you it is not a dream. You feel the pain and you suffer. Once you are able to shed the identity then it is really a dream. The body may experience what it is conditioned to feel as pain but there will be no suffering as a result of the blow. It is another experience, just another incident, neither joyful nor of sorrow. Without identity you are in equanimity. You are unattached.

The problem is that we do not realize that we are acting out our parts when we are awake. We are too serious to realize this. We are all so busy playing those respective roles of father, son, husband, wife, brother, sister or friend or enemy to relax into a witnessing mode and laugh at this play acting. If we do we are afraid that our relationships, our possessions, and more importantly our control over others will be lost.

This control becomes the center point of all our activities. All these questions about interpretation of dreams and harvesting of dreams arise from this desire for control over our dreams. Yes, it is true that Shiva gives you control over your dreams through this technique. However, the reason is different. Shiva wants you to understand how meaningless it is to control anything. Once you realize you can control you have the intelligence to relinquish control.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong in what Feud said. He was right to say that dreams erupt from suppressed desires or unfulfilled desires. Many such desires that we are afraid to express in our waking state for fear of social reasons we express without inhibition n the dream state. This is true. Because of his conditioning Freud linked all his conclusions to sex. I read somewhere recently that he was mistranslated from his native German. The critic, in this case a supporter, said that the German word meat something else. It is the sexually inhibited British who translated that as sex!

Where I believe Freud and others went overboard was in trying to find interpretations to these dreams and nightmares. They tried to use these as predictive tools. In dream harvesting they talk about planting, nurturing and harvesting dreams, which is probably even more dangerous.

Medical practitioners can tell you that dreams serve a useful function in most of you. Your sleep consists of interspersed periods of rapid eye movements that are dream related and undisturbed deep sleep. The composition of dream state and deep sleep state is important to your physical and emotional health. If you have no dreams, your unfulfilled desires will remain suppressed and cause you emotional disturbance. If you have too many dreams, your sleep time suffers and you cannot function effectively in your waking state.

In the dream state your identity dissolves. That is why you can express yourself in an uninhibited manner in the dream state. That itself is a catharsis. You do not need to interpret them to make them go away. By bringing in logic you will be interfering with the dream process. You will not allow this lack of inhibition even in your dreams.

If you indulge in activities such as dream harvesting you are deliberately interfering with your natural sleep rhythm and setting yourself up for ill health. This is also true of sleep-learning and all that stuff. It is not that these cannot be done. It is just that these are games that can be dangerous.

Shiva here taught you how to witness dreams. Witnessing brings with it the power to control. Along with that it also brings the awareness about the futility of control. As a result dreams stop of their own accord. Not because you force them to stop, which you cannot, but the understanding and awareness of the futility to utilize them in some fashion makes your sleep dreamless. Of course, if you wish to, as I said, you can do things in your dream that you do not find the time to do in the waking state and thus learn how to influence your living through your dreams.

The difference is that in this case the process is not initiated by fear or greed as in the case of interpretation and harvesting. There is no purpose except the awareness. You are conscious in your dreams. When you are conscious you are in control. When you are in control you can move beyond the mind. Dream is another mind game.

It is not that you dream only while asleep. Many dream while awake as well. The difference is relative. You are in a fantasy world where you believe you have control, but in fact you do not. You are driven by the unconscious mind though you are under the belief that your actions are rational and logical.

This is what we call samskaras or conditioning through engraved memories. These samskaras affect both your waking state activities and dream state activities. The nightmares that you have in your dreams continue as phobias and depression in your waking state. When you awaken from this unconscious state you become the Awakened one, the Buddha, the enlightened one. The enlightened one is free of dreams, both while sleeping and while awake. He is in brahman all the time, in ultimate reality.