Oh Parasakti, as you express your nature unceasingly in the upward and downward breaths, be aware of the originating points between the breaths and reach perfection🔗

He says the enlightenment, the Shiva consciousness can happen to you if you can go deep into the space where the breath is taking turn from out to in or in to out, up to down or down to up. It looks very simple. He's talking about your breath. He says you can experience the Shiva consciousness between the spaces of the two breaths.

First let us understand something about breath. From the moment of our birth till our death, the one and only thing that we do without any discontinuity is breathing. Anything else can be stopped. One may be a child or one may be young man, or one may become old, or one may fall sick, one may eat, one may not eat, one may sleep, one may not sleep, but all through these states one cannot stop breathing. That's the basic thing of life. Breathing is the one and only activity that one is engaged in continuously.

Our Being is made out of five elements: First is the earth element, prithvi. Our bone and the flesh structure are made out of this earth element. Next is the water element, apu. Our blood and so many other things in our system represent this water element energy that forms nearly 80 to 90% of our body mass. Next is the fire element, agni, which is constantly burning in our manipuraka chakra, the navel energy center. This digests all the food that we consume. We call it vaishvanaragni, the fire that is inside our navel center. Krishna says:

Ahim vaishvaranobhootva Praninaam dehamaschrithaha Praanamana samayuktha Pachamyanum chaturnvitham

I am residing in every being as the vaishvanara fire. He's the fire element. If this fire goes away, your body has to be put in the fire. As long as this fire is alive, you'll be alive. If this fire goes away you body will have to be cremated in the fire element.

Next, is air, vayu or the breath, prana, breath element or the air element. The fifth is ether, akasa. Ether is our mind, where our visualizations are happening, where our thinking happens, that space is ether. This is the subtlest of the five elements. Five spaces, five elements are present within us and Tantra says, if you can directly work with the subtlest element, you will achieve enlightenment immediately.

Starting to work with the earth element means then you have to move to the water, then you have to move to the fire, then you have to move to the air, from there you have to move to the ether. You will have to move from one step to next. We can see that each will be subtler than the next lower energy. If you go deep, it will be subtler, subtler and subtlest. The earth and the water will have form and the fire is formless form, air and the ether will not have form. Fire can lead from form to formlessness. These are the five elements. If you can work with the subtlest element of ether or akasa straightaway you can become enlightened. We can reach the cosmic energy. We can reach the atman.

Taittreya Upanishad says beautifully that from Atman (soul) comes the akasa (ether), from akasa comes the vayu (air), from vayu comes the agni (fire), from agni comes the water apu, from water element comes the prithvi, earth.

If you can work with the subtlest element, straightaway you can reach enlightenment, the inner space. Here the subtlest element is akasa, ether. But the big difficulty is that you cannot directly work with ether. You cannot directly work with ether because you cannot directly work with your mind. The more you try to work with your mind, the more you may create suppressions and more and more difficulties.

That's the reason why Shiva is working with air to begin with. It is a little less subtle, but it is practical. Shiva is creating these techniques for human beings on the planet Earth, who have lived, who are living and who are yet to come. He is creating techniques for all kinds of human beings.

As I was telling you yesterday, sometimes I myself create questions and give answers because people are not even that intelligent to pose intelligent questions. People are asking the questions only out of ego and violence, they don't ask them out of innocence. Questions asked out of innocence are worth answering. Questions asked out of violence, can neither be answered, nor is it useful to answer them.

Let it be very clear, sometimes people are not even that intelligent to ask the right questions so I myself design the question and give the answers so that it is recorded for future. Same way here, Shiva is creating techniques that will be useful, that can be of help not only for the human beings present now but even for the people who are yet to come.

And he says, look to the source of the breaths, the gaps between them from where they arise, after the breath comes in and just before turning up.

One more thing, directly or indirectly He wanted to create that space which you will experience. Here, the technique itself directly may sometimes not give you the experience. But when your mind is engaged in that technique the experience will start happening as a by-product, the experience will start happening as a by-product. That is why Shiva has created a fool-proof system.

The technique itself may not directly give you the experience.

A small story:

One lady went to the grocery store and asked the grocer to give her cat food for her husband.

He said, 'No, no you can't give cat food to your husband, he will die.'

She said, 'No, no, for the last one week I have been feeding him cat food for his lunch and he is enjoying it, so it's alright for you to give it to me for him.'

