Part 2: Shiva Sutras - Sutras 01 - 05
Now witness only the outgoing breath, forget about the ingoing breath. Witness with your full awareness only the outgoing breath. Do not put your effort to inhale or exhale, just witness what is happening.
Now, start witnessing the gap between incoming and outgoing breath. Be aware of your breath taking turn between incoming breath and outgoing breath. Be aware of the gap between the incoming breath and outgoing breath.
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 the gap between incoming and outgoing breath. You are in Shiva Consciousness.
Om Shanti, Shanti , Shantihi
Relax, let your eyes be closed, do not do any meditation, just relax but do not think actively. Just let your mind settle down. Just be relaxed for a few minutes.
Relax and come out of the high energy zone slowly. Very slowly you can open your eyes.
Q: You mentioned somewhere that Shiva means causeless auspiciousness and when we accept that we are in Shiva Consciousness. But, there are so many problems we face in life. How we call we look at them as auspicious?
There is nothing in life that is inauspicious or bad. Everything that happens to you happens for a purpose and it happens with auspicious intent.
In the Hindu mythology of Dasavatara or Ten Incarnations, Vishnu moves from fish to tortoise to boar to half man half lion before he takes human form. If the fish form had not embraced death and resisted it, it could not become tortoise. If the tortoise had resisted death it could not evolved into a boar. No evolution, no transformation would have been possible if death had been resisted as something inauspicious.
If a permanent life solution had been available to the boar, the boar would have a boar all through its evolution. No progress would have been possible. If you wish to live for ever, you negate the opportunity of moving beyond the human form. Shiva as the Rejuvenator gives you this wonderful opportunity to shed this form and seek another.
Death does not subtract anything from you. It adds quality to your life. Once you trust that everything that happens in your life, including death, has a purpose, you experience Shiva. As I said before, in Sanskrit, the word Shiva means causeless auspiciousness.
A small story.
A wise master watches as a well decorated horse runs past him in the forest. The master's son manages to catch hold of the horse. The king's soldiers who come in search of the horse thank him and give him another horse as a gift.
The master's neighbors congratulate him on his son's gift. Master says, 'That is good'
A few days later the son falls down from the horse and breaks his leg. Neighbors come to commiserate with him and the master says, 'That is good'. They are surprised and ask how his son breaking his leg can be good. Master remains silent.
A week later the King declares war over a neighboring kingdom and calls able bodied young men to the army. Master's son who has a broken leg is spared while all other young people are taken away.
Neighbors come to congratulate him and master responds, 'That is good!'
The mindset of equanimity that allows one to see goodness in everything, whether others consider them as good or bad, success or failure, threat or praise, is what differentiates one with awareness from another who is unaware.
Time and life are non judgmental. They just are and move on. We can either move along with them accepting things as they happen without complain or we can judge each incident that arises and differentiate it as good and bad. If you accept life as is, you do not ride a roller coaster. You do not move as events move around you. You are still centered.
If you choose to differentiate and label, you ride the roller coaster. You scream with joy one minute and with fear at another moment and with deep pain at yet another moment. It is a choice that each of us can make that decides the quality of our life.
If you accept that all that happens around you and to you is auspicious all the time, you are always in bliss. Nothing can shake you. Even if you seemingly lose everything, you realize you are only losing your bondages. You realize that you are gaining freedom.
If you judge with your senses and label the good, bad and the ugly, your life too moves between the good, bad and the ugly. Soon, even what you consider good no longer seems as good as you keep seeking for the better. What you end with is bad and ugly.
Problems that you face in life are challenges that strengthen you as you experience them. Nothing in life as it happens is inauspicious. When you accept this you truly enter into Shiva consciousness.
Discourse 2