In Sanskrit, there is a beautiful word called Maya, which means illusion. Philosophers say that the world is just an illusion. We find it very difficult to accept this. How can we believe that what we see, touch, feel is just an illusion when there is a physical reality to it?

A small story:

Once, a philosopher was explaining to a man that the whole world is just an illusion. The man got angry thinking that the philosopher was just trying to fool him into thinking that what he could see with his eyes and feel with his touch was all his hallucination. He picked up a stone and threw it at the philosopher’s foot. The philosopher shrieked in pain.

The man retorted, ‘Why are you yelling? Isn’t this world just an illusion? How are you then feeling pain?’

The concept of illusion has to be clearly understood. What we see is difficult to accept as illusion. That is why, in the East, we have a term to describe this: Maya. Ya ma iti maya: that which is not there but which disturbs you as if it is there is maya. We do not see reality as it is but we see it through our lens of past and future.

We associate the reality with our past and extrapolate the future from it. We are not able to view it in an unbiased fashion. Just like how the sky is untouched by the clouds moving in front of it, in the same way, your true Self is untouched and separate from your body or mind or thoughts. It is something beyond these. Maya makes you believe that you are just the body or the mind. It limits the true and eternal You to the ephemeral body and the transient mind.

The Paramahamsa Upanishad, one of the Hindu scriptures that defines the qualities of an enlightened Master says, ‘What is the state of the illumined man? All selfish attachments have dropped from him. He lives his life for the welfare of all. He faces heat and cold, pleasure and pain, honor and dishonor with equal calm. Free from the sway of doubt and false knowledge, he lives united with the Lord of Love. Entering the non-dual state, he attains the goals of evolution.’

When you are under the sway of illusion it does not mean that the world itself is an illusion. It means that what you see is illusory because what you see is different from reality; what you see is a mere projection of your mind and your mind is only a collection of thoughts, which in turn is a collection of deductions based on past happenings and ideas instilled in you by others. This is what is meant by illusion. What you create with your mind, with your set of instilled beliefs causes you to see the world in a particular way. That is the illusion that you are experiencing.

Each one experiences things in their own way, through their own illusion. That is why although the world is the same, people’s experience of it differs. Each one has his or her own illusory view of life. Illusion or Maya has to be understood in this fashion.

All forms of duality, such as pain or pleasure, happiness or joy, are projections of this illusion. That is why an enlightened person who is believed to be out of illusion, experiences permanent bliss and none of these conflicting emotions.

When the great Master, Lord Krishna says in the timeless piece of philosophy and poetry, the Bhagavad Gita, ‘The true yogi or spiritually evolved person is wide awake when the world sleeps’, he does not mean in the literal sense that the enlightened person is awake when the world is sleeping at night. What He means is that the enlightened person has broken the veil of illusion and he realizes that the perceptions of the opposites are only transient and not the Truth. So, he is not swayed by the opposites. He is no longer in the dream world that most of us are living in.

Legend has it that Janaka, a ruler in ancient India, who was a highly learned sage as well, had a person going around his capital, Mithila, shouting: Jagrat! Jagrat! many times a day. This means: Wake up! Wake up! Not only did his subjects need to be woken up from physical sleep, but also prodded into wakefulness and awareness from their unconscious and subconscious. Do not think that you dream only when you are sleeping. Even in the waking state, you are weaving your dreams of the future and are not aware or conscious of the present. Everyone is in his own dream world, his own version of reality, which is nowhere close to the actual reality.

When you realize this consciously and break out of it, you will find that the entire Existence is so beautiful; it is God and you are God because the entire Existence is one. During nighttime, we are aware that we are dreaming, during daytime we are not aware that we are dreaming, that is the only difference. With fantasy, we are not just limiting ourselves, but are actually disrespecting ourselves. When you feel someone is more handsome than you are, you create a space, a gap between you and your body. You lose your uniqueness. You create dis-ease within yourself. God is not an engineer; he is an artist; he is a painter, a sculptor; no one being is like another because God has created each of us in a unique way.

When you see some hero on the television flexing his muscles, you yearn to be just like him. I am not saying that the desire to be physically fit is bad in itself. But, when you start being driven by the desire to look like someone else, you create a rift in your being, a wound in your being. Do not impose limits and thresholds and standards on yourself based on others. Compare yourself with your own self and see how you can better your standards and raise the bar. When you are thinking about others all the time, you are in the past or in the future, with your fantasy. When you are in your own boundary, you are in the present.

Living in the present moment is the missing link that helps you to traverse the horizontal and vertical lines at the same time and space.

