Q: A lot of people come to you for healing, not for meditation.🔗

Yes. Healing is my visiting card. My real message is meditation. When I say that meditation can lead you to the ultimate, I need - or you need - proof, am I right? That is why I promote healing. When people see the miracle of healing, they become drawn to me; they want to know more about this path. Without that, do you think it is easy to draw people into spiritual life? Of the thousands who come for healing, if even a handful turn to meditation and spirituality in their personal lives, my purpose is served. And it is happening; it is happening everywhere.

Q: Lots of masters give many meditation techniques. What makes your techniques special?

I don't consider it necessary to promote any particular technique as special. I promote the principle of meditation. If more and more people are inspired to practice meditation after listening to me, that itself is sufficient - it is a good sign. It could be any method they feel comfortable with.

But if you are asking about my method, you could say that it is a way of balancing our inner energies. There is an energy that pervades the cosmos that works the planets, the sun and the moon. We are also part of this same energy, but we have lost touch. My techniques help in tuning us back to this cosmic energy. The more we tune ourselves, the more at ease we will be with our body, mind and spirit.

Q: There are so many meditation techniques, that we get confused. Each group tries to promote its own technique. How do we know which technique is right for us?

I advise you to try out as many techniques as you come across. Everyone should try out some techniques, at least 4-5 techniques. See, everyone who preaches has a spark of truth inside – without that, it is impossible to come out and be a master. But different masters preach the same truth in different ways. Also, different people have different mental set-up. So they may fall in tune more easily with one master, than with another.

So try out the techniques and see. Whichever gives you the deepest inner peace and the greatest clarity, follow it and forget the rest.

Q: There are so many problems in the world which have not been solved. How can spirituality solve them?

Whatever problem there is, you have to make a beginning to solve it. Have determination and faith; that is the first step.

Q: I don't mean our personal problems. I mean the huge social problems.

Spirituality is not just a personal thing. It can have definite repercussions on the social level also. Spirituality is not only meditation; it is also compassion and service to society.

Vivekananda said beautifully: Aatmano mokshaartham jagat hitaayache.

"Though we may attain enlightenment, to harness it for the service of humanity is true spirituality."

Otherwise, it is only half spirituality, which causes even more trouble than agnosticism.

Q: Does true spirituality mean not having any desires?

No, that is the wrong way of looking at it. From my experience, rather than cutting down desires, harness your inner energy better, so that you can fulfill your desires.

Q: But in modern-day life, there are too many desires, too many expectations. How do we reduce them?

To reduce desires is to reduce the richness of life. As I said, the important thing is to create the energy inside to fulfill those desires. There is nothing wrong in having desires, but you should work hard towards fulfilling the desires. Even if they are material desires, even if you want to buy a Benz car, nothing wrong. Meditation can give you the energy to fulfill even materialistic desires.

Q: But how can you go on increasing your desires, instead of leading a contented and desire-free life?

Don't ever think of a contented life as a spiritual life. Sattva (goodness) and tamas (lethargy) may look the same on the surface. Do you think that anyone who wears simple clothes and sits on a mat on the floor is more sattvic and contented? That could be only the external appearance. It could also be that simply because he doesn't have the energy, he may make do with whatever he has. Resignation and contentment are not the same, though they may appear to be so.

Q: But what if your mind is naturally content with what you have?

That kind of mind is the natural by-product of spirituality. Don't think that it can lead you to spirituality. It happens as a natural by product of spirituality. It happens from within. You can't learn the attitude of contentment and try to make that a stepping stone to spirituality. People always ask you to learn to be content. Be very clear, you cannot learn to be content, you cannot acquire the attitude. Contentment has to flower within you as a natural result of spirituality, of meditation. Through meditation, you get a deep satisfaction from life, which allows you to be content with whatever you have.

Q: Compared to other contemporary swamis, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is very young. Do you consider it a disadvantage?

Nothing is an advantage or a disadvantage. Ultimately, people are interested in what I have to offer. No one is bothered by such details. As far as spirituality is concerned, the ordinary 'life experience' is immaterial.

See, there are two kinds of experience – anubhava and anubhooti. Anubhava is acquired over a lifetime. It is like learning that fire burns, after testing hundred kinds of fire all your life. First you touch a log fire and find that it burns; then you touch a gaslight and find that it burns; then you try an oil lamp, then a match – and finally by the time you realise that fire always burns, it is time for you to go to the burning ghat! This is anubhava. But my experience is anubhooti. It happens when you learn from the very first fire.

All fires are like this, all desires are like this. That leap is spirituality. If you learn through anubhava you need a lifetime to become wise. Anubhooti needs intelligence, not age.

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So age is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage for me – it is such, that's all!

Q: All over the world, attempts are being made to reform social wrongdoers, for example, in prisons, through practice of meditation. Do you agree with these efforts?

Certainly. We should definitely make these attempts. These places have become centers of negativity. Meditation can definitely do a lot in this area because ultimately the change has to come from within the individual. Before you can see the change in society, the transformation should take place in every individual, in every potential criminal. Meditation can not only transform individuals; ultimately it can ultimately bring down the crime rate in society.