Everyday she comes and picks up cat food. This guy was shocked and surprised.

Anyhow, after a week, this grocer happened to browse the obituary column of the local newspaper and he saw that the lady's husband had died. The next day when she came to the store, he said, 'I told you, not to give him cat food, see he is dead.'

She said, 'No no, he is not dead because of the cat food, he is dead because he broke his neck, trying to lick his body all over. When he tried to lick his body all over, he broke his neck and died.'

Directly or indirectly, what had to happen did happen.

Let you be very clear, these techniques also directly or indirectly will give you the experience. They will give you enlightenment.

You may ask, 'How can I become enlightened just by observing, just by going deep into my breath?' Logically you will not be able to understand the concept. Logically can you understand how the cat food killed the husband? You may not understand logically but that is what happens. Whether you understand logically or not, it happens. Sometimes things happen directly, sometimes indirectly. Here, you may have the question, 'How can I become enlightened just by watching my breath? How can just going into the space where my breath is taking a turn enlighten me? How is enlightenment possible?' Logically you may not understand but when it happens, it happens.

Let you be very clear, here, Shiva is creating the subtlest possible technique for human beings. Human beings, as such cannot work directly on the ether, on the mind. The element that they can directly touch is only the breath and breath is the bridge between us and the Universe. It is the bridge between our body and the mind.

You can see very clearly, till breath you are only body, after the breath, you are mind. If you look at all the five elements, till you come to air you are only body, whether it is earth, water, or fire or the air. All these four are only body, but after the breath, after the air, after the prana it is mind. The ether is mind. The breath is the bridge between your body and mind. You are body, mind and spirit. Body is the matter, mind is the energy distributed in matter, while spirit is the energy. Breath is the bridge between your body, mind and spirit. Breath is the bridge between your body mind and the energy of the Universe.

Please be very clear, you are constantly connecting with the Universe. You are relating with the Cosmos through your breath. The moment you stop relating, you are dead. The moment you stop relating, you are dead.

He says, 'This experience arises between two breaths, after breath comes in and just before turning out.' Once the breathing goes in and before it turns out, it touches your inner space. Let you be very clear, every single breath is directly managed by your atman, not by your mind. Let you be very clear, that is why even if you forget, you go on breathing. If this function were to be under the control of our mind, we would have stopped breathing a long time ago. Because we forget so many things, we would have forgotten this also. It is not under the control of our mind. It is under the control of Consciousness.

With every single breath, we go and touch our inner consciousness. We straightaway go and reach our inner Consciousness and then come out. Every single breath is directly related to our inner Consciousness. That is the easiest method to reach enlightenment.

Let me be very clear, with any other technique you have to do something. Here, you don't have to do anything, just be and automatically you will be taken into the space where the enlightenment is happening. Automatically you will reach the space where Consciousness is your very nature. Automatically you will enter into the space where you are in Shiva Consciousness. Every moment you are reaching the space of Shiva Consciousness, you are entering into the space of Shiva Consciousness, even without your knowledge. The only thing you need to do is, just be with the vehicle that goes into the inner space of Shiva consciousness.

If you just keep quiet and sit in the train that is enough. Your breath is the train, the vehicle that is going into the Shiva Consciousness every moment. But the moment it goes near the Shiva Consciousness you feel a little suffocated and you say, 'No, no, no, no, no, this is not for me, let me get down.' You get down. And when the train comes back to your station, you get into the train and then come back again.

You think of going from here to Seattle, get into the train but the moment you reach the Mount Shasta you feel, no, no, no, no, no, it's too cold, it's not for me, you get down and wait there. When the return train comes, you sit in the train and come back to LA, that's all. Every moment, God has already created an automatic mechanism for you to reach enlightenment. Understand one thing, he doesn't trust us. He knows. He knows that any job left to human beings, they will mess it up. All they know is to make a mess of it.

Let you be very clear, He has already created an automatic mechanism where you don't need to do anything. All you need to do is just sit in the train and relax. As they say in the flights, 'Sit back and relax, enjoy your flight.' Nothing else needs to be done. You are in Shiva Consciousness. All you need to do is sit back and relax. You are already in Shiva Consciousness.

