Monday 21 November 2011

Secrets Unveiled.....



Q: Guruji, sages have predicted our lives so accurately on palm leaves, Nadi Vidya. Is there really any role that I have in my life when everything already seems so predetermined? How does the path of sadhana change anything?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: See life is a mixture of accepting what is and wanting to make what you feel like having. It’s a mixture of both. You have an intention in your mind and that’s how you move on. See, you had an intention to come here and you came. But if you look into the past you say it is all determined, it is all destiny. That’s why I say a simple formula just listen to it. Look at the past as destiny so you will not keep regretting the past and see the future as free will so that you don’t procrastinate or become lethargic and say whatever, ‘god willing it will happen’. So you don’t become lethargic and do nothing if you consider the future as destiny. You should not say let’s leave it to destiny, no! The future is freewill, past is destiny and live in the present. This is wise way of living. Not so wise way is seeing the past as freewill and keep regretting about it, ‘oh I shouldn’t have done that’. Even after you became a medical graduate you say, ‘oh I should have taken engineering, I made a big blunder’. So you keep blaming yourself and keep regretting the past when you think the past was freewill. And you think future is all destiny, you want to leave everything to destiny and you just do nothing about it and you’ll be miserable in the present moment. This is the unwise way of living, got it?

Q: Dear Guruji, I understand from your knowledge that we have not one but several bodies. Can you please talk about subtle bodies and casual bodies? I’ve heard about them but I don’t know how or what they are.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Yes, physical body in the waking state. In the sleeping state physical body is at rest, the subtle is active; in the dreaming state and that is why you get dreams. In deep sleep both of these go to sleep but the casual body is still there awake, aware. And casual body becomes cleansed in deep meditation. And in enlightenment the casual body is completely free, yes. So when one dies what happens, physical body separates, the subtle body remains with all its impressions. The subtle body and casual body they both go like a balloon and remain and look for a right opportunity, a right womb to get into. So when the soul finds that the couple is having union and depends on the energy level and harmony between the couple and the energy level of the soul, at that moment it comes into that, so that type of parents. Sometimes the soul brings two people together. A soul chooses I want this lady and this man as my father and mother. So they bring those two people together and they will have terrible attraction, unbearable attraction. So the moment the child is born, you’ll find suddenly the attraction between those two people is gone totally, completely gone. This happens, and after the first child many people divorce. How many of you have seen this happening? This happens that intense feeling of separation comes and then you should know that the soul made this thing happen. It is so amazing; all these things are so interesting. On one hand it is amazing on another hand if you are not so much in the present moment you’ll go crazy, seeing how many subtle worlds we live in simultaneously.

Simultaneously how many things are happening in the universe, it’s very interesting! So you come into the physical body to cleanse the subtle body. There is no way you can cleanse the subtle body hanging in the space. So you come to human body so that you get rid of all those impressions. Once you have gotten rid of the subtle impressions in the subtle body then the casual body with the divine grace also becomes free, that is called Nirvana. No more craving or aversions, nothing, totally hallow and empty. Wanting nothing and totally satisfied. Anytime you feel that I am total, I am complete, death can come this moment I welcome it. If you say that, if you feel that rather than saying it then that completion is Nirvana. That has touched the casual body; the casual body gets relieved not by your effort but by just the Divine will and Divine grace. The universe decides that whether the casual body should be there or should be removed, should be dissolved. It’s amazing, you can work on the physical, and you can work on the subtle that’s all you can do. The rest you can only wait, but this itself is a great job, this itself is good enough.

