Beyond Body & Mind🔗

marutontar bahir vaapi viyadyugmaanivartanaat | bhairavyaa bhairavasyetham bhairavi vyajyate vapuh ||

In that instant when the breaths do not move between gaps, Oh Bhairavi, let Shiva Consciousness be realized.

Whenever incoming breath takes a turn as outgoing breath and whenever the outgoing breath takes a turn and become the incoming breath again, you experience the neutral space that is the gap that is the source. Your breath moves only in a circular way. It is not parallel line as you think. Because it goes in and comes out in a straight way, you think it's a parallel line. It's not parallel. It takes a turn to continue and parallel lines never meet.

Your breathing and mind, both are very closely associated. As I was telling you yesterday, the prana and mana, breath and mind, prana sareera and mana sareera, breath body and mind body, are very closely connected to each other. If the prana becomes slow, the number of thoughts, thoughts per second also reduces. Along with the length, breadth, depth of the prana, thoughts per second also reduces.

Please understand, as I mentioned earlier the length, breadth, depth of the prana is directly related to the number of thoughts that you are having. For example here, if the prana is slowly coming down, slowly going into the inner space to take turn, this is the space in which it takes turn and becomes out going. This is the prana, and along with that the mind also slowly slows down, very slowly slows down, but the difficulty is that you are afraid of losing your mind. Because you are afraid of losing your mind that you never keep your awareness in this zone. This is the neutral zone.

If you know driving, and you drive with the traditional stick shift and not automatic transmission, you can understand that whenever you shift gear from first gear to second gear or second gear to third gear or any change, you have to come to the neutral gear. It is only after coming to the neutral zone you can change the gear. Even if it's from first to second or second to third or third to first, whatever gear change you make you have to come to the neutral zone. Same way, when the incoming breath takes a turn to become the outgoing breath, it goes through this neutral zone.

You are afraid of this neutral zone because in this neutral zone you are empty. You have no thoughts here. You don't have any identity. The biggest fear human beings have is fear of losing the identity, fear of stopping to think about oneself. I tell you even fear of losing death is not as great a fear as the fear of losing identity.

Fear of losing death is nothing but the issue of not knowing what, where and how you will be after death. If you are very clear you'll be in some form or another, you don't have the fear. Here you are not very clear about how you will be after death or how you will be after you leave the body. The fear of losing your identity is much worse than fear of death.

Here, when you pass through this neutral zone, when your breath stops your mind also stops. You do not want this pain. That is why you just jump over this pain. You never keep your awareness, you are never aware of this space, because you do not want to lose your identity. Your mind stops you'll not have identity for few moments. You will lose your identity and you always think that you are only identity. You exist only as your identity and when you feel you have lost that identity you feel you are no more. That's the reason whenever you come to this zone you just take a jump; you jump over it. You are never aware of this zone.

Every moment this zone is happening in you again and again. Whenever your incoming breath takes a turn as outgoing breath or outgoing breath turns into incoming breath, those are the neutral zones. But you are afraid of these two neutral zones. You just take a jump over them. You do not want to be aware of this space. Every moment when the incoming breath takes a turn as outgoing and outgoing breath takes a turn as incoming, you are afraid of theses neutral zones. In the neutral zones you don't exist and you are scared. In the neutral zones your identity is lost. You do not want to be aware of losing your identity. You do not want to lose your identity.

You are so obsessed with your identity. You are so caught, completely caught with, your identity. You do not want to remain even for a moment, even for a kshana, a moment, without your identity. Constantly you are protecting your identity, but the big problem is that your identity is completely social. It is not an existential truth. It is just a comparative reality. It is not existential reality.

Whatever you think as your identity, your money, relationships, your age, your sex, whatever you call as your identity are all just societal and suicidal. None of it is existential reality. It is just comparative reality. Since you are afraid of existential reality and you are trying to protect your comparative reality while thinking that you are protecting something that is very real, it becomes real fun actually. You are trying to protect your identity against your reality. This is where you miss the whole game. That is why our life is such a big failure. You are trying to protect your identity against your reality and that is where you miss the whole game. That is your whole life becomes wasted.

