chapter 8
chapter 9
Living Advaita, the Main Theme of Upaniṣads
Having all the necessary intellectual understandings to Live Advaita is Jñana. Having all the necessary feeling-connection strength to Live Advaita is Bhakti. Having all the necessary cognitions to Live Advaita is Vijñāna.
Having all the intellectual understandings which are necessary to Live Advaita! Living Advaita means radiating all-powerful, all-knowledge, always blissful, Satcitānandamaya. Satcitānanda (truth-knowledge-bliss) is not a fantasy of the Hindu brain. It is not a fairy tale from some old Ṛṣis of Tāraka Vana or Naimiṣaraṇya. Satcitānanda is a reality!
Upaniṣads. Upaniṣads are the most powerful expansion on Living Advaita. The way Upaniṣads explain Jñāna, the Sacred Knowledge, that is required for you to Live Advaita! Such brilliant brains cannot have fantasies or delusions. Somebody who can grasp, understand and poetically present such high Truths, in no way can you accuse him of having fantasies or delusions. That is why, Satcitānanda is not a delusion. It is as true as your breakfast and good night's sleep. If you come and tell me that you had your breakfast just now, I am not going to accuse you of delusion, illusion. I know it is a reality. Because breakfast is possible, you can eat it. It is that simple! If you tell me that you had a peaceful, good night's sleep, I am not going to accuse you of being in delusion of having a good night's sleep. A good night's sleep is simple possibility!
Satcitānanda, the all-knowing, all-powerful, always blissful, is such a simple possibility.
It is pathetic to deny the Existence of your higher possibility. Denying your higher possibility is denying your future! If you deny that you can ever become rich, happy, comfortable, you are denying your whole future. Same way, denying your possibility of Satcitānanda is denying your spiritual future. It is spiritual suicide! Do not allow people to force you to commit spiritual suicide. And, there are countless people who are forcing you to commit spiritual suicide through their direct, indirect teachings and preachings. Through the TV, cinemas, books, entertainment shows, media, internet, people are constantly forcing you to deny your future spiritual possibility.
Guru is the death bell for all of this ignorance. Guru is the powerful wake-up call towards your spiritual possibility. Waking you to your spiritual future, waking you to your spiritual possibility is the job of the Guru!
Satcitānanda is not delusion or illusion or imagination. Satcitananda, living Satcitānanda is possible.
That is the first statement I want to give about Living Advaita.
Second: The understandings you need for that spiritual possibility is Jñāna, Sacred Knowledge.
Next, when you start Living Advaita, you need certain kind of emotional strength when you go through the transformation. Bhakti, Sacred Sentiments, the intensity of the passion and emotion can be used to explode into Living Advaita to take you to the next, next levels.
Never has a person taken a decision to live Sannyāsa (renounced order) after intellectual analysis and conclusion; anybody who did so, was never successful. Your emotion is a pure power which can just transmit you from one space to another space. Only the people who use that power, that strength, the power of pure emotion and devotion to take the decision of Sannyāsa, are successful. Only they are successful Sannyāsis, never those who do intellectual analysis. If you are ready to live Advaita, that really is the strength of your pure devotion! That can happen only if you use your emotional and devotional strength. That is Life.
Understand, the necessary Sacred Sentiments for you to experience Living Advaita is Bhakti. And the necessary Sacred Cognitions, meaning the basic understandings beyond any doubt, for you to experience Living Advaita, is Vijñāna.
Reading spiritual books or listening to the satsangs is allowing the possibility of having spiritual cognition. If you listen to ten ideas from the Master's mouth, you may be debating on two ideas, but suddenly four or five ideas will just go inside and sit in your cognition and become unshakeable cognition! Even you will forget to question them. Raising your spiritual cognition higher and higher every day, beyond your self-doubt, self-hatred, self-denial, is the purpose of Satsang.
The main theme of Upaniṣads is to make you Live Advaita by giving you Jñāna–Sacred Knowledge, understandings, Bhakti–Sacred Sentiments, emotional strength, Vijñāna–Sacred Cognition. Truths, Sacred Sentiments, Sacred Cognitions. Gathering these cognitions into your being is Living Advaita.
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Upaniṣads Remind the Mahādeva Component of You
The Mahādeva component of you which fulfills whatever you want, which gives so much of 'feeling good' about you, is the real you. No one can cut It, no one can burn It or take It away from you!
Nothing at all is said extra in Upaniṣads. No editing or commenting is possible. It is so precise, perfect! Nothing extra can be added to it. May be you can highlight something and go on repeating it.
Sacred Knowledge, the sacred understandings you need to excel, to reach your peak possibility in the Life. When you see a person sitting next to you, how you will feel; when you see a dog sitting next to you, how you will feel; when you see a plant sitting next to you, how you will feel; it is based on that, that is going to respond to you. If you think that the person sitting next to you is alive, you will react either with love or withdrawal, you may react in some way. If you see the dog sitting next to you, you will react in some way. But, if you don't react the same way to the plants, it means you don't feel they are alive.
