IX. MY EXPERIENCES🔗

When you understand that you don't have to seek and that you only have to live, and experience the Truth that is inside, the Truth will start revealing itself to you in every passing moment.

TECHNIQUE: WHAT MOVES AND WHAT DOES NOT MOVE

MY ENLIGHTENMENT EXPERIENCE

It is truth that Consciousness moves, and at the same time the truth that Consciousness does not move. It is truth that Consciousness is far off from the farthest space, and at the same time the truth that Consciousness is also nearer than the nearest space.

It is the truth that the inner space is of the whole Cosmos, and the same time it is also the truth that the outer space is of the whole Cosmos. Pervading an uniformly ever present inside and encompassing this Cosmos from the outside.

What is that, that makes you perceive something as moving, and something as unmoving? What is that, that makes you perceive something as near, and something as far off? What is that, that makes you perceive something as inside you, and something as outside you?

I am going to explain my enlightenment experience.

When I twelve years old twelve, as usual, I went to sit on a rock in my native town of Thiruvannamalai. I was just casually sitting there.

Whenever I find time, I will go and spend time in that space in that area, because Devi (consort of Shiva) became enlightened there.

My guru, Vibhootanandapuri always used to tell me, 'This is Devi's energy field.' That place is called Pavizha Kundru (coral hill). So I always used to go and sit there. I was sitting on a rock.

To tell you honestly, I was not even doing some serious meditation. I can say, in a way, the whole ambience was so calm, so beautiful. I decided to close my eyes. Once I closed the eyes, the intensity of my yearning started taking over me. The intensity to realize myself, my true nature, started possessing me.

All of you know how fear takes over you and greed takes over you. When fear takes over you, when you have a panic attack, you just do things for which you always feel guilty and shy later on. You repent for it. You don't know why you did it.

In the same way, when lust takes over you, when greed takes over you, you do things which you can never logically justify even to yourself.

But, when authenticity takes over you, it will be ten thousand times more intense than fear taking over or greed taking over.

It will be ten thousand times more intense and powerful. When fear takes over you it is called 'panic attack.' When greed takes over you it is called 'restlessness.' When authenticity takes over you it is called 'Satori!'

My sincere seeking overpowered me! That is the right word I should use. I just felt, 'What is it that I am seeking? Who is that me who is seeking? Who is that me that is deeply discontented about anything I see and hear? Who is that who is deeply discontented even about my own existence?'

All of you have discontentment about your own existence, but you never look into why, what and who is having that discontentment. The person for whom the question has become the first and top priority, he is a seeker.

It was such strong taking over. That is the right word I will use – taking over. When the whole being took over, 'Who am I that is experiencing this deep discontentment and suffocation?' I can see very clearly, that heaviness just went into the depths of the Consciousness. Suddenly, in one moment, the first thing that happened is, the idea of inside and outside broke.

The inner and outer space broke. The first experience is that I was able to see

everything around me, above me, the whole 360 degrees, in all ten directions, below me, and everything! I realized not only was I able to see, I was able to feel and experience!

I felt that the skin of the stone, on rock on which I was sitting, and the skin of this body, both carry me equally, in both I exist equally! The air, the breeze, the setting sun, the rising moon, and the whole Arunachala Hill, all the plants, bush, shrubs, trees, everything just became so alive!

The idea something is inside and something is outside was completely lost! First I was able to see all ten directions, in 360 degrees. The next moment itself, I realized, not only am I able to see, I am able to experience all of that as me! I didn't feel vulnerable. I felt powerful.

So powerful! I just know I am that oneness with Existence! There is no inner and there is no outer. There is no moving and there is no unmoving. The smallest movements of these plants is my movement, and the highest stillness of the centre of the Cosmos is my stillness.

Moves and moves not, what you call as near, and what you call as far off, those concepts were lost. What you call as inner space (inside you), and outer space (outside you), the ideas were forgotten. The Inner Image, drank the Life Image, ate the Outer Image, and dancing on Others' Image!

This means there is no gaps between images. There was no imagination. It was such that the ignorance melted down!

Whenever you look inside you, that immature you, that Inner Image constantly asks for security, the beggar who slips like a soap on the bath tub. If you drop the soap in the bath tub, how it just slips from your hand everywhere, in the same way the Inner Image will be slipping from your hand everywhere, whenever you try to look in and catch. But after a few minutes that soap will just melt, and become one with the water.