You are trying to protect that which is not, that which does not exist and you are trying to fight against that which is. Life has got an existence, it has got positive existence but darkness does not have positive existence. It exists only in a negative way. It does not have positive existence. You are trying to protect that which doesn't have positive existence while fighting against something that has positive existence.

Your reality lies in this space, in this zone, the neutral zone or the inner space or consciousness. It's the truth that exists in you every moment. Every moment when your incoming breath takes a turn as outgoing breath or outgoing breath takes a turn as incoming breath you are in that neutral space. You are in that consciousness and that zone that you neither want to experience nor feel comfortable with. You are so caught up in your identity, especially in the Western culture. Here surrender means death. Just by hearing the word surrender, people get frightened. But you don't realize that you are trying to protect some thing that doesn't have basic existence.

Your identity is what your mind represents. This is what your is your mind is, your mind is breath. Mind is nothing but your identity. This is the zone where neither breath is happening nor the mind is working. This is the zone where both stop. When your breathing stops, when your mind stops, you experience the zone of consciousness. This is what I call neutral zone.

If your mind doesn't feel comfortable, if your identity doesn't feel comfortable, then naturally you just jump over this zone. You do not want this zone in your life. Constantly you are trying to avoid God. You are trying to escape from God. Constantly you are trying to escape from consciousness. Please be very clear that when Jesus says 'Knock and it shall be opened', I tell you that he's knocking for you. Just open. Jesus says knock and it shall be opened. Now, he's knocking every moment. When your breath takes a turn, he's knocking at your door. All you need to do is just open the door. You don't have to knock; he's already knocking. The main thing is that you need to feel comfortable with the neutral zone.

The more you feel comfortable, the more you feel protected, the more you feel secure in the neutral zone. You will start experiencing the neutral zone again and again. When you start experiencing the neutral zone, you will stay in consciousness. Yesterday Shiva was giving a technique to be a witness of only one neutral zone, incoming breath taking turn and becoming out going breath. He was speaking about only one neutral zone because immediately you can't be aware of both the zones. Only one you can start with.

Yesterday he started with first neutral zone, now he goes deeper. He goes deeper now and he says be aware of both the neutral zones, be aware of both the spaces of no mind. Lets enter into the technique and see how it works.

'Oh! Bhairavi', he starts with a beautiful word, 'O! Bhairavi!' Yesterday he started with Parasakti. Everyday he gives new, new names. Understand Shiva is not speaking a single word unnecessarily. Not even a single word from Shiva's mouth is unnecessary, and not even a single word can be edited. As I was telling you yesterday, when I wanted to speak on Brahma Sutra I could edit Brahma Sutra from 555 to only 3 slokas, only 3 sutras. When I wanted to speak on Yoga Sutra, from 196 I chose only ten or eleven sutras. When it came to Gita with 700 verses, I chose only 120. But here, Shiva has given 112 slokas and I'm not able to drop a single sloka. I couldn't drop a single sutra as every sutra is just overflowing with energy. It is pure essence that is already distilled. The whole essence is completely used in expressing this intelligence. Whatever maximum can be done Shiva has already done. Nothing more needs to be done.

A Small Story.

A multimillionaire went to a New York Bank and asked for a \$5000 loan. The Manager asked him to give him some guarantee, some collateral. The man said please have the key of my new Rolls Royce car. He gave the car key. Manager took the car and safely parked it in the underground parking space. The man left for a European trip. After one month, he came back. Straight from airport he came to the bank and said, 'Sir, I want to settle the loan. I want to give your money back'. Manager said \$5000 and \$15 interest. Man gave the check and took the car key. Manager asked, 'Sir, when you were away I checked your account. I checked your identity and I found you are a multimillionaire. Why did you take just \$5000 loan? What happened, you surely don't need the money'.