Listen to this logic; you will understand the conclusion. Why do we feel the plant is not that much alive, the person is more alive, the dog is a little less alive? Why? Because, we have a wrong knowledge—the action decides the life.
Existence decides the Life; not action that decides Life.
Because man can do more actions than the dog, the dog can do more actions than the plant, you measure even the existence of Life in them based on the actions. This is the basic misunderstanding. Some of these basic misunderstandings can be repaired only by Upaniṣads, only by Upaniṣads! Because, only the Upaniṣadic Masters carried that kind of an inner-space.
When the dog is sitting next to you, if you judge it has a very low life, you may not even respond and that dog also won't respond. If you even recognize his existence, he loves himself and loves you.
Whoever makes you love yourself, you love that person. It is law of life. Your attitude may be different: respectful, sometimes reverence, sometimes fear, but whoever makes you love you, you will love that person. My whole work is making people love them truly. I am constantly respecting your existence as Life. The way I respond to your existence, the same way I respond to the existence of plants. Plants do not have an exploiting tendency of having something that is not them as part of them. But, humans internalize something that is not them as part of them. So, the moment I separate that part and show—what is you—you will just fall in love with you!
The Mahādeva component of you which fulfills whatever you want, which gives so much of 'feeling good' about you, is the real you. All of you have the Mahādeva component of you, which makes you feel so good about you. Sometimes people say that they never saw or have that component in them, or after they came down here, somebody stole it. Listen. No one can cut It, no one can burn It or take It away from you! All of us have the Mahādeva component in us. However much you deny, you do catch a glimpse of It, you do experience It. The moment I respect you as an Enlightened being, as Mahādeva's embodiment, Śiva Gaṇa, you also start respecting you.
When you know that the Mahādeva component in you is still active, alive, it has not expired, you fall in love with you!
Falling in love with yourself is the only way to keep Nityotsāḥ, Nitya-Utsāḥ, eternal excitement. Nothing else can give you eternal excitement. Fall in love with your component of Mahādeva which is eternal excitement, inspiration, Nityotsāḥ, Nitya-Utsāḥ. The person who has touched the eternal excitement about himself, only he will have beyond logic tolerance. Illogical tolerance, the beyond logical tolerance will happen to you, when you understand the Mahādeva component of you, the God side of you; because you will just be in love with that Existence. You will just be in a trance with that Existence.
Being in love with that Mahādeva component of you is Bhakti. That is Bhakti.
Whenever you go dry, catch that component again. It will bring tremendous tolerance which is beyond any logic. A man who has achieved the tolerance beyond any logic can never be disturbed or destroyed. This is law of Life. Because when you know the Mahādeva component of you, you are just in love with your Existence. You are just in love with your possibilities. It is not some delusion or illusion. It is possibility for every one of you.
No one can take away your Consciousness. No one can take away your Enlightenment. No one can take away your understanding—You are Mahādeva.
Whenever tiredness, boredom comes to you, remember, 'I am Mahādeva. And I have Mahādeva as my Master to remind me and help me to reach the experience of Mahādeva.' Understand, your inability to think or act never takes away your existence as Mahādeva. Your action does not touch your Mahādevahood, your Śivahood, your Mahādeva component of you. Some express It through their intellect, some express It through their body, and some express It through creating complications by non-doing; that is one of the biggest lies you believe! Understand, non-doing does not take away your Śivahood. For example, if you don't do anything, don't worry that your Śivahood will be taken away. But that is not going to make you experience your Śivahood, and expand and radiate It. If you are non-doing, you are doing complications.
When I say, you have the Mahādeva component, that the highest possibility of all-knowing, all-powerful, always blissful is your Existence, that is your Possibility, that is You. Start living it, start loving that component of you.
Start expressing this component in your profession, in your career, in your family, in your relationships, in your Life. Decide, how Mahādeva will respond to every situation. 'If Mahādeva is in this situation, how he will respond? Let me live like that!' That is Dharma. Living with all your possibilities, blissfully.
If the Mahādeva component is not there in you, you cannot even breathe! The amount of things you need to do for breathing is ten-thousand times less than what you need to do to finish all your imagined, unimagined projects. How much of your Consciousness, Existence is required for your breathing, only one of ten-thousandth effort and Consciousness is required to finish off all your so-called projects in Life.
Your Life is far more easier, if you exist. Everything is possible! For all possibilities you don't need a separate technique or method to open them up in you. Only whatever you believed is not possible for you, you need to undo those wrong beliefs. Whatever you already started believing as not possible for you, you will not be able to do; that is okay. But for many things, you have not taken a decision or formed a belief that they are not possible for you—those things are possible for you! Just by remembering those things, they will start opening up in you. If you start opening up the possibility, they will suddenly be available for you. For many things you have not closed the door upon you, they are still available and open for you.
Reminding you about all your possibilities is Living Advaita. And, that can happen only by Upaniṣads.
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