Here, the first technique is such a beautiful technique. He says, 'The state of fullness is found by fixing them in two places of the origin, just before the turning up', there will be always a gap where you don't breathe, where the breath is not happening, where it is taking a turn. If you can relax in that gap, if you can be aware of that gap, a sudden explosion of Consciousness is possible in you. You may think, how can I achieve enlightenment? You can just by watching the gaps between the breaths.

Please be very clear, your breathing and your thinking are directly connected, they're directly connected. If you observe the length, breadth and depth of your breath you will find the connection. The length, breadth, and depth of your breath change according to your thoughts. Let me be very clear, every single thought changes the length, depth and breadth of your breathing. The length, breadth and depth of your breathing can never be the same with two different thoughts. Every single thought brings a change, a slight change, maybe in length, or in breadth, or in depth of your breathing. Every single thought is associated with a particular length, breadth, depth of your breathing.

So your breathing is not the same as you think it to be. You can see this obviously when you are caught in some emotions. With emotions like anger you can see your breathing totally changes. Emotions like lust, you can see your breathing is totally different. When you are caught in the emotions you can see how your breathing changes. You may think that your breathing changes only in the high emotions. It changes not only in the high emotions, even in ordinary thinking, even in an ordinary way of thinking every thought has got it's own length, breadth, and depth of breath.

Be very clear, every single thought brings its own change in your breathing. If you work on your breath, straightaway you work on your mind. If you work on your mind, you are straightaway working on your breath. But the difficulty is you can't work on your mind. You cannot work on your mind, it is too subtle, it is too difficult. You cannot do anything. Try your best to work on your mind and at the end of the day you will feel only bored or tired, because nothing would have happened. It is like arguing with your spouse, it will never end, nothing will happen. You can continue, continue, continue, and continue. Either you should become tired or she should become tired. Otherwise nothing else can be done.

One of our devotees' husband came to me. He is involved with some other meditation group and she is involved with our meditation group. He came to me and started complaining, 'What is this Master, after she came to your meditation classes, the peace in my house is completely lost.' I said, what happened? Please tell me. 'No earlier both of us were going to same meditation group, we used to practice meditation, we would get energy to fight 15 minutes, I will shout 15 minutes, she will shout 15 minutes, things will be over, done! Now, she has come to your programs, she gets energy for one hour! I am going to the same meditation and I have power only to shout for 15 minutes. And she gets energy to shout one hour, now what to do? I am not able to do anything and the peace in the house is lost.'

Be very clear, and he's really honest when he says, 'She does all your meditation techniques and it is so active and alive. I'm not able to do anything with her.' I said, then come and join in our group. That's the only way, nothing else can be done.

Anyhow, arguing with your spouse leads nowhere. Same way working with your mind, nothing can be done. But working with your breath, something can be done. Here, Shiva gives you a beautiful technique to work on your breath and reach the state of Shiva Consciousness or thoughtlessness.

One more thing if you observe, if you stop breathing, you can't think. Your thinking will stop, even for a moment, stop breathing, thinking will stop. And if you stop thinking, breathing will stop. You can't stop thinking completely. But you can enter into the space where breathing is not happening in you. You can beautifully enter into that space without any side effect or after effect. The only byproduct or side effect will be enlightenment and Shiva Consciousness.

Let's have a small break. After the break we will enter into the practical side of this technique and start practicing. We will enter into the technique itself.

It is time. We'll enter into the technique.

One important thing, I want you to know. This technique will bring tremendous energy into your system. See, it will bring enlightenment, that is one thing. Second thing is that before bringing enlightenment itself, this technique will bring tremendous energy in your system. It will awaken high energy in your system.

I want you to understand this. Energy without intelligence is dangerous. If you start using the energy without intelligence it is dangerous. So before entering into this technique I wanted all of you to know, immediately after finishing the meditation do not have any strong thoughts or desires. After finishing the meditation, at least 10 minutes do not do anything which needs your complete attention or in which you need to emotionally involve because those thoughts will become alive and they will start acting as a guiding factor in your life.

Please be very clear, energy without intelligence, now you are going to have energy. Of course you may have enlightenment but immediately you are going to have energy, even before enlightenment. So this energy if it is used for some of your desires, if you have strong desires after the meditation, this energy you will start using it to fulfill those desires. You do not even know whether they are good desires or bad desires.

One more important thing you should know is that if all your desires are fulfilled, your life will be much worse and a big mess. It will be hell on earth. Because you don't know what to desire you just desire something and only when you get it you get the side effect also and then have all trouble. You start thinking, Oh what happened, why did I do this?