He said 'See, where else can I park my Rolls Royce for \$15 for one month in New York?'

Be very clear, where else you can learn much better way about spirituality than from Shiva. He has done whatever can be done, just like that person, just like that guy. Shiva has distilled the whole thing. Now nothing more needs to be done. He has given the essence. He starts with the word, 'O! Bhairavi'.

The word Bhairavi is a beautiful word. He says Bhairavi; means the person who has gone beyond 'bhaya'. There are many meanings for this word. In Sanskrit, you can give at least 25 meanings to a single word. Because it is poetic language, it is not prosaic. The whole language is poetic. You can give at least 25 meanings to a single word.

In a dictionary you fill find that Bhairava means terrifying, frightening, and inspiring fear. In mythology Bhairava is the aspect of Shiva who clips off with his fingers the fifth head of Brahma to teach him a lesson in humility. Bhairavi likewise will be rendered as fear or awe inspiring.

I would like to translate Bhairava and Bhairavi as bhaya ramyate, which means one who can flirt with fear. Understand the meaning of flirting with fear. Ramya means flirting. Bhaya means fear. Be very clear, fearlessness is not bhairavatva. Fearlessness is suppressing fear. We also sometimes experience fearlessness. When you are really shaken, when you have to cross some dark area in the night, you start chanting, Rama, Krishna, Govinda, invoking all the deities for protection. All Gods will come only at that time in our mind. You will really feel that you don't have fear because your inner chattering is engaged with something else.

Whenever you engage your inner chattering in something else, you'll really feel that you are out of fear. Please be very clear when you repeat the mantras, you are only diverting your attention. Don't think you have the solution. You are not solving the problem, you just divert your attention, and you just turn your attention somewhere else. It's like this.

There's a proverb about cats. You can see that cats will always close their eyes tight when they drink milk. They think once they close their eyes the whole world becomes dark. They think nobody can see that they are drinking milk.

You are also doing the same thing. When you chant some mantra, because you don't pay attention to the fear, you think the fear has disappeared. Let you be very clear, fearlessness does not mean non-existence of fear. It means the fear will be there and you'll have tremendous energy or courage to live with it. Who can flirt with the fear? Only a person who lives with fear and tolerates it, flirts with it can be truly overcome fear.

The maximum fear and the energy or courage to live with it is the quality of Bhairava. Bhairava does not mean that he doesn't have fear but that he can flirt with fear. He is not affected by fear.

One more thing, the very quality of life is fear. People come and ask me, 'Swamiji I'm always having the fear of unknown, what to do'. I tell them, 'Please be very clear, you are alive'.

There is a possibility of losing something and that is why you are afraid. If you don't have any possibility, you'll never be afraid. That is why these barbarians, barbaric societies, they are never afraid. You can see that these fellows are constantly going out and killing people. In all wars you will see that only people who are barbaric win in the war. Big problem is that people who are sensitive and respectful of life don't feel like fighting. They don't feel like fighting because they don't feel that there is a need to protect anything. But barbaric people go on killing everybody.

Please be very clear, fear is the basic quality of life. You can be fearless only if you are buried in the graveyard. If you are already buried in the graveyard, there is no need to be afraid of anything. There is nothing to loose. If you have something to loose, you will have fear. Nothing can be done about it. That's the quality of life itself.

Here Shiva says, Bhairavi, O! Bhairavi means O! Energy who can flirt with fear, one who can go beyond fear. You are neither attached with fear nor detached from fear. One more thing if you are afraid of fears, if you are frightened of fears, again don't think you are detached from fear. It is one more kind of attachment. All detachment is one more kind of attachment. The negative way of attachment is detachment. If you are afraid of fear, if you are frightened about fear, again you are in fear. Your consciousness will be moving around the fear.

