Ananda tapas
There is a very intense meditation technique called 'Ānanda Tapas', where the meditator sits within a circle of fire for several hours every day, for many days or weeks as required, under the guidance of an enlightened Master. This technique dissolves the samskāras and engraved memories that act as obstacles on the path to enlightenment.
A beautiful incident happened in my life while I was performing Ānanda Tapas. Whe I was sitting for meditation, I had requested a villager to take care of the fire by continuously adding fuel whenever needed.
The villager gathered wood and dried cow-dung cakes to keep the fire burning. But he was a poor guy and had no money to keep the fire burning continuously. I was wondering what to do about this situation, I remembered a lamp that I received as a gift when I had gone to a feast in Mysore.
I gave the lamp to the villager and told him to sell it to buy how much ever fuel was needed to keep the fire burning. When the villager came back, he said that it was a silver lamp, and he got good money for it.
I was surprised, because it was not a silver lamp! I suddenly remembered the sādhu (monk) who used to handle this lamp. This sādhu was a great enlightened being who never needed anything - no clothes, no food, no water and no sleep.
This sādhu used to smoke ganja (hashish) by placing it in a chillum (clay pipe sometimes used by wandering sādhus). Whenever his stock of ganja ran empty, he would place a few copper coins in the chillum and tap it – and gold coins would fall out of it! He knew the secret science of alchemy – the process of converting baser metals into gold. This sādhu had played with the lamp for a few moments and given it back to me.
After a few days the money that the villager got by selling the silver lamp was exhausted, but the meditation had to be continued..! I remembered this sādhu and jokingly said to myself that the sādhu should have changed the lamp into a gold lamp instead of a silver lamp.
A few days later, I was invited to a nearby ashram for bhiksha, where a rich man was offering food and gifts to all the monks in that area. When he came to pay his respects to me, I was shocked, because he brought the same silver lamp as an offering!
The rich man said that from the day he bought the lamp from the villager, a sādhu appeared in his dream every day, telling him to offer the lamp to a young Swami. The rich man had noticed that I was the youngest sādhu in the group, so he offered it to me.
I still needed money to continue with my tapas, so I offered to exchange the silver lamp for money with the rich man. When he heard the reason for the exchange, the rich man joyfully offered to take care of all of my needs till the tapas was completed and requested me to keep the lamp also.
My simple but honest request to the sādhu who gave me the lamp was immediately granted through the generous rich man who came in search of me. Whenever you request help from enlightened beings with the highest purpose in mind, they just respond to you, beyond time and space.