BREAK FREE OF THE PAST WITH INTENSITY
Intensity means the ability to stand for what you believe and break free from the past method of functioning, the past attitude of functioning, and the past way of functioning.
Please understand the ability to break free from the past way of functioning, and live in a new way, to start in a new way, that is what I call intensity.
Otherwise, you go on and on and on in the same way. You can see in your life even inside your house, you will walk in the same route, sit in the same sofa, go to your bed the same way, lie down in the same way, come back and sit in the same chair on the dining table, you come out of your garage, and you will drive in the same way. You will not even be alive and creative.
You need intensity to do new things. Otherwise, you will do the same old thing. The only difference may be in the quantity, big or small, but not the quality. I always tell my ashramites to at least do some new mistakes, so that I will get some entertainment..! But we don't have creativity even for that.
A small story:
A cowboy rode into a town and went into a saloon for a few drinks, when he came out again his horse was gone. He stormed back into the saloon and shouted, 'Who stole my horse?' There was no reply. He was getting angry, and said, 'Rise, otherwise you don't know what I did in Arizona?' Still there was silence. The cowboy was fuming, 'This is your last chance. If no one owns up about stealing my horse, I am going to do what I did in Arizona!' Just then a lone voice said, 'What did you do in Arizona?' The cowboy said quietly, 'I walked home.'
When there is no intensity, you will be doing the same thing.
TECHNIQUE: BURN YOUR PAST
ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE
You hold so tightly onto your possessions, your relationships, your experiences, your identity, only because you have never really confronted the truth that none of these can be with you forever.
A single, intense experience, that all this can be utterly, irreversibly destroyed in a moment, is enough to disillusion you about all that you are clinging to. Then your awareness will be centered on that which can never be destroyed.
DURATION
21 minutes.
INSTRUCTIONS
Before going to sleep at night, lie on the left side of your body with your head facing East.
Visualize and say to yourself, 'let my breathing pattern become one with the cosmic breathing pattern.'
Then visualize that your own physical body, thoughts, and emotions are burning with fire to ashes. Next visualize that the bed that you are lying on is also burning. Then everything in your room is burning.
Keep on visualizing as much as you can that everything is burning, the street that you are on, the neighborhood, city, country, etc.
Visualize everything around you and within you being burnt by kaalaagni : the flames of annihilation. Whatever you experience on the outside, and whatever you experience on the inside, it is burning and getting extinguished by this mighty fire.
Flaming tongues of fire are consuming the whole material world. The entire inner world - all your thoughts and feelings about people, situations, experiences, all are burning to ashes.
Visualize continuously that whatever you think about the world, about anything, is burning, it no longer exists. Your attitudes, your interests, your passions, your greed, your desires, and your fears are all being consumed in the fire.
When everything is burnt, what remains?
Only your awareness: I am!
Before falling asleep, say to yourself, 'Oh God, my Guru, remember whatever I have done to achieve oneness with you and whatever you did to achieve oneness with me.'
With this remembrance fall asleep into restful awareness.
This experience can drastically break your conditioning and push you into enlightenment.