What is alchemy?
Alchemy is a process of transforming anything base to its higher form.
When I was wandering in the Himalayas before enlightenment, once I met an old mystic - a naga baba who belonged to the spiritual sect of mystics who wore no clothes. I had been told that they are violent by nature. Many people who look at their wild faces and matted hair, feel scared to go anywhere near them. He was sitting on the banks of the sacred river Ganges. I went up to him and started talking to him. He was smoking ganja (marijuana). I watched him. He placed two copper coins inside his pipe and started smoking. When he had finished smoking, he emptied the pipe and two gold coins fell out! He sold the gold coins, bought more ganja and repeated the process of producing gold coins. He did this about 10 times in two days. I asked him to teach me meditation, as I did not want gold coins. He looked at me and gave me his pipe. I moved away as I had never liked the smell of tobacco since childhood. When he saw me move away, he put the pipe to his mouth and playfully blew smoke rings onto my face. For three days after that, I was in deep bliss.
The process of changing a lower level metal such as copper or iron, into gold, is alchemy.
I asked him how he did it. He replied to me in Tamil, my mother tongue! I had never told him about my background - who I was or where I was from. He said, angam pazhuthal thangam pazhukkum, which means, 'If your being is ripe, gold will ripen.'
When our being is ripe, we have the capacity to ripen anything. Great masters bring about radical transformation in people just by their presence, by the very quality of their being. Lust changes to love when your being is ripe; a base feeling transforms into the highest emotion you are capable of.
Someone asked Ramana, 'Give me the power of miracles.' Ramana said, 'You cannot even handle what power you have now; why do you ask for more?' The man asked, 'What power do I have?' Ramana said, 'You are a manager; you can hire people, dismiss people, do many other things. Are you handling these well now? If you were, you would not be stressed, you would already be at peace. What you need is intelligence, not power!'
Inner transformation is the ultimate alchemy that we need; not magical powers.
Miracles are foolish. There is no miracle that you need to put your effort into and perform. Miracles are happening every minute around you. Existence is causing miracles in everything around you every minute. People ask me repeatedly to perform miracles. It is so pointless to do it. If I start performing these so-called miracles, people will come only for the magic show, not for real transformation. I once clapped my hands and produced a Lakshmi deity. I told the group that it is just a sleight of hand. I cannot create objects, I can only teleport them. I moved the idol from my room to where my hand was. The principle is similar to how waves move between cell phones and transport voice. I converted the idol matter into energy, teleported it, and reconverted energy to matter, that's all. It is a Science.
If all cell phones except two were destroyed, the owners of the two cell phones will become Gods! When we do not understand the cause, we call an incident a miracle. Personal transformation is the ultimate miracle that we can get from a master. I had a disciple, a magician, who used to produce vibhuti, (sacred ash that Hindus wear on their forehead and body), from my feet. I told him, 'You are doing what I cannot do!'
People asked me, 'How do we know that you moved the deity from your room?' I produced a mala (chain) and told them to check the stock in the store room; one was missing!
So coming back to alchemy, the alchemy of converting copper to gold, comprises three processes: removing base components, adding some components and processing it so that a base metal gets converted to gold.
What is lust? We only know how to reproduce; we do not know lust. When animals come together, they experience pure lust. They enjoy themselves. On the other hand, our lust is taken from imagination, from movies, from books; it is not natural. From early years, we form ideas about how our 'would be' should be. This spoils the relationship. We relate to a person in our imagination, not the real person in front of us. The real husband or wife becomes a poor substitute to what is in our mind, our cerebral layer, which leaves us with a feeling of being cheated. Males feel they are deprived. Females feel exploited, used, disrespected. Our lust and sex are made impure with the dirt of imagination. We relate with them only mentally. In the Shiva Sutras, which is a set of verses delivered by Shiva to His consort, he says: in bed, you are four, not two – the husband and his fantasy woman, and the wife and her fantasy man.
In ancient times, at forty years of age, lust and sex left the householder, because they had enjoyed these in totality when they indulged. In the Hindu wedding ceremony, in the sacred mantras chanted in front of the fire, the wife says to the husband, 'Become my eleventh son' and the husband says to the wife, 'Become my eleventh daughter.' In the eleventh year of their marriage, their intimacy is so great that they become each other's child. There is a deep intimacy; there is a wonderful relationship. These words were not poems to read; they were living guidelines.
These days, marital relationships are a business, for security or material benefits. We may live in the same home, but not in a homely way. Remove the imagination and dreams from your lust; about both, your partner's body and yours. Many of us are ashamed of our bodies; we hate them. All body pains and chronic skin diseases arise out of low self-esteem and disrespect to one's own body. We would like to be someone else all the time. We would like to shape our body and dress like someone else. We stop staying in our boundary because of this. Whenever we hear our name, we think of our face, never our whole body, because we are not comfortable with our bodies. When we try to copy others, when we try to imitate and do not accept ourselves fully, we can at best be beautiful, but never graceful. Grace comes from within. For the next few days, look at your body after your bath with love; feel comfortable. Our body oozes bliss all the time. Yet we feel only the pain. If we are relaxed with our own body, our mind will not wander. When we are at home, our mind is in the office and when we are working we wish we were at a party. The main reason for this wandering is that we are not comfortable with our body.
Tulsidas, the poet says in his Ramayana about Sita, 'When Sita entered Janaka's court, all the rishis (sages) including Vasishta the great writer, and her own father, stood up to pay their respect to this young princess; such was her overwhelming grace.' In Tantra meditation, they touch their body first thing in the morning after they wake up. Every point in the body, they touch with deep love, to allow the subtle body to settle into the gross physical body in a loving way.
We love somebody as long as that person does what we say. A mother says, 'I loved my daughter so deeply till she married somebody who was not of my choice.' Is this love? It is slavery to one's ego. As long as the daughter was an extension of her mother's personality, she felt love for the daughter. This is because, as of now, our love is actually lust which is only violence; deeply rooted violence. It may not be obvious; it may be subtle, but it is there. To own another person, to conquer another person while she resists, is war! Add friendliness to your relationship! Welcome and not just accept the partner as she is. Welcome and accept your own mind, body and being as it is.
You might think that you are very friendly with your own body. No, you are not. If you watch carefully, you will see that you disrespect and abuse your body. You stay up and watch television even if your body cries out for sleep. You keep on eating food even if your stomach is full. You smoke even if your lungs cry out. You drink till you are almost unconscious. Your body is a garbage dump. We are like the pigs that push their noses into filth when they don't want to smell the filth. We torture our bodies for what we feel is 'our enjoyment'.
We are so bothered about terrorism that happens outside. We ignore the violence at home and the violence against our own bodies. Sadism and masochism do not bother us like terrorism does. We torture ourselves with guilt; we torture others with our perfectionism.
A man once told me, 'My wife is a lawyer'. I asked him, 'Does she go to the courts?' The man replied, 'No master, she argues at home!'
Drop your imagination and dreams. Add friendliness towards yourself and others, towards their body, mind and being. Carry words with you that heal others. Carry your body in a way that it heals others. Carry friendliness with you always. This is a spiritual process. Carry the grace and goodwill of Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth) with you, instead of observing fasts and offering puja. Worshipping Lakshmi is alright, but the key is to become Lakshmi!
The first time you make an attempt to approach others with your friendliness, they may not receive you openly because of your past behavior. Persist and persevere. Don't stop even if others do not respond to the change in you. Carry on till others believe you and respond.
Drop all imagination about your body, mind and being, and others' body, mind and being; add friendliness towards yourself and others; persevere. Lust will turn to love. Your being will be in eternal bliss.
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