Awareness is the way out of pain --- Paramahansa Nityananda

A man used to complain bitterly about the lunch he brought to work every day. He would open his lunch box and look at its contents and complain. His friends one day finally asked him why he didn't ask his wife to cook something he liked to eat, rather than suffering this way.He replied: What wife? I am not married. I cook my own lunch.

We all live our lives much the same way. Through lack of awareness, we invite pain upon ourselves, complain about it and resort to painkillers. We fail to identify ourselves as the cause of the problem. Responsibility for the pain is always some else's, never our own.

Pain is caused by absence of attention. It can be relieved by our attention. Pain is a negative energy; it does not exist by itself; it is the absence of a positive energy.

How to get over pain?

Next time you have some pain, just try this small exercise: Lie in a dark room with eyes closed and focus upon the area of pain to the exclusion of everything else. As you experience the area of pain, drop the notion of 'Pain' from your mind. Focus all your attention on this spot; soon you will find it shrinking. Concentrate further and you will find that the pain disappears and in its place you experience pleasure; pain and pleasure are the same sensation with different tags. Your awareness of pain causes it to disappear and bring in positive energy of pleasure.

When you feel hurt and angry through other people's actions, you need to watch these emotions without judgement of who is right or wrong. Suppressing these emotions can cause harm to you. Enter the feeling of hurt or anger; just watch it; don't feel sorry for yourself; do not direct the anger against another person. This awareness itself will simply transform the negative emotion to a positive one.

You have no control over when, how and why things happen. All you can do is to choose whether to suffer from it or learn from it. If you use the opportunity of that pain experience to look inside you, you will discover that you are the cause, and that only you can be the solution.

Awareness is the way out of pain and suffering. Suffering is important in life for growth. But when you understand suffering, you will realise how unnecessary it is and you grow!Be Blissful!

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Be Careful Of What You Wish For

Hari goes to a bar and orders drinks for everyone around. He has a great time with everyone backslapping him and telling him what a great guy he is. As he is about to leave, the bartender gives him the bill. Rattled, Hari says, I only ordered the drinks. I didn"t order the bill. Most of us live our life like Hari, just as foolishly, just as brainlessly. We have no recollection of asking for the bill as we go about acquisitions and expectations of acquisitions. When the bill does finally arrive we are startled, and depressed as this is not part of our expectation. There is a saying: be careful what you wish for, for it may come true. We are driven all our lives by our samskara. These are our unfulfilled desires that are deeply embedded in our unconscious mind. Most of the time, we are not even aware that these samskara exist. However, they are what determine what our decisions will be. They become our will. They drive us into illogical and irrational decisions, even decisions that are harmful to us. When you drink or smoke once in a while you enjoy them. As long as you have the freedom to drop them you enjoy them. When you get addicted to them they enjoy you. Addiction is when you do not enjoy the habit but cannot do without it. You can get addicted to food, TV, newspaper, gossiping, so many things. When you are addicted, food eats you, cigarettes smoke you, and liquor drinks you. When you do not have the freedom you are used; you are not in control however much you believe you are; your desires control you and lead you into a vicious cycle of suffering. Often people tell me that they have good samskara. These memories help them improve their lives. As long as you live in the past you cannot improve your life. You cannot drive forward by looking backwards. Meditation is the path to dissolve and burn your samskaras. Meditation leads you into a no mind state where samskaras cannot exist. Meditation brings you into the present, the here and now, where you are aware of what is buried in your unconscious and have the energy to destroy your samskaras. You become liberated. We can live our life in joy, without the fear of having to pay the bill.