A small story:

In the River Ganga, there was a big black blanket floating. One sadhu was bathing in the Ganga. He saw what was floating and thought, Oh God, such a big blanket, I can use it for 10 years. He ran, he swam into the Ganga and caught hold of that blanket. After a few minutes, he was trying to leave and it was not leaving him. Then he understood that it's a bear! It was a bear floating in the water. First he went and caught it and after that it caught hold of him.

Same way desires too catch hold of you. Do not give energy to the desires till you have intelligence.

Now, this technique will awaken the kundalini shakti. It will awaken the energy so you need to be relaxed after meditation, after meditating for at least 10 minutes. Of course, today I will not allow you to go outside. I will make you sit 10 minutes here. After meditation you will sit here for 10 minutes.

But, if you practice this meditation in the house be careful with this aspect. Usually people don't practice meditation at all. I know. For the last three years I am teaching meditation and millions of people have been learning. From that itself I can guess. If people had really been practicing meditation at least by now people would have become enlightened. Three years is too long a period not to get enlightened, especially in the way in which I am giving the techniques! I don't think people practise, at least I don't trust that they practise.

You may trust me but I don't trust you.

Anyhow, if at all you feel little bored then you want to do some meditation. Only if you feel bored, tired of TV, bored of same spouse and if you're bored of something then you may start doing meditation. If you do like that and practise some of this technique, please do not get involved in anything for at least 10 minutes after the meditation. For ten minutes do not involve yourself in anything emotionally because in that pure inner space if you create some strong desire or emotion, that will get recorded and your whole body-mind energy will start flowing towards that engraved memory. What you think will become reality. But the difficulty is, you will not know what you thought is right or not, right or wrong. You can use the energy for the right purpose, or wrong purpose. It is after all your will.

Small story:

One guy was driving. He stopped at the signal. A homeless guy came near him and asked, 'Please give me a dollar.' This guy said, 'Will you use this money for drinking?'

'No, no, no I don't drink.'

'Will you use this money for gambling?'

'No, no, no surely I won't and I don't gamble.'

This guy said, 'In that case I will give you \$100 but you have to come to my house.'

Homeless guy, he's not able to understand, 'Why, why are you calling me to the house?'

This guy says, 'No, I wanted to show my wife what happens to a guy who doesn't drink or gamble!'

So you can use this technique for anything, you can use meditation also for right or wrong purposes. So please be very clear do not take the homeless guy to the house and show him to her to prove to see what happens to people who don't drink or gamble.

Alright, I'll guide you. All these meditations are guided meditations. I'll guide you. Tomorrow onwards please bring the eye band or I'll tell the ashram to provide. Today if you have your kerchiefs you can tie the kerchiefs or any other piece of clothing to cover your eyes.

Let me give the gist of the technique. Gist of the technique is that you are going to enter into the space where the breathing is taking a turn. That is the gist of the technique. Why I ask people to tie their eyes is this. Whatever said and done, we have always a little temptation to peep. We think, why not open one eye and see what's going on. I think Swami is keeping quiet, maybe meditation is over and everybody has left or what? Or am I just sitting, am I lost in the meditation? Please be very clear you will never be lost in the meditation.

Please close your eyes, tie the ribbon. If you don't have anything then at least close the eyes tightly that's all.

First, let us offer our gratitude and thanks to the great Master Shiva, who is our Master who has given this great technology to the Planet Earth. Feel connected to Shiva, offer your humble gratitude, and thank him for this great technology.

Om Namashivaya Om Namashivaya Om Namashivaya

Offer your humble salutations and gratitude to the great Master Shiva. Feel peaceful and loving. Send loving thoughts to all corners of the world. Remember your friends, and relatives who are far away. Send them all loving, happy, blissful thoughts. Remember them and send them your love. Remember your enemies also and send them your love.

Sit in a completely relaxed position and let your body be completely relaxed. Start observing your breath. Start witnessing your breath. Do not increase the length, do not increase your breathing, do not inhale or exhale. Just witness it, let the inhaling and exhaling be normal and natural, just witness. Just observe.

Stop observing the breath that is going in and coming out. Be aware when the breath goes in, just witness only the breath which is going in. For first few minutes be aware of only the breath that is going in. Do not bother about outgoing breath, just witness the breath that is going in.