Sometimes if you are energetic, if the hormonal pressure in your body is high, you do things without intelligence. You act without thinking about the result. That is what you call as courage. Let you be very clear, whatever you think as courage is not courage when you do not think about consequences. When you are in a hurry, when you run, you do not know what you are doing and you just do it. You do not know what you've done or you do not know what you want to do, you just run and finish it off.

A small story.

Few friends ran to the railway station at the last moment at 10:21. 10:20 was the train departure time. Somehow two of them made it. They got into the train while the third one was left standing on the platform. Station Master came and patted his shoulder, trying to console him, 'Don't worry, at least your friends have made it'. He said, 'Oh, no, they came to see me off. I am the one with the ticket'.

Be very clear sometime in the hurry, you don't know what you are doing and that is what you claim as courage. When the hormonal pressure is little more than your intelligence or logic, you do something that you claim to be courageous, that's all. Otherwise, except a man who has experienced his neutral zone, nobody can talk about courage. The real courage is to let go your identity, which you think as you.

To relax from the identity that you again and again associate as you, whether it is your wealth or your relationships, whatever you think as your status and power, is courage. Whatever gives you the power as of now, the source for inspiration or the source for power is only that which matters. Your bank balance, your house, your relationship, your car or whatever you think as yours, your education, only these seem to matter.

You derive inspiration from the 'I' and Mine, fear and greed, your wealth and relationships. Let you be very clear, if you are deriving inspiration from these, if your fear or greed or your properties or your identity is the source of inspiration for you, it means, let you be very clear, that you are not too far away from depression. How long greed will be alive, how long fear can be alive. The greed will disappear the moment you have the product or if you understand that you can't have it. If you understand that you can achieve or you understand you can't have it, both ways the greed will disappear. Then you don't have any source of inspiration. You don't have anything that makes you run and you don't have anything that brings you to life. It works the same way with fear.

If your identity is based on society, be very clear that you are nothing more than a puppet. Big problem is that at least in puppet show one man handles all the puppets, whereas in your life you are handled like a puppet by thousands of people. Any single man can put you into depression. One word is enough, you are already in depression.

If somebody asks, are you mad, you then shout and prove that you are mad. If somebody asks, are you crazy, you shout and prove yes, I am. I always tell people, if you don't open your mouth people may suspect you are a fool, but if you open your mouth, you'll confirm it.

If your identity is based on the outer world, you will not feel comfortable in that neutral zone. Person who feels comfortable in the neutral zone will be constantly rejuvenated in what I call eternal bliss. Constantly, you'll be energized. Understand, it's like every moment you are sent to a high plane, every moment you are high.

I just wanted to name this lecture 'Get high on Air'. Get high on Prana.

Every moment if you start feeling comfortable with the neutral zone, every moment you get high on prana. Prana means the life source, the life force. It is the energy or the consciousness that is the base for your existence. Let you be very clear, the word prana does not mean air.

In Sanskrit, the word prana has got deeper meaning. It is not simply air. Air is the product delivered from the outer world and prana is the energy which you receive from the product. Prana is the energy. It is like a lorry is coming into your house and delivering some parcel and going away. The lorry is air and the parcel is prana. What is directly useful or what is directly the energy base of your consciousness is what is addressed or called as prana.

If you can be comfortable in that neutral zone, be very clear again and again you'll be infused with energy, because that is the energy zone. That neutral zone is what I call Shiva Consciousness, eternal consciousness, bliss space, Ananda Gandha or whatever, samadhi, satori whatever names you wish call as God. These are the different names we give the neutral zone.

If you can be comfortable in that neutral zone, every moment again and again you'll be rejuvenated, flooded with energy. In this lower neutral zone, when the incoming takes an outgoing turn, you are flooded with energy. When the outgoing takes the turn of incoming you are flooded with intelligence.

Please understand, as I was telling you yesterday, incoming breath is life and out going breath is death. This is the life line and this is death line. With the life line you are flooded with energy and with death line you are flooded with intelligence. If you are unaware, you'll miss the energy and you will also miss the intelligence. Every death experience teaches you every time.