Q: Guruji, when we die the body and breath are left behind and our mind, memory, soul are still together with the impressions. Do the intellect and ego also still stay with us? Can we use our intellect to calm our mind then?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The impressions of the intellect and the cravings and aversions of the mind go with the subtle body. So when you die what happens is for sometime the soul is in confusion, it does not know. It has just come out of the body but it does not know what to do. It doesn’t want to get into the body because the body appears like very gray matter, very dark and completely unbearable. So it doesn’t want to get into it, it feels very bad and averse to its’ own body most of the time. Sometimes they go in. So the soul is out there and very peaceful, the soul is totally at peace. They see people crying, wailing. It tries to tell them, ‘hey I am okay, don’t worry’, but they cannot communicate. There is a tradition to keep the light burning at the bedside of the body. It’s in Christian tradition as well, right? It’s in the Hindu tradition as well. Why you keep a light burning near the head so that when the soul suddenly looks at that light and knows that it is light. Let it be reminded that it is light, if it is still craving for something. Just to remind the soul that the nature of the soul or spirit is light, a lamp is kept or a candle is kept burning near the body. It’s not for us, it’s for the soul because the soul can still see, and smell. It has lost the sense of touch but smell and light are still there; smell, sight and sound all three will be there. So the ancient tradition is just before cremation the son or daughter; son usually, takes the head of the person into his lap and in the ear he says, ‘you are light, you are soul, you are not the body. Drop all your attachment to this body’, he tells them. And then the body is given a bath and then taken to cremation. These words are all in Sanskrit, and people simply repeat it in Sanskrit without knowing it because the priests tell them to say these things. To tell the departed in his ear that, ‘the five elements will go back to five elements. You are not just these five elements you are light, you are soul, you are spirit, you’re free and you move on now.’ This is what you say in the ear of the corpse, in case the soul is still hanging around and it does. It does hang around because it doesn’t know what to do. So it takes nearly ten days for the soul to get use to this other plain where it has gone. And once it reaches that plain of ancestors, one day there is one year for us. Our one year is just one day and one night for them in that realm. So there are three levels or lokas there also; one is Vasuloka, second is Rudra, and then Aditya. Three lokas are there and so they remain in this for some time. And there are three different Devas, they take them to those places. Someone who is a pious and died in a very good life they are taken direct to these lokas and three angels called Pururava, Ardrahva, and Vishvadeva. Three different Devas come and take the soul according to the level. It’s interesting! So in a yearly ceremony that is done, the day you remember the ancestors. First you invite these angels to bring them to you, for you want to honor them. These angels, they are the custodians. So you tell them ‘Visvadeva you bring my father, my mother or my grandfather or grandmother for this ceremony. Bring them for I would like to honor them.’ Ancient people knew all these so well, they had access to those realms. Even today people do this, they do the ceremonies and they do all this.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Consciousness...It is all about raising your Vibration


10 Ways to Raise your Vibration

1.Forgive yourself and others:
Life is too short to hold on to regrets, grudges, miscommunications, or disappointments. Free yourself by forgiving and letting go of any negative energy you’re holding on to about yourself or others. The process of forgiving yourself and others will result in your feeling light and free; it will raise your vibration.

2. Practice gratitude and appreciation:
Whatever you focus on grows. So, when you focus on every thing in your life you feel grateful for all and the wonderful people you appreciate, the universe hands you more to feel grateful about.

3. Live each day as though it were your last:
Then you will be living in a state of light, love and unconditional
contribution. What would you say to the people you care about ..

4.Meditate or pray:
You open up a direct link between yourself and the spiritual realm when you meditate or pray. You will come closer to your creator energy, raise your vibration experience, peace, clarity, joy and connection, as well as a perfectly balanced state between your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual realms.

5.Suspend judgment:
One judges another to feel less guilty about one’s own misgivings. Judgment energy is dense, dark and heavy. On the other hand, unconditional acceptance is light, free and accepting. Let go of judging and criticising yourself and others. Everyone is on a different path and some appear to be farther ahead on their path than others. Neither path is better nor worse than another. Raise your consciousness to one of acceptance.

6. View every experience as a gift:
If you look back at occurrences in your life, you can easily see how even the worst situations you experienced in your life ended up teaching you invaluable lessons and therefore resulted in putting you in perfect place for your continuing development. When you view every experience — the good, the bad, and the ugly — as a gift, life flows more like a gentle, inspiring breeze.

7. Stay consciously aware of all your thoughts and feelings:
It is easy to fall into negative patterns of complaining and feeling like a victim of society and your life. When you catch yourself in the negative zone, don’t feel badly about it and beat yourself up. Simply choose to switch your consciousness to one of gratitude and positive thinking.

8. Treat your physical body as your temple :
Your body is the only vehicle you’ve been given for this ride called life. The better you care for your body by eating a healthy, balanced diet, and by implementing a regular exercise routine, and by giving your body the rest it requires, the more you will experience increased energy, vitality, joy and freedom.

9. View the world through the eyes of a child:
Children are enthralled by the process of observing and experiencing the wonder and beauty in every single thing. They can’t get enough. Look at every tree, sunset, cloud and human being as a child would and you'll be in a constant state of wonder, joy, surprise, acceptance and enlightenment.

10.Give love, love, love from your heart:
It’s all about love. Love is the highest vibration. Allow yourself to receive love unconditionally from others. Give love from your heart unconditionally to yourself and others and you will experience the highest state of consciousness possible.

The Path of Surrender




"On the path of will there are methods, on the path of surrender, surrender itself is the method. All methods are nonsurrendering, because a method means depending on yourself. On the path of surrender you are no more, so you cannot do anything. You have done the ultimate, the last; you have surrendered. You surrender only when every method has become futile, when you cannot reach by any method. You have tried your best. You have knocked on every door and no door opens, and you have passed through all the routes and no route reaches. You have done whatsoever you can do and now you feel helpless. In that total helplessness surrender happens.

But what is surrender and how does it work? Methods are not difficult, you can train yourself. But for surrender you cannot train yourself. You cannot ask how to surrender; the very question is absurd. Can you ask how to love? Either there is love or there is not. Once a technique is given to you, you will cling to the technique. Love is being totally open, vulnerable. Love happens, surrender happens. Love and surrender are deeply one.

