April 19 2005

Title

FALL IN TO RISE

Transcript

Let me start with a small story of Buddha, on this subject. A popular and powerful Indian King wants to see Buddha. So he goes to Buddha accompanied by his ministers, representatives and citizens. He carries two things with him: a plate full of diamonds and jewelry, and another full of flowers.

Buddha looks at his gifts: the diamonds and flowers. He commands the King "Drop!"

The King is shocked, and drops the flower plate.

Again, Buddha says "Drop!"

The King drops the plate of diamonds at Buddha’s feet and stands up.

Again, Buddha says "Drop!"

Now the King is not able to understand what Buddha means: “The first time, Buddha asked me to drop the flower plate – so I dropped.

Second time, Buddha asked me to drop the jewels, the diamonds – so I dropped. Again Buddha is asking me to drop. I don’t know what to drop”.

The puzzled King then asks Buddha, "What should I drop?"

"Drop yourself. You will rise!"

Immediately, the next question arises in the King’s mind. He asks "How should I drop myself?"

This is commonly the very next question. The moment you bring in the idea "How", you have made the whole process complicated; you have actually complicated the whole process.

Let me explain what I mean by the word "dropping", and how we are complicating it.

When I say the phrase ‘Drop yourself’, there arises in you an idea of “You”, and the notion of “dropping the You”. Whatever you think of as You, whatever you think of as You, all your ideas about you are based on your past experiences: your past, your past decisions, your past experiences, your past understandings. Your idea of You is only based on these.

Our past experiences are wired into us, embedded into us. It is not merely what the conscious mind recalls as what has happened in our past that comes back to influence us. Less than 2% of what we observe, what we experience is stored by our conscious mind. 98% is skipped by it and goes straight away into our unconscious mind. We can not recall these events at will. They chose to reveal themselves at their pleasure. It is as if you read a book of 100 pages, but can recall only 2 out of the 100.

The cumulative experience of the past is what makes or present. The cumulative experience of the present is what determines or future. However, we almost always ignore the present. We are rarely in the present. We constantly flit from or experiences of the past to the speculative happenings of the future, without staying in the present. Both the past and the future are unreal; only the present is real.

Our Past is always past; it is always dead. That is why it is called Past. Yet, we always let this Past affect us.

How do we do that?

In two ways: - If we review our past decisions with our updated present intelligence, you will always create guilt in you. - Similarly, if we carry the past references into the present decisions, we will duplicate the same mistakes from the past, into the future.

Please understand these two things: - If you review your past incidents or decisions using the present intelligence, you will create guilt in your Being. - If you take the present decisions based on past experiences, you will be replicating the same past into the future also; maybe in a little updated fashion.

Even though you might not commit the exact same mistake, possibly by doing it a little differently, you will be moving in the same experiential level, in the same layer, in the same plane. We do not have the intelligence to keep thinking of new ways to commit mistakes. Our mind falls into a groove, a track, a mind set, that forces it to do what it always has done. So we keep making the same mistakes as well.

However, instead of learning from the past experiences, learning from our mistakes and rewiring our mind to do better the next time, what we invariably do is to regret what we have done in the past and feel guilty. Feeling guilty does not solve our problems. To feel guilty is to be in sin. In fact that is the only sin. The hell that we talk about is not in another time and space. It is here with us when we feel guilty without doing anything to change our mindset.

When we do something that turns out differently from what we expected, or against societal and religious codes, there may be repercussions and we feel guilty. We should understand that what we did was based on the wisdom that we had at that particular pint in time and we should move on. There is no need to wallow in false guilt without any effort to change the pattern our thinking and pattern of our behavior.

The past is after all dead. Whatever you think of as