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Shift The Doors Of Perception

All our thoughts are centered on our own ideas of life. We only see what we wish to see. Most often we have already made up our minds about what we wish to see and we see things only how we want them to be. When we meet a person, we form a judgment about the person and then we collect facts in support of our judgment; facts in support are retained, others are rejected. We modify facts of our observation to suit our perception. Our preconceived notions of life distort our actual vision of what life is about. This leads to suffering. Children on the other hand have no fixed ideas about life or how it ought to be. They are therefore full of joy. They never take things for granted; everything is new for them; each sunrise, each tree and each flower. They are spontaneous, living fully in the moment. They see life as it is. A Zen master had to choose his successor. He called all his disciples together and drew a small black dot on a white board. He then asked his disciples to tell him what they saw. Almost all saw only the black dot. One disciple alone said: What I see is a huge expanse of white, in which there is a small black dot. He was chosen as the successor. The disciple chosen as the successor saw the whole picture as it was. The rest saw just the black dot. They saw only the dot because of their preconception. We need to drop all our prejudices of others and ourselves, of events, time and places and live and enjoy life as it is. As long as happiness is bound by time and space, it does not last. Our perceptions limit us or liberate us based on whether we perceive things as they are or as we want them to be. All we need to do is to deal with things as they are. What we need is an internal cognitive shift: from seeing things as we want them to be seen to seeing things as they are, and enjoying life as it is. For this transformation to happen, we need to be in awareness all the time. If we are conscious of our thoughts and actions every moment, we will never slip into forming judgments. Meditation can bring tremendous awareness into us causing the cognitive shift to happen.

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Responsibility is the way to go!

When you live with the attitude that you are responsible for everything, your whole life will change. When you take up responsibility for everything that happens around you, you will start expanding.

Expansion is the only growth; contraction is death. The more responsibility you take up, the more you will expand and grow. You will become a leader.

Most of us wait for the status to descend on us and then take up the responsibility. Be very clear: Only if we take up responsibility, the status will come! People who wait for the status will not take up responsibility even after they get it. They will simply find another reason or excuse, that's all. The person who passes the buck and relaxes will never progress in life.

Responsibility is consciousness. The moment you feel responsible for what is happening around you, that moment the divine energy will rush into you! These are all basic secrets of life that I am giving you.

As long as you are self-centered, you will be nothing more than a blocked bamboo stick that serves only to carry the corpse. When you shed your ego and stand up with responsibility, you will become the hollow bamboo that serves as a flute! Like how the air that enters the flute leaves it as music, the air that enters you will flow as energy! When you work with no feelings of responsibility, you will work and feel like a slave.

When you work with responsibility, your capacity will expand and you will flower and radiate energy. Your worries and sorrows will dissolve and all unfinished work will get finished. Umpteen excuses can be given for dodging responsibility, but they will remain poor excuses.

With responsibility, a new kind of joy will engulf you. You will become a natural leader and life will become a celebration! There is a beautiful story on Buddha: It is said that when Buddha goes to beg, he would appear as a King and the kings who gave him alms would appear as beggars!

Seeming like a beggar or a king is not in the wealth that you hold but in the state that is within you. When you take up responsibility for the entire cosmos, you will expand and look like a leader!

Feeling that you are responsible is the greatest quality you can possess. When you stand up with a sense of responsibility, a new intelligence will awaken in you!

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Ananda yoga – the path of ecstasy!

Nanda means something that can reduce in quantity. Ananda means that which cannot reduce in quantity. Ananda means bliss! It is not joy. Ordinary joy brings suffering with it. Ananda is beyond joy. It comes without a reason. It just is.

Joy is what you feel through your senses, based on an outer object — music, a fragrance, a beautiful sight, physical touch. When you feel joy without sensory inputs, not even inputs of forms of God, just from your inner core, your soul, it is bliss! There needs to be no reason. It simply comes from within. That is ananda. Yoga is not physical exercise or breath control; these are just parts of yoga. Yoga literally means union; the union of the self with the divine; union with the cosmic power. It is the cessation of the mind, to take it beyond the mind, to be one with existence. The blissful technique to unite your self with the divine is ananda yoga. It uses bliss itself to unite.

Ananda yoga is the path of ecstasy, not the path to ecstasy. The very path, the very travel itself is ecstasy. Life has no goal, it has only purpose. It is not something you find at the end, you find it all along the way. Living has a purpose. If life is a goal, it's a rat race. In the rat race, even if you win you are only a rat!

The very living is bliss when you go without a goal; only with the purpose of enjoying the path.

You cannot look at God as a goal. You cannot run towards God. In the inner world, the logic is very different. Goals are not reached by running towards them. Zen masters say: When you stop seeking, you will find it. Seeking makes you tense; it makes you miss your purpose.

Just look at all your guilt, mistakes, and failures; just look with deep acceptance. Even if you cannot accept, accept that you cannot accept. You will then relax; guilt will drop from your mind. If your mind is tense, it can never stop. Only when you relax it can cease.

You have to drop being goal-oriented. If you accept what you are, what is, the mind will lose its roots. Mind and bliss cannot stay together. When mind is, bliss is not.

It is either mind or bliss. So drop your mind and simply decide to walk the path of ecstasy!

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Why we cannot tolerate criticism 

A lady came to me complaining that she is hurt by even small criticisms coming from others. She said she was very sensitive. 
I asked her to stop using that word. I said, 'You are not sensitive. A really sensitive person will be porous; she will allow the words to pass through her. Only arrogant people get hurt. If you are hurt, please understand that you are arrogant. You are strong like a stone, which is why words come ,and hit you.

A sensitive person would have allowed the words pass through her; she will never suffer. Even if someone is deliberately rude, a sensitive person understands where such a person is coming from and is not defensive. 

Suffering is always from arrogance, never from sensitivity. A person who is sensitive will never suffer. A sensitive person will suffer on account of another person in distress, not for oneself. 

You suffer from words when you stop them, when you resist them, when you create your own meaning out of them. When we do not create our own meanings out of words, we do not suffer. We play with words. We always choose nice words to support our ego. We do not say, 'I am hurt because I am arrogant.' We always use polished words such as, 'I am hurt because I am sensitive.' Please don't cheat yourself with words. Let your words be unfiltered by your ego. 

Let me tell you a small story: 

Once, a contractor wanted to donate a sports car to an official. The official refused, saying, "I am an honest person and I cannot think of accepting this gift." The contractor asked him, "In that case how would it be if I sell you this car for Rs 10?' The official replied immediately, 'In that case, I will have two cars!' 

When an untruth is wrapped in gift packing, you forget you have a problem. You accept it without a murmur. However, when truth is presented bare, you do protest. Presented bare, truth hurts; ego cannot tolerate truth easily. 

We are so concerned about politically and socially correct statements, it seems no longer acceptable for anyone to speak the truth. But it seems to be perfectly acceptable to lie in a politically correct manner. 

Ramakrishna says beautifully, 'Let your words and mind be straightened.' Whatever is, let it be offered straight without filtering. Learn to accept truth bare. At least you will know you have a problem that you can solve. 

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Is suffering necessary?

One of the most deeply hidden reasons for suffering is that you may be enjoying it. For example, falling ill can become a source of pleasure if it gets you the attention and care you have been craving.

In the same way as a seed has to rupture before a plant can grow and blossom, intense suffering can rupture your ego and leave you open and vulnerable to transformation. In Mahabharata, there is a beautiful quote by Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. She prays to Krishna, the enlightened master, 'Oh Krishna! Let pain and suffering come from all sides in my life. They will constantly remind me about You, my Lord.'

Suffering has tremendous potential to integrate and transform us. Start to witness your experiences without judgement. See with clarity where you are suffering at the gross and subtle levels. If you are just aware, the suffering itself can open your eyes to the unreality of suffering. It can teach you how unnecessary it is to suffer at all. This is what I call 'necessary suffering'! Once you learn your lesson through necessary suffering, you will handle suffering in a more mature and beautiful way.

One important thing we need to understand is that while pain might be inevitable, the suffering that comes from the pain is not. For example, if you get hurt, there is definitely pain, but how much you choose to suffer from that pain is really your choice. A small story:

Once a man was seriously injured with multiple fractures and injuries. His friend came to visit him at the hospital. He saw the state of his injured friend and didn't know what to say. So he asked his friend, 'How are you feeling my friend? I guess it must be painful with all those injuries. Do you suffer a lot?' The man replied, 'Not much — only when I laugh.'

It is a question of attitude! Pain is inevitable, but suffering is your choice. Suffering is not a state of life. It is a state of mind. It is not an event in your life. It is your response to an event. Never curse the pain or the person, inflicting the pain on you. Instead, take the opportunity to use it as a blessing, watch objectively, and cut the root of the pain.

Pain can be a great teacher if you allow it to be. If you properly research the cause and effect of pain within you, it can turn out to be the biggest turning point in your life. The Master Bodhidharma says, 'Every suffering is a Buddha-seed.' Suffering can propel you to become a Buddha. He says, feel grateful to suffering and pain because they create the situation for you to search for the truth.

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Each individual is unique

Why exactly do we compare ourselves with others? We compare ourselves because we have never understood ourselves and are not aware of who we are and what we have. It is also because society has conditioned us from our birth to evaluate ourselves based upon others.

Buddha says, 'Nothing exists except in relationship.' Suppose you were the only person on a new planet, how could you compare yourself with anyone? Could you call yourself tall or short, ugly or beautiful, rich or poor, intelligent or dumb? No! When there is no one to compare yourself with, you just are!

Understand, there is no scale to compare you with anybody. Each individual is unique. Can you compare a lion and a horse? Do we ever compare ourselves with flowers or birds or mountains? Then why do we have to compare ourselves with other human beings? Just see nature: the rose plant and the mango tree grow in the same garden and prosper because they use all their energy for their own growth instead of using it to compare themselves with the other.

Comparison leads to jealousy. Comparison is the seed and jealousy is the fruit! We always compare ourselves with others in various fields — looks, wealth, knowledge, name and fame and friends, etc. When we compare ourselves with others we feel that somebody else has something more than what we have and, we get caught in jealousy.

We suffer and constantly fight with others openly or inside ourselves. We are just waiting for someone to hurt us. Don't throw the responsibility of your suffering on the other person. Be very clear, nobody can hurt you without your silent permission.

You are made to believe only by comparison you can grow. No. Through comparison you will grow only to the extent of the person with whom you are comparing yourself, not to your own unique level. The whole spiritual knowledge or experience is nothing but realising you are unique, there is nothing to compare. Comparison is societal. Realising your uniqueness is natural.

Comparison happens because you feel that you are somehow lacking. But you have no idea of your true, unique potential! If you did, you wouldn't spend one second looking outside yourself for answers about how to live a creative, fulfilling life. All the confidence, intelligence, and vibrant energy that you need already exist inside you. You have the potential to live like god on planet earth.

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Life is beyond your logic

Most of us unconsciously believe that life is filled with incidents that are under the control of our logic. But life again and again reminds you of the truth that life is beyond your logic. You are reminded of this fact, especially when some near and dear friend dies or when something unexpected happens.

If you lose your job, suddenly you see that life is not under your control. You wake up to the reality that life is beyond your logic. Then you start seeking the Truth.

Especially if you live in the city, your routine is almost fixed. From morning until night, you know exactly how your day will unfold. You know where you will go, what you will do or not do, and what and when you will eat. Practically, your ego gives an idea, your logic gives you the feeling that your life is under the control of your logic.

That is why whenever some incident happens that is beyond your logic that is not under your control, you are totally shaken. You are not able to handle it. You don't know what to do. Either you fall into depression or you just suffer.

There is an important truth, an ultimate secret that you must understand. Never think things are going smoothly because of you. In spite of you, things are going smoothly! This is one of the important secrets. As long as you believe it is because of you that things are going smoothly, you will be constantly suffering with ego.

Death clearly shows that whatever mind you lived with has no real existence. The moment you experience that there is nothing to be achieved, that the diamonds you are protecting are not diamonds but stones, and that all your valuable possessions in life are mere toys, you will understand the purposelessness of life and a new consciousness starts blossoming in you.

The genuine purpose of life cannot be understood without dropping our ego. Understand the divine purpose of life, the leelas or the Divine play; you will enjoy the drama. If you keep thinking that life has a purpose and wait to achieve something, you will miss life itself.

Life itself is the path and the goal. When you have a goal, you will run; your feet will not touch the ground and you will miss the beauty of Existence or nature. When you drop the goal, the emphasis will be on the path.

The meaning of living is the meaning of life or Existence. Drop the goal and enjoy life.

Meditate on this teaching again and again. The Truth will dawn on you and the nithyananda (bliss) state will flower in you, the state that is the very meaning of life. 

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