Every moment is a possibility that you can explode in all directions. In quantum spirituality, there is no attachment or detachment. If you are not in awareness, you detach and attach. When you are in awareness, there is no attachment or detachment. You simply are, that’s all. You will not even be able to associate yourself with these opposites. Read more: Bliss is the Goal and the Path by by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Nice question. The very idea that the person is not qualified for a spiritual opening or a spiritual awakening was created by the priests. If you are alive, that is enough; that qualification is enough for a spiritual awakening.

Small story:

Somebody went to Ramana Maharshi and asked, ‘Bhagwan, am I qualified for spiritual progress; am I qualified for the spiritual line?’

Ramana Maharishi asked, ‘Are you alive?’ The disciple said, ‘Yes, of course.’ ‘Then you are qualified enough,’ replied Ramana.

It is only the priests who created this idea to exploit the public.

You see: if you are not held in guilt, if you are not kept one step lower on the pedestal, you do not obey. Just to exploit people, the idea of qualification was created. The very basic thing, which has killed intelligence, which has killed spirituality, is this business of qualification; the idea of qualification. You can never find anybody who feels they are qualified. Even after hundreds of years of practice, you will wonder whether you are qualified or not. I don’t know why! This is because guilt has been implanted in you. Be very clear, wherever you live, you are qualified. If you think you are alive, that is enough; you are qualified. The idea of qualification was brought in just to exploit you mentally.

Small story:

A man goes to a master with the same question, ‘Master, am I qualified for the spiritual progress? I feel there are so many obstructions.’

The master replies, ‘The word ‘obstruction’ is the only obstruction, nothing else.’

The word ‘obstruction’ is the only obstruction to spiritual life, because each and every being is potentially divine. When a person is already potentially divine, how can you say that he needs some other qualification? All the rules are there merely to instill guilt in the other person, just to keep him on a lower step. Otherwise there is nothing like qualification. If you need to have a qualification, what is the purpose of spirituality?

Somebody came and told me, ‘Master, I have never practised ayama and niyama.’

In Patanjali’s yoga system the first step is ayama. Ayama means – brahmacharya, ahimsa, satya, apaikara and astheiya. These great vows – celibacy, non-violence, truth, non-stealing and non-possessiveness are the ones you need to practise, and only then are you qualified for yoga.

Somebody came and asked, ‘I am not qualified in all these five things. How can I enter into yoga?’

I said, ‘If you are qualified in all these five things, you don’t need yoga!’

Both maturity and meditation help each other. Maturity gives you energy and energy gives you maturity. At first, you start wherever you are, that’s enough. You will see that the ball rolls. Read more: Uncommon Answers to Common Questions by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

When we enter into the dream layer and start dreaming, we have seen that this whole world in which you live in now becomes black and white because we are in the dream world. We forget this whole world and the dream world becomes multicolour. If we come out of the dream, this whole world is again seen in 4 dimensions, like 4D.

Now, when we are in this physical layer, this whole world is seen as 4D. We experience this world as 4D, in multi-colour.

When we are in the dream world, we experience that world as 4D. So, when we are here, the dream world becomes black and white, and this world becomes 4D, and when we are there, the dream becomes 4D, and this world becomes black and white.

In the same way, when we move away from the physical layer to the pranic layer at the time of death, this whole world will become black and white. All of your achievements, your pride, your efforts, your sorrow, your happiness, everything will appear in black and white. You will wonder ‘Why did I do all this work? Why did I think of all this as a base for my life?’

Let me explain why this happens. When we are alive we invest in our personality; we build up our personality based upon a few pillars. There are a few pillars or foundations on which we build our personality. Those pillars are money, name and fame, relationships, pride that we have a big community, support circle, etc.

If somebody asks you, ‘Who are you?’ what will you say? ‘I am an engineer’, ‘I am a doctor’, ‘I am a lawyer’. Or you will say, ‘I am the owner of four houses.’ Or, ‘I am such and such a person’s husband or wife’, or ‘I am her husband’, or somebody’s son, or somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s wife. Our personality is built on these few foundations.

When we move from the physical body, all these foundations will be completely shaken. We can’t sign our name on our cheques any more. Our signature is not accepted. Our bank balance is no more related to us. We can’t handle our bank account. Our car will not be useful to us. At the most, only the ambulance will be useful! Our house will be filled with all our relatives. They will be weeping to see us dead. But neither our house nor our relatives will be useful to us. We can’t even relate with our relatives. We can’t talk to any of them. If we try to, they will run away!