One more thing, when I use the word death, I don't mean only physical death. If you loose some money, say suddenly you loose a million dollars, some part of your being is dying and that is why you feel so much of pain. Your identity as a millionaire is dying. Same way, even if you don't have a good relationship with your parents, if they die suddenly you feel emptiness, the pain. I've always seen in Bharat, as long as parents are alive these guys will not give even little water to them, they won't take care of them. The moment they are dead, they'll have beautiful big photographs and put all kinds of food and sweets in front of that photograph and pray.

There's a nice proverb, nice one liner I read, 'As long as the grandfather was alive, he lived only in the out house. The moment he died, he was allowed inside the house as a photograph'. His photograph will stay in the main hall, but he had to stay in the outhouse. You don't feel, even when they are alive, you don't feel so connected to them. But when they are dead you feel the emptiness because something in you is dying. With every such incidence, something in you dies.

If you can be aware, if you are aware of that moment, you will receive intelligence. Every incident teaches you. Be very clear every incident in life teaches you something if you are aware you learn the lesson, or you miss it. Then again the life has to teach you but till you learn, life is not going to leave you.

Be very clear, a small story.

A singer was trying to satisfy the audience. He started singing Carnatic music, Aa, Ee, Oo. After he finished the whole group, the whole audience shouted once more, once more. Again he started. After he finished, again the audience shouted, once more, once more. He thought, Oh! God, people are all enjoying and it went on and on five times. He started to suspect that something strange is happening, anyhow after the sixth time, again the people started shouting once more, once more. Then he asked, are you are all enjoying the song so much.

They said, 'No! Till you sing properly, we are not going to leave you. Till you do at least once song properly, we are not going to let you go'.

Be very clear, till you learn the lesson, life is not going to leave you. If you are aware of the death and birth gap you will be aware when you loose something, when life teaches you something you will be awakened to intelligence.

Let me repeat once more, this technique does not mean that you'll only sit for half an hour and watch the breath incoming and outgoing or outgoing taking turn into incoming. Please understand, it is not just half an hour technique. You'll sit with eyes closed and you'll observe incoming breath, outgoing breath, outgoing breath, and incoming breath. That is the way to start but that is not the complete technique.

When I say be aware of incoming breath taking turn as outgoing breath and outgoing breath taking turn as incoming breath, I mean be aware that you are flooded with energy and intelligence. When you are given life, sometimes even a single desire can bring life to you. Sometimes you are lying on the bed in the weekend and you don't feel like getting out of the bed. Suddenly, you'll remember some friend, somebody's name and you just want to meet him. A single thought, your whole body is alive. You are out of the bed and you just run.

When you are flooded with energy, be aware that is happening in this neutral zone only. Same way, when something is taken away from you, you are flooded with intelligence. If you are losing something, immediately you are given some message and some understanding about the life. Be aware when you are flooded with intelligence. This is intelligence neutral zone; this is energy neutral zone.

When the birth is disappearing into death, when the death is disappearing into birth, be very clear you are flooded with intelligence; energy and intelligence. If you can bring your awareness to these two zones and the whole day you'll be constantly flooded with energy.

Yesterday, Shiva was teaching us to be aware of this energy. See, yesterday I warned you not to create any strong thoughts or emotional attachments after the meditation because you'll be flooded with energy. Any thought that you create will become alive and you do not have the intelligence to use your viveka, discrimination, to analyze whether it is right or wrong for you.

Now with this meditation, you don't have to control yourself. You'll awaken the intelligence also. When you watch both the gaps, when you are aware of both the gaps, you'll be constantly be flooded with energy and intelligence. If you go little deeper, you'll understand one more important thing. You realize that every moment you have thought and energy.

Zero and one, the whole binary system is based on this only. The whole binary system of zero and one, thought and energy, energy and thought, thought and energy, energy and thought, one after another they follow and both are directly related. Actually, for a moment you'll be flooded with ichha shakti, energy of desire and the next moment you'll be flooded with kriya shakti, energy of action.