In the same way, even if you are not able to catch that Inner Image, if you are just running behind it in few minutes it will disappear, it will not be there. That is why the seeking gives you the experience of liberation.

Every time you catch the soap and it escapes from you, one layer is peeled off. The next time when you catch it, and it escapes from your hand, another layer is pulled off. After a few times, the soap is not there.

You need to find out: What is that makes you experience inside and outside separately? What is that makes you experience what moves and moves not separately?

What is that, that makes you experience something as far off and something as near?

Complete with that and you will experience it! Till then, it will only be the intellectual jugglery.

DURATION

As much time as needed.

INSTRUCTIONS

Sit and contemplate, what is the meaning of 'That moves, and That does not Move? What should be that? What is it that moves and does not move?' What is it that is far off, and That is also near.'

How can something be far off and be near?

What is the inner space of all this. What is also the outer space of all this!

If you just intranalyze, understand this one verse, you will become ENLIGHTENED!

Sit and intranalyze: What is it that moves, and that does not move? What is it that is far off, and that is also near?

Shiva is introducing Himself. He is not just giving you his visiting card. He is just describing Himself! Contemplate on it! Contemplate on it! Contemplate on it!

He is the inner space of all this. He is also the outer space of all this.

MASTER KEY TO SEEKING

Once I went and told my Guru, Mata Vibhudananda Puri Devi, 'you are telling me that I am beyond the life and death.' She read out Ribhu Gita to me that day, and explained some of the great truths in Ribhu Gita. The next day I went and told her, 'you explained, but I am afraid whether I will enter into that space at all, how to enter into that space?'

She said, 'just entertain this desire to experience that space so strongly, the fear whether you will experience or not will break. That is the moment you will experience that Space.'

She said, 'seeking is powerful enough to merge the seeker into THAT which is sought after.' She said beautifully, 'What you are seeking, entertain that. That is intelligent enough to break the fear whether you will achieve it or not, and make you enter into that space which you are seeking.'

It was such powerful click for me. This is the key I used to experience everything described in Agama, Tantra, Vedanta and Yoga. This is the Master key. There are few Master keys that I received from my Masters, which I used in millions of places and realized the Truths.

One more Master key, I received with Ramsurat Kumar, a great Yogi. I was sitting next to him, it was two-o-clock in the cremation ground, Amaavasya (moonless night) there was a sound of some dog barking or something in the cremation ground in one corner.

I asked him slowly, 'Swamiji everyone always talks about this ghost, bhuta or preta, are you not afraid of it? How are you handling it? What mantra are you doing to protect you from that bhuta or preta?'

He laughed and just slapped me. He has the habit, whenever he gets excited he will just slap people.

He slapped me and said, 'Aye fool, you and everything outside me, all these are my projections. Me and everything outside you, is all your projections, even we are the projection of each other, then how can any ghost come without me projecting it outside!'

He said beautifully, 'even things which you are seeing in front of you is your projection, then unless you project how can a ghost or bhuta or preta can come?'

He said beautifully, 'even you are my projection, unless I project, how can bhuta, preta, or pisacha come separately.' It is all our projections.

The moment he said that, it just clicked with me, like a Master click, a Master key. So from that time onwards when anybody speaks about bhuta, I only apply this. Then maybe in six months the very idea of bhuta, preta, or pisacha, disappeared from me.

Since it clicked so strongly with me, 'arey, even the people whom you are seeing, even the things you are experiencing in this world is your projection, even this is your projection. If you see a bhuta, preta, pisacha or ghost or anything that is also your own projection. The moment you remember it is your own projection, they will disappear.' It was such a strong click in me.

If something clicks with you the moment your Master utters, your heart is waiting for that truth. Your being was waiting for that truth.

When Vibhudananda Puri explained about the seeking, 'aye, don't worry just keep the seeking. Seeking is powerful enough to make the seeker to merge with what is sought after. So you don't need to have something else, or you don't need to worry, or entertain any other fear, you will achieve what you are seeking?'

it was such a powerful click for me.

I think the right word was told to me by the right person when I was in the right temperature. It straight away entered into my system.

After that, in any of the spiritual practices, there was nothing called impossibility or obstruction or obstacle. Vibhudananda Puri will tell me, 'okay, chant this mantra and realize Bhuvaneshwari.' I will not even have a second thought, 'if I just chant this mantra, will I have darshan of Bhuvaneshwari? How can it be?'