But who will come after that? Nobody! Nobody can come. Only the conscious glimpse can come with you. In this way, whatever is the foundation for your being, that whole foundation will be shaken. When the foundation is shaken, naturally you don’t have anything to hold on to.

So understand that when something moves away from us, our whole body suffers. When we move away from the physical body the same suffering starts happening in us. Whatever we thought was a foundation for our life is shaken. Everything will be totally shaken and appear as black and white! At that time, they will not have any basis at all. In them, we will not be able to find any space where we can rest. That is the reason why death is always a suffering. But at that moment, if we can have a conscious glimpse, or glimpse of consciousness from our past, then we can consciously enter into death!

Let me explain further. If we understand this concept completely, we will not develop attachment to whatever we think of as 4D. We may enjoy them but our personality will not be built on the outer space – our name, our fame, what society speaks about us, etc.. We will become intelligent, and when we are living, we will create at least one part of the foundation or one pillar in the other dimension that is spirituality!

That is what the Bhagavad Gita says: what comes and stands in our mind at the time of leaving the body will alone decide about our next birth or enlightenment. If we have at least one pillar on consciousness, naturally we will not have suffering when we leave the body.

As of now we have no pillar to take us through, that is the problem. As of now, our whole personality is based on the outer space. All our pillars are made up of what we think is 4D now. And there is no inner space for us either. That is why, like a football, people can kick us from corner to corner in the outer space. Anybody can just throw one word towards us to make us depressed. If somebody says we are mad, we shout at them and prove that we are mad! A single word is enough to make us mad. Nothing much is necessary. We are almost like the street dogs – if we just throw one stone at it, it becomes mad. If anybody throws one word at us, it is enough to make us mad or depressed. This happens only because we don’t have strength in the inner space. Please understand that if we build at least one pillar based on our inner space, this pillar will shine in 4D at the time of death and help us leave the body beautifully. Read more: The Door to Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

From time immemorial, human beings have been constantly searching for miracles, extraordinary happenings. Almost all religions or spiritual societies have answers for the multitude of happenings which are beyond the scope of logic. Incidents that we cannot explain logically, we term as miracles. Simply because we cannot or do not need to explain them or understand them, we start calling them miracles.

Whenever a miracle was understood and explained, a new religion came into being. The search and effort to seek solutions or to demystify the happenings beyond logic resulted in the formation of new religions and an understanding of these energies.

Miracle is only ‘cause and effect’. Let us look beyond it by first understanding the word ‘miracle’. Patanjali, the greatest spiritual navigator ever, declared emphatically that there is no phenomenon on the planet Earth called miracle, as every happening is clearly due to a cause and its effect. If the cause is unknown, it is understood to be a miracle.

One of Patanjali’s major contributions to mankind was to show how spirituality is a science by itself. Man by nature has a curiosity for the extraordinary and the supernatural which he cannot understand. Patanjali for the first time showed scientifically how these events happen, what kind of power can be achieved by understanding these events and which techniques yield the various kinds of power. He first taught how miraculous powers could be achieved and then proceeded to demonstrate that whatever then happened was a miracle.

He has given us a two-pronged solution for life. First, he showed us the power to achieve miracles and next, the technique to see everything in life as a miracle. One can adopt any one of two lifestyles: either to live as if there were no miracles in life or to live as if everything was a miracle. Patanjali has explained both kinds of lifestyles.

The search for miracles can create inquisitiveness or an idea that there is something beyond what is perceived or understood by our five senses. It can serve as an inspiration to look for the extraordinary. This slowly and inevitably leads one to the conclusion that it is necessary to look beyond the miracle. But the search for miracles in itself, as an end by itself, is of no use.

Go beyond shakti – power to buddhi – intelligence!

A miracle is nothing but the power or shakti to make dreams into a reality. Next is buddhi or the intelligence to realize that what is perceived as reality is actually a dream. Our search is right if it begins with shakti and eventually leads us to buddhi. If our search stops with the achievement of powers to perform miracles, we have missed the real miracle, which is the ‘happening of Existence’ or the universe. The greatest miracle is in realizing the universe in our being.

The past and future are mere projections of the present. When we get onto the path of our inner journey, we will encounter miraculous powers at several stages, but if our energy settles at a certain step of intelligence, we will get the power of intuition, which is the power to see things happening before they actually happen. This is not the end of journey; this is only like a signboard to tell us that we are on the right path. It is easy to stop here and think that we have achieved. No! We should move forward.

Whatever we analyze as past or future is actually a projection of the present. There is a new theory in physics – the parallel universe theory. It says that if there is a black hole happening somewhere in the universe, there is also a big bang happening simultaneously elsewhere. But we don’t know this fact so we analyze the two of them as independent events and not as projections of the moment, the present. Two events happening are invariably simply a cause and effect happening. Because of a certain cause that happens, a certain effect happens, that’s all. It has been concluded that even the movement of an atom has an opposite reaction elsewhere in the universe. If this concept is understood, you will also realize that the future and past are not independent of each other, but deeply related to the present.

Try to conceptualize time as a horizontal shaft, the past and future at its two ends with the present in the center. We never really touch the shaft but are always pulled either to the past or to the future. We always live either in the past or in the future, never in the present. When we live in the present, we touch the time shaft. Eternity is the past, present and future. We can touch eternity only when we are in the present moment. When we do so, we understand that the past and future are not independent of the present but merely extensions of it.

For example, there may have been instances when the present situation appears to be very familiar to us as if it happened earlier in our life, an incident of ‘déjà vu’, as they say. This happens to us when we fall into the present moment at least once, when our consciousness drops into the present moment. In those moments, we get a glimpse of the immediate future and because of this, we feel as if the same situation has happened already. The truth is, at that moment we touch the time shaft. We experience the whole universe as a projection of the present moment, that the past and future are deeply dependent on it. We try to understand the bridge between the past and future, but we always miss the present moment.

We try to find solutions in life by trying to alter the past or mould the future. This exercise is pointless as we have no control over the past or the future. If we do something in the present moment, we can alter the future or prevent the past from bothering us; but this is something we never do. If we played with the present moment, we can play with life itself! We can play with the whole of Existence! Doing something related to the present moment is meditation. Any technique, be it eating or walking, which brings us to the present moment is meditation. Our problems can be solved only being in the present moment. Any technique that brings us to the present moment is good enough. Read more: So You Want to Know the Truth by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Our body has tremendous intelligence, gathered over 600 million years of evolution.

The processes we usually call ‘conscious processes’ are the ones controlled by our central nervous system – the brain and the spinal cord. This includes voluntary actions, thinking, and so on. But conscious processes are a small minority of the action that is going on in our body! The vast majority of the processes are ‘unconscious’, and are mostly controlled by the autonomous nervous system. These processes, like breathing, digesting food, keeping our balance when we walk, all run beautifully without our control or even our awareness. Imagine, if we had to worry about running our bodies, we would never get anything else done!

How do you think all this happens?

This is the miracle of body intelligence.

Just watch your body!

Every single cell in your body is gifted with the intelligence to carry on its own unique functions. When an infection attacks the body, your white blood cells swing into action on their own, long before you are even aware of the danger.

But the sad truth is, we have lost trust in our own body wisdom!

The day you have a cold, or feel a headache coming up, you automatically pop a pill. Why? Don’t you see, your body is carrying on the work of a huge industrial plant! It is an ecosystem in itself. When your body can digest food, pump blood and fight infections on a regular basis, can’t it heal a simple headache on its own?

If you enter the amazingly complex world of DNA, you will see that your emotions, your memories, even your opinions are strongly controlled by your body! DNA are the carriers of our genetic code. They carry imprints not only of physical characteristics, but also of mental states. Geneticists say that every person has a unique perception of the world that is built up by his DNA!

Not only does the body influence the mind, the mind also exerts tremendous influence on the body.

A person who has been cured of a disease, or rehabilitated after a drug addiction, still carries some memories of the disease in his body. In the same way, if you worry constantly, the negativity triggered by the worries can solidify in your body and being. This is what we call depression. That’s why depressed people often can’t tell why they are depressed. Long after the problem has been solved, the stress associated with it remains in their memory as an energy blockage, both physical and mental.

Not just depression, but practically every disease is equally influenced by both body and mind. In fact, over 85% of our diseases are psychosomatic in nature. Not just headaches or heart disease, but peptic ulcers, skin and respiratory allergies, even cancer is influenced by our thinking.

The mind has unimaginable power to cause or cure physical ailments!

An experiment was performed in Japan on a group of people who were allergic to a certain plant. The participants were blindfolded and leaves from different plants were placed upon their skin. Each time, the researchers told the participants which leaf they were placing on them. Amazingly, they found that in most cases the allergy was caused by the mention of the name of the plant, rather than by the actual plant. When they placed the allergy-causing leaf on the skin, but told the patient it was a harmless leaf, the subject did not develop the allergy. On the other hand, even if a harmless leaf was placed on the skin, and the subject was told that it was the allergy-causing leaf, he would instantly break out in a rash!

In another amazing experiment with a boy having multiple personalities, psychologist Daniel Goleman found that the boy’s allergies could be switched on and off depending on which personality was dominant at that time! The same mind would give the body orders to act allergic or non-allergic, depending on which reaction suited that particular personality.

Modern medical science uses techniques like the PET scan to track chemical changes in your brain under different circumstances.

Researchers have found that each time you recall a different memory, or experience a strong emotion, it triggers a different chemical pattern in your brain.

Not just that, the news spreads throughout your body immediately. Whether you are feeling happy, angry or sad, a signal is sent out instantly to every cell in your body. So your body is actually a changing reflection of what you are thinking at that moment!

Just like psychosomatic diseases show us how our unconscious mind controls our conscious functions, meditation teaches us how to use the conscious mind to control ‘unconscious’ functions. In yoga and Zen, there are techniques by which you can consciously control your pulse rate, digestion, metabolism, body temperature and even your degree of sensitivity to pain!

Actually, there is nothing miraculous about these phenomena. They appear miraculous to us only because we are unaware of the deep

relationship that exists between our body and mind.

Both body and mind are only expressions of the same Consciousness. They cannot, and do not function separately. Unless we respect both equally, we can never be complete, integrated individuals. Read more: Open the Door… Let the Breeze in! by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Meditation is not against action!

Once you learn the knack of remaining undisturbed in your being, you can perform any number of tasks while remaining in the same state. Whether you perform action or remain inactive is irrelevant.

This is a two-step process. First, you need to get in touch with your inner being. For that, you have to first realize that such a thing exists! Learn to enjoy the state of just being. Initially, you will do this only for half an hour or one hour everyday – when you sit down to meditate. Once this state happens in you comfortably, you will automatically extend it to periods outside of the formal meditation period.

You can start with small tasks like trying to remain centered, even as you are eating, walking, washing dishes etc. Once you do this, you can move to more complicated tasks.

Externally, your life goes on in a normal manner. In fact, you can carry your life in a much better way – because now you have greater clarity, greater intensity. You will be more aware, more creative.

Yet internally, you will experience a deep and undisturbed silence. Because you are no longer doing – you are watching.

This is the secret of meditation – to become the watcher, to become the witness of your own actions and emotions.

As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame. That is the real you! The real you can never be touched. The rest is just a personality you have formed around yourself. Once you become aware that the real you is not the one who works, that the real you is not the one who feels angry or hurt or depressed – you experience a tremendous sense of freedom. This will happen through meditation.

Meditation offers you the ultimate freedom – freedom from yourself, freedom from the bounds of ‘personality’ that you have created for yourself. Read more: Meditation is for You  by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Beloved Master,

When I sit in Your presence during Your discourses, when I hear You talking about silence and attaining, I feel blessed. Sometimes, silence even happens. But here is my problem: the moment You leave, my inner chattering starts again. When I meditate in Your presence, my mind is silenced so easily, but when I meditate on my own, I don’t feel the same silence at all. Is this what usually happens in a Master/disciple relationship?

Understand: it is completely natural to fall into silence in the presence of the master. It is because the master is silence himself. He is the ultimate silence. He radiates it.

Being with the master will bring immense silence. It is bound to happen. What exactly does being in the presence of the master mean? It is being with someone that you trust. There is a deep love; a love from a completely different plane. It means being with someone who will take you into the unknown. You will simply forget yourself in his presence.

So naturally, you will fall into silence. There is nothing that can be done about it! Whether you want it or not, the master’s silence will continue to embrace you! His silence is contagious; nothing can be done!

All of this is beautiful. But because it is disappearing without the master, be clear, it is not your own. Silence has to happen to you in your aloneness; only then can you call it your own. Otherwise it is just the master’s reflection projected onto you. It is like you are overwhelmed and in this overwhelmed state, the master’s silence is coming into you. Yes, when in the master’s presence you are having a glimpse of silence; that is okay. But you must experience your own silence to really call it silence.

One thing must be clearly understood: the silence that you are experiencing near the master is just a reminder that you too can experience the same type of silence.

You see: this is not just a glimpse for you to enjoy and move on. It is not there for you to just enjoy and say, ‘How beautiful!’ No! It is there for you to gain the understanding that the same thing can happen in you all the time.

As of now, you are existing in your body; you are existing in your mind. But your center is completely different from the two. Your center has a completely different quality. It is its very nature to be silent. It is its very nature to be immersed in stillness.

The problem is that now we have become confused. Because of being caught up with the mind, we are not able to tell the difference between ‘me’ and ‘I’. This ‘me’ is the real you. It is your birthright. But it is this ‘I’ that causes all the problems!

How to come out of this?

Meditation is all that is needed. Awareness is the only key. Again and again, I give you the same technique: just watch yourself. Don’t drag behind a thought; don’t try to stop a thought from coming. Let everything happen as it is supposed to; you just watch. Whether a thought is negative or positive shouldn’t be your business at all. Just remain cool and untouched. You will be surprised about what will come.

When you become just a witness, the number of thoughts slowly begin to decrease. The gap between thoughts becomes greater and greater. These gaps hold so much silence within them. But when your thoughts slowly begin to decrease, what will you do? You will think, ‘Good job!’ Don’t do this, because it is just one more thought.

The longer you go on witnessing, the bigger these gaps become. And finally, the thoughts will cease. You will be in silence all the time. Now, it has become your silence. Now your silence and the master’s silence have become one. Now you don’t depend on the master to give you silence. The silence will be with you always. Read more: The Only Way Out is IN by Pramahamsa Nithyananda.

Worry is what happens when you constantly compare yourself against external frames of reference and continuously chatter to yourself about it. Over time, this sets in as your mental make-up. Your very mental make-up becomes worry.

You will think: Am I doing as well as my neighbors? How can I impress my boss? What will my children think? All the time, we need to get approval from others – whether it is family or work or society. This is a major portion of our worry.

Our whole life is nothing but a process of collecting certificates from others. If others don’t keep giving us certificates like Good Husband, Good Employee, Good Neighbor, we worry that our life has become worthless. We form our personality only from others’ certificates. We have all stopped trusting ourselves; that is the problem.

As a child, each of us is strongly centered in our own being. Have you ever seen any child worrying about what people will think of him? No! A child is beautiful because he has no worries. He is not worried about what others will say about him. As we grow up, society teaches us to evaluate ourselves by the ideas and opinions of others. Society makes us dependent on external support, certificates from others, for each of our actions and words. This is why we are all the time worried about what others will say about us.

Also, when you worry about something, you feel you have a definite point of reference against which to run your life. That is why worrying gives a direction to your life. Without worry, you feel as if you have no axis about which to move. And so you actually nurture your worries.

Let me tell you a small story:

Three men were sitting abandoned on an island. They did not know for how many years they had been there. Suddenly, one of them found a bottle and picked it up. He rubbed his hands over it, and suddenly a genie appeared out of it.

They were shocked.

The genie told them, ‘Thank you for freeing me from this bottle. Each of you may ask for a wish and I will grant it for you.’ They were very excited and they thought for a while.

The first man said, ‘I want to marry my girlfriend and live happily.’ The genie said, ‘Alright, your wish will come true.’ The first man disappeared from the island and the genie looked at the second man.

The second man said, ‘I want to become a wealthy businessman.’ The genie said, ‘Alright, your wish will be granted.’ The second man disappeared and the genie asked the third man what he wanted.

The third man said, ‘I am going to miss my two friends who have been with me all these years. I want to be with them!’ The genie said, ‘Alright,’ and it disappeared, leaving the three men just as they had been on the abandoned island!

The third was actually attached to his worry which is being marooned in the island! This is what I mean when I say we are so fond of our worries! We claim that they give us misery but we are so attached to them. People come to me and say, ‘Swamiji, my business is going from bad to worse. Last month I suffered heavy losses and the next month I know it’s going to be even worse.’

I ask them, ‘If you already know that, why don’t you close down your business right away? Why should you suffer?’ But they are shocked. They ask in disbelief, ‘What are you saying, Swamiji? What will I do then?’ The moment I give a solution for your worry, you are shaken because without a reason to worry, your ego loses its reason for existence! That is why you choose to remain in the dimension of worry. When you are in worry, you feel you are someone. You feel solid. Whereas, when you are free from worrying, you are in bliss, but in this dimension you are nobody! There is no material to keep you occupied. There is nothing to solve. You feel insecure, like a non-entity. That is why I tell you, to enjoy a worry-less state, you need to first drop your ego about wanting to be a solid entity. And the thing about worrying is, first of all, worry itself is your decision to give food to the mind and keep it occupied. On top of this, each person thinks that only he has got a lot of worries and that only he is unhappy, and everyone else is very happy! But the strange thing is, everyone thinks this way! Read more: Guaranteed Solutions for Lust, Worry, Fear… by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Contrary to what we think or understand, home is not a place where you just live. Understand clearly, home is not the place where you live; it is the way in which you live.

Home is an expansion or extension of your being. That is the concept on which the science of Vastu Shastra is based. This science is a branch of Hindu Vedic Science that explains the ways and methods of how a dwelling should be constructed. It is based on the basic five elements in the Universe. As we all know, the five elements of the universal energy (known as panchabhootas in Sanskrit), are Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether (or Space). All the five elements are nothing but forms of the Existential energy.

In the Hindu scriptural works, the Upanishad, it is said, ‘The whole Universe comes from Energy.’ It comes from the Atman (Existence residing in each individual). From Atman comes Akasha (ether), from Akasha comes Vayu (air), from Vayu comes Agni (fire), from Agni comes Apaha (water) and from Apaha comes Prithvi (Earth). All these five elements are pure energy and not matter, as we think they are.

Only now, scientists have turned towards spirituality for explanations such as this. Einstein once said, ‘What I want to know is God’s thoughts, the rest are mere details!’ Einstein was an intelligent man. Before Einstein, scientists dismissed spiritual people as fools or as people who had lost the faculties of their mind. Scientists are so used to working on the basis of logic that they think of ancient Masters as fools or humbugs. In fact, some of the philosophical books classify strong religious faith, spiritual experiences and consciousness as mental disorders of some kind.

For a long time, the logical world thought of the sages, rishis, as mentally sick people and whose words had no relevance in the modern day-to-day world. Their sayings were ridiculed as superstition or senseless rituals. Ironically, it was after a few statements that Einstein made on spirituality and on God, that the logical scientific world turned towards the Upanishads, ancient Hindu scriptures.

Einstein said, ‘Whatever exists is nothing but pure energy.’ The Upanishads made this statement 5000 years earlier in the first line of the Isa Vasya Upanishad, ‘All matter arose from Energy.’

There is nothing that divides matter and energy. So, whatever exists is, in fact, pure energy. Some of you may ask, ‘How is it that matter becomes energy and energy becomes matter?’ Such questions cannot be answered by science; they can only be answered by the mystics.

When asked this question, Einstein replied, ‘Where science ends, spirituality begins!’ The last word in science which is, ‘Whatever exists is Energy’ is the first word in the Upanishads so many thousands of years ago. The first Veda is the Rig Veda and the first Upanishad is the Isa Vasya Upanishad. The first statement in the Isa Vasya Upanishad is ‘Isa vasyam idam sarvam’ (from this Energy arises all matter). The ‘gross energy’ is matter; the ‘subtle matter’ is energy. All the five elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether, are nothing but energy. In the East, there is a tradition of worshipping these five elements. Spirituality actually started by worshipping these five elements. In the earliest scriptures, from the Veda and Upanishads, there is no mention about Gods or Goddesses! There is no form that is mentioned in the Keno-Upanishad; there is mention only of nature. Nature was considered to be the ‘Doorway to Divinity’.

It is easy to recognize the forms of energy as they manifest in nature. The Earth energy is recognized by the power manifested by stones and volcanoes, as the ever-changing nature of Earth, as the powerful deities that are made out of Earth and installed in temples. Similarly, water energy is manifested in the form of floods, rains and holy rivers. The fire energy is perceived in the form of lightning, heat, fire rituals and so on. The air energy is apparent in the form of cyclones, tornadoes and our very breath. It is easy to comprehend these energies, since they manifest or appear physically. However, it is difficult to understand the ether energy, the fifth form of energy. Ether, or the space energy, is so subtle that one cannot see it, perceive it or feel it. The more subtle the energy, the more powerful it becomes and the more difficult it is to appreciate.

Ancient Masters, therefore, created the science of Vastu, to harness the energy of Space, or the Ether, in the correct and proper way. You would appreciate that man has manufactured many pieces of equipment or instruments to use the energies from the first four elements. For example, he has designed an oven to use the fire energy to cook food and the turbine to produce electricity from the water energy. Similarly, our Masters have designed Vastu Shastra to harness the Space or Ether energy.

Vastu Shastra is the science of the structure of a building. It is a study to use the Space energy effectively within the house. It deals with how effectively we can enclose space inside a building to optimize its effect on the inhabitants of the house.

There are three types of space:

– Space inside the body, called Chitaakasha

– Space surrounding the body, called Kataakasa, in an enclosed space

– Space surrounding the Universe, called Mahaakasha

The Mahaakasha is always energetic and pure. The Kataakasha, although pure, can become impure by one’s thoughts. The Kataakasha has the property to either gain energy or lose energy by one’s thoughts. It acts as if it is a live being. Your house, for instance, is filled with an energy that can easily be contaminated by the thoughts of those who live in it. Therefore, never think of your house as just cement and concrete decorated to your style. It is not just matter; it is a storehouse of energy that has a direct bearing upon your well being. It has the capacity to exchange energy.

Your house is an expression of energy

When we compress water or fluids, it becomes energy (theory of Fluid Mechanics). When we compress air, it becomes energy. It has the capacity to drive many machines (Pneumatics). When we change the shape of a gross material (the Earth energy), such as iron ore, into a rod or a plate, it has its own properties. The same material has different properties when it takes up different shapes. If we make the iron ore into a sphere or a ball, it becomes very strong, dense and powerful. This is the way shape and compression affect matter. Likewise, whenever we change the space inside our homes, the energy changes according to the change in space. This is a very subtle concept and we need to understand this clearly. Once we grasp this concept, we will appreciate the great gift of wisdom that our Masters have given us.

Read more: Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

This is always a controversial question! All the youngsters think, ‘I can do this in my old age.’ All the elderly people think, ‘I should have done this in my young age!’ All the young people think, ‘I will have enough time in my old age. Now there is no time for meditation. I can do meditation when I don’t have anything else to do.’ All the elderly people think, ‘I should have done this in my young age, when I was fresh and receptive!’

So the question is, not just how long to meditate every day, but when to make the decision to enter into meditation! Meditation is just like reading an owner’s manual before you start driving the car. The person who does not read the owner’s manual before driving the car will naturally meet with accidents! In the same way, the person who has not started meditation before entering into life will inevitably enter into suffering and depression at one point or the other. I want you to deeply understand and analyze this question, ‘when meditation?’

Please understand, meditation is the basic thing needed for life. It is not an option. It is a very basic need. As I was telling you earlier, meditation is like an owner’s manual for your body and for your life. The moment you start living, you need to go through it; you need to enter into it. Don’t wait for accidents to happen to start reading the owner’s manual of your life. Be intelligent and start this very moment.

After the age of seven, you need meditation, because before then, as a child, you are by nature in a meditative state. It is only after seven that you start getting conditioned by society and drop out of your true nature.

To really understand and enter into meditation, one important thing needs to happen in you – psychological revolution. What do I mean by psychological revolution? It means a clear understanding about the Self, world and god. As of now, the understanding that you are carrying about life is not enough. That is why you are not able to experience a completely relaxed feeling in your system. When I say the words ‘psychological revolution’, I mean having a clear understanding about the Self, world and god – the source of the Self, the source of the world and the source of god.

If you are able to find solutions for all your day-today problems through just the understanding about you, the world and god, then you have undergone the psychological revolution

If you are not able to find solutions for your day-to-day problems through your understanding of these three, then you need to explore further. Only a person who has gone through this psychological revolution can meditate. Till then, any technique that you try will seem to only fail at some point in time. People come and tell me, ‘Swamiji, the moment I close my eyes, I get more thoughts than when I did not meditate! If I am in action, doing something, I have fewer thoughts. The moment I close my eyes and try to meditate, I have more thoughts.’ The moment you say this, it means that the psychological revolution has not happened. Psychological revolution is a basic need for meditation. It now seems like a vicious circle. If you don’t have the clarity, you can’t meditate. If you can’t meditate, you will not have the clarity. It appears as a vicious circle!

The dream state constantly penetrating the waking state and deep sleep state, is what leads to more and more misunderstanding, more and more dullness, more and more lethargy, more and more tamas (dullness or laziness). This is what we call pravritti – traveling towards suffering. It is the vicious cycle of lack of clarity leading to lack of meditation and vice versa.

If the turiya or blissful state penetrates the waking and deep sleep states, then that is what we call nivritti – moving towards fulfillment. This is the virtuous circle where clarity leads to meditation and meditation leads to clarity. I always tell people, if you straightaway close your eyes and start meditating, you may have an increased number of thoughts. So in the initial level, I always give a technique which is not directly a meditation, but is more a contemplation. When you work with this technique, it won’t lead you directly to a thoughtless state. It will lead you towards more and more clarity. It will lead to the psychological revolution.

The psychological revolution will develop an intense inner space where you can analyze your understanding, consider your decisions and rethink again and again your desires, fears, worries and all that you think as the basis of your life. Read more: Why Meditation by Pramahamsa Nithyananda.