One moment you are flooded with energy, next moment you are flooded with intelligence. Constantly, these two are playing the game. This is the game of Shiva and Shakti. This is the whole cosmos, matter and energy. Constantly in your inner space, Shiva and Shakti are dancing; the matter and energy are dancing. If you can be aware of the gap, you'll experience the eternal Consciousness, the Shiva Consciousness.

Ichha and kriya shakti are both dancing in your inner space. If you can be aware of the gap, you'll achieve the gnana shakti, energy of knowledge. Ichha shakti and kriya shakti, both of them are just dancing, the energy is enjoying its self, the energy is expressing itself in your inner space and if you can be little aware of the gap, you'll be flooded with the Divine Consciousness.

Meditation

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.

Be aware the incoming breath and the gap and the outgoing breath. Feel your whole body being rejuvenated and alive. You are in a silence that is alive and energetic. You are in energetic silence. You are vibrating with high energy.

Witness the gap between incoming breath and outgoing breath. Just be the witness. Be aware of the gap between the incoming breath and outgoing breath. You may feel you are not breathing at all, witness that also, witness that feeling also.

Witness now the gap between incoming and outgoing breath. You are in Shiva Consciousness.

Be aware the outgoing breath and the gap and the incoming breath. Feel your whole body being filled with intelligence. You are in a silence that is intelligent and energetic. You are in intelligent silence. You are flowing in intelligent energy.

Witness the gap between outgoing breath and incoming breath. Just be the witness. Be aware of the gap between the outgoing breath and incoming breath. You may feel you are not breathing at all, witness that also.

Witness now the gap between outgoing and incoming breaths. You are in Shiva Consciousness.

Now, start witnessing both these gaps. Be aware of the neutral spaces between incoming and outgoing breaths as well as the outgoing and incoming breaths. Be aware of your breath taking a turn between incoming breath and outgoing breath, and again between the outgoing breath and incoming breath. Be aware of both these neutral spaces.

Let you now be immersed in the intelligent cosmic energy. Let you awake into Shiva Consciousness.

Om Shanti, Shanti , Shantihi

Q: Master, I have heard you say once that you do not recommend pranayama, breath control. In what way are these Shiva Sutra techniques different from pranayama?

Yoga is very much misunderstood term is this age. Yoga is the process of uniting body, mind and spirit. The entire science of yoga as expounded by Patanjali is a holistic combination of different practices that cannot be isolated and practised as techniques. Each of the eight limbs of ashtanga yoga is a part that seamlessly merges into another and makes sense all together. This is what we teach in Nithya Yoga.

Yoga is about adding life to your movements, not adding more movements into your already overcrowded life!

First, let us look at asanas. You will find that those whose aim in life is only to practise asanas are the most egoistic people you can see. They become like body builders and lose the perspective of what they started with. They end up in a situation that even when the spirit wants to leave the body, the body that they have so assiduously built refuses to let go. They suffer. They are sad people.

Prana is not breath. It is the energy underlying the breath. Breath is the vehicle that carries this precious cargo of energy into your mind body system. Prana is energy. Prana is the energy of your desires. In an impure mind body system prana will inflame and aggravate the negative tendencies, the vasanas and samskaras. These practices were developed in Patanjali's age when people had far less corruption. They had far fewer samskaras.

Now if you practise pranayama without preparation you will enhance the samskaras that are already in you instead of eliminating them, as yoga should help you to do. Practise meditation, dhyana, before you practise pranayama. Practise only such pranayama as would benefit your system. Your Nithya Yoga teachers can advise you on these.

Otherwise pranayama can be like steroids. They temporarily and seemingly can reduce some difficulties that you presently have, but will in the longer term leave you with deep scars.

I do not say do not practise pranayama. I only say that first cleanse yourself before you activate your mind body system with the powerful pranic energy through pranayama.

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