How is it that you have not surrendered yet? What is your technique of nonsurrendering? If you have not fallen in love yet, then the real problem is not how to love. The real problem is to dig deep to find out how you have lived without love, what is your trick, what is your defense structure. That can be understood and should be understood.

First thing: we live with the ego, in the ego, centered in the ego. I am, without knowing who I am. I go on announcing, ‘I am’. This ‘I-am-ness is false, because I do not know who I am. This false ‘I’ is the ego.  This is the defense. This protects your  from surrendering.

You cannot surrender, but you can become aware of this defense measure. If you have become aware of it, it dissolves. By and by, you are not strengthening it, and one day you come to feel, ‘I am not’. The moment you feel ‘I am not’, surrender happens. So try to find out whether you are. Really, is there a centre in you that you can call you call your ‘I’? Go deep down within yourself, go on trying to find out where is this ‘I’, where is the abode of this ego.

Rinzai went to his master and he said, “Give me freedom!” The master said, “Bring yourself. I you are, I will make you free. But if you are not, then how can I make you free? You are already free. And freedom is freedom from ‘you’. So go on and find out where this ‘I’ is, where you are, then come to me. This is the meditation. Go and meditate.”

So the disciple Rinzai goes and meditates for weeks, months, and then he comes. Then he says, “I am not the body. Only this much I have found out.”

So the master says, “This much you have become free. Go again. Try to find out.”

Then he tries, meditates, and he finds that “I am not my mind, because I can observe my thoughts. So the observer is different from the observed – I am not my mind.”
So his master says, “Now you are three-fourths liberated. Now go again and find out who you are.”
So he was thinking, “I am not my body. I am not my mind.” He had read, studied, he was well informed, so he was thinking, “I am not my body, not my mind, so I must be my soul, my atma.” But he meditated, and then he found that there is no atma, no soul, because his atma is nothing but your mental information – just doctrines, words, philosophies.
So he came running one day and he said, “Now I am no more!”

Then his master said, “Am I now to teach you the methods of freedom?”
Rinzai said, “I am free because I am no more. There is no one to be in bondage. I am just a wide emptiness, a nothingness.”

Only nothingness can be free. If you are something, you will be in bondage. If you are you will be in bondage. Only a void, a vacant space, can be free. Then you cannot bind it. Rinzai came running and said, “I am no more. Nowhere I am to be found.” This is freedom. And for the first time he touched his master’s feet – for the first time!

Not actually, because he had touched them many times before also. But the master said, “For the first time you have touched my feet.”

Rinzai asked, “Why do you say for the first time? I have touched your feet many times.” The master said, “But you were there, so how could you touch my feet while you were already there? While you were there how can you touch my feet?”

The ‘I’ can never touch anybody’s feet, it’s touching it’s own feet in a roundabout way. “You have touched my feet for the first time because you are no more. And this is also the last time”, the master said. “The first and the last.”

Surrender happens when you are no more, so you can not surrender. That is why surrender cannot be a technique. You cannot surrender, you are the hindrance. So you and surrender cannot coexist. So find out where you are, who you are. This inquiry creates many, many surprising results. “Who am I?” is an inquiry to dissolve. There is not going to be an answer, that “You are this.” Only the question will dissolve. There will be no one to ask even “Who am I?” And then you know.

When the ‘I’ is not, the real ‘I’ opens. When the ego is not, you are for the first time encountering your being. That being is void. Then you can surrender; then you have surrendered. You are surrender now.
When you surrender you become a valley; when you are an ego you are like a peak. Ego means you are above everyone else, you are somebody. When one surrenders, one becomes like a valley. One becomes depth, not height. Then the whole existence begins to pour into him from everywhere. He is just a vacuum, just a depth, an abyss, bottomless. The whole existence begins to pour from everywhere. You can say God runs from everywhere to him, enters him from every pore, fills him totally.

There are minor surrenders; there are major surrenders. Surrendering to a master is a minor surrender, but you begin to feel it because the master begins to flow into you immediately. If you surrender to a master, suddenly you feel his energy flowing into you. If you cannot feel energy flowing into you, then know well you have not surrendered even in a minor way. Even a look from the master into your eyes will change your total being, but it can change only if your eyes are just vacant, valleylike. If you can absorb the look of the master, immediately you will be different.

So these are the minor surrenders that happen before you surrender totally. .  Once you have known that through surrender you receive something unknown, unbelievable, unexpected, then you are ready for a major surrender.
And these minor surrenders prepare you for the total surrender. The master helps you in minor surrenders so that you can gather courage for a major surrender, total surrender.."

 From the 'Book of Secrets'
 Shared by Mrs Seema Kalia