I will not even have that thought. Even if that thought comes, I will tell myself, 'hey, Mataji told me, 'my power of seeking, the seeking is powerful enough to make me experience the space I am seeking. So then I am seeking to experience Devi Bhuvaneshwari, and here is the mantra, this is powerful enough to make me experience the space of Bhuvaneshwari. I don't need to worry whether I will have her darshan or not, experience her or not, come on let me sit.'

Because of this confidence and energy, and intensity, simply I was mastering different methodologies, techniques, yoga, pranayama, kriya, everything she was teaching me. I was just mastering, because that click became my bio-memory.

To give me this click that your seeking is capable of making you to experience what you are seeking, she worked with me for at least three to four years. But once that clicked happened, she did not need to work to make me realize every component of sadhana, every component of spiritual practice, every technique, every tantra, every Agama, and every spiritual process.

She did not need three years. The first breakthrough reduced the amount of time she needed to spend with me to open up certain powers or certain techniques or certain methodology.

Your seeking is complete and powerful enough to put you in the space you are seeking, without any assistance, external help or other support. The space of impossibility will disappear from you.

The idea that it may work out for me, the impossibility of whether it is going to happen for me or not, that idea broke. When that idea is taken away, so much of excitement and joy happens. The very path that you are travelling will become short.

The path is only long only when you create hurdles by yourself. The path is always short when you create only excitement. Out of the food you ate,

if you produce only energy, life is always exciting. But if you start producing gas, life is always tiring.

In the same way, out of your thought current, if you produce only energy and excitement, sadhana is always great, exciting, and beautiful. But out of the same thought current, if you produce again and again, impossibilities (self doubt, self hatred, and self denial) spiritual practice is tiresome.

Who knows what is happening? Who knows what is true? What is wrong, what is right? Will I have it, will I get it?

Maybe it worked for him in those days when his body was without toxins, now who knows, my body is full of toxins and will this same process work for me. You will have one thousand questions, to make you strongly believe: it is not possible at least for you.

This one click has to happen inside you: your seeking is powerful enough to make you experience the space you are seeking. Because of that confidence, you will simply start realizing every technique given to you without killing them.

The moment you decide 'impossible', the seed is burnt, the seed I put inside you, that is burnt. It can never sprout again.

The moment you decide, 'No question of impossibility. My seeking is powerful enough to make me experience the space I am seeking without any external support, without any intelligence input, I neither need intel help or mental help, and I can achieve it.'

This one click will make your sadhana exciting, inspiring, and no impossibilities. I tell you at least one thousand techniques I would have practiced and realized it's conclusion and completion, just because of this one key.

Even if I was practising the most difficult spiritual sadhana, if that doubt came, I knew immediately this key will come up. This click was enough all the impossibilities would just disappear.

If this one truth clicks with you, you don't need to have any other worry in life. Consider yourself already liberated and enlightened. This one click is so powerful it can destroy any obstacle cooked up by you or put inside you.

TECHNIQUE: EXPERIENCE THE SPACE OF SEEKING

DURATION As much time as needed.

INSTRUCTIONS Your seeking is powerful enough to make you reach whatever you are seeking, independent of any external help. Your seeking is powerful enough to make you experience the space you are seeking.

Meditate on this, just mediate on this one truth. If this one truth clicks with you, that is enough. Just this one truth has to strongly click with you.

Your seeking is capable enough of making you experience the space you are seeking, without any external help, assistance or input, just its own intelligence.

If this one truth clicks with you, that is enough, I can lead you into what Shiva is, living in pure Advaita (oneness).

Now your decision to seek, is going to make you experience all of this.

SEEKING - MY EXPERIENCE

At the age of six, my Guru asked me, 'Do you want to become Sannyasi (monk) or Grihasta (householder)?' I stood up and said, 'Sannyasi!' I still remember, I just stood up, because I didn't want him, even for one moment, to take the decision of Grihasta (householder). I stood up and said, 'Sannyasi,' with such force and power.

And then he touched my head and did something. Then after two to three days, I asked, 'Did you purify my brain to live a Sannyas life?' He said, 'no, no, no. I just increased the frequency of seeking, that is all.'

> Then I asked him,

'What do you mean by increasing the frequency of seeking?' He said, 'Just seeking gets powerful, that is enough, all the moral, discipline, values, and everything will become automatically your body language. You will become your muscle memory and bio-memory.'

Anybody even struggling with brahmacarya, please be very clear your seeking is not intense. Whether you are struggling with aparigraha or brahmacarya or asteya, any vows you are struggling with, or you are struggling with integrity, inauthenticity, irresponsibility, or selfishness, it just boils down to only one thing:

not having enough seeking.

Just increase the intensity of your seeking.

EXPERIMENTING WITH THE TRUTHS

At the age of ten I was already an advanced spiritual seeker, clear about who I was and my path in life. In the late 1980s when other young boys around the world spent their time playing games, listening to music, or playing soccer or football, I was already an advanced yogic practitioner, enamoured with temples, fierce and intense about his spiritual interests and practices.

I lived in a small temple town called Thiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, south Bharat; a town renowned for having an unbroken lineage of enlightened masters.

I had many teachers from a young age, and at the age of ten I had been seeking the company of a great master, Annamalai Swamigal, a direct disciple of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi.

One day I heard Annamalai Swamigal say to a group of seekers, 'We are not the body. We are beyond suffering and pain.'

These words struck a chord in me Even though I was such a young boy,

I took these words to heart and analyzed them to see if they applied to me. I thought in my life I had experienced pain and suffering – physical pains and mental pains.

I began wondering how one can go beyond suffering when it was clear that pain and suffering existed even in my own life.

I thought, 'If my mother beats me, I have pain. If my teacher shouts at me, I have suffering. How can Annamalai Swamigal say that we are beyond pain and suffering?' I was not able to understand.

Two words that best describe a seeker are sincerity and intensity. I wanted to find out for myself if the statement made by Annamalai Swamigal was true.

I had experienced pain and suffering and now was being told that I was beyond it. So I decided to experiment on my own body to know the truth! Out of my innocent but passionate seeking, I ran home, took my mother's kitchen knife and cut my right thigh to see if I really experienced pain or not.

I made a deep cut into my own body to see if there was pain. Of course, there was pain

and my mother took me to the hospital for care. The doctor gave me first aid and stitched my wound. I could not understand.

After a few days, I went back to Annamalai Swamigal and asked him, 'What is this? What have you taught me? You said we have no pain and suffering. I cut myself and now I have pain. I have suffering.' It was a very deep cut with stitches.

To go back to Annamalai Swamigal and challenge, to continue to try to find the answer at age ten shows how intense the seeking and desire to find the truth was in me.

Annamalai Swamigal just smiled at me and said, 'My son, just try to find the source from where you are feeling the pain, the point where you are feeling this pain. Try to find the source. Do this meditation.'

I was not immediately convinced. I had experienced pain even though I was told I was beyond pain. So I told Annamalai Swamigal, 'It's alright. You have given me a blessing or an initiation or some meditation. That's okay. But you could have done this before I cut my thigh! You could have done this earlier. Why did you make me cut my thigh and then talk all these things?'

Annamalai Swamigal said, 'Don't bother bother about the pain, my son. You had the courage to experiment with the truth. That itself will liberate you.'

This incident became a big inspiration for me. I got the click that the courage to experiment was beyond all pain. From that point on, I used that one incident to guide my life and actions. I played with the technique again and again, just sitting and observing where the pain was coming from, where was the 'I' that was feeling the pain, and trying to find the source of the Self.

I can say I did not even meditate, I simply played with the technique. Because I had the courage to directly test the concepts of pain and suffering, I went beyond the illusion of thoughts into the source of thoughts. I was able to see beyond pain and not bother about it anymore.

> After this incident, Annamalai Swamigal became my inspiration and scale for everything. For every situation, I would ask, 'How would Annamalai Swamigal behave? Let me behave like that'.

Iused the technique for anything from fear to arguments with my brothers, saying, 'How would Annamalai Swamigal handle it? He wouldn't bother. Let me also not bother!'

If I felt a little lazy to meditate or to walk, I would think, 'How Annamalai Swamigal would handle it? Naturally he won't bother about laziness. He would get up and meditate; so do that, that's all!'

And so I would just get up, sit and meditate.

The connection with the master went so deep that if any thought came up inside, I would ask myself: 'How would Annamalai Swamigal respond? He will not even have this thought! Then it is not mine either. Over!'

What started as a truth told by Annamalai Swamigal to me became an experiment with the truth inside myself. I was ripe for my first enlightenment experience which happened at the age of twelve on the sacred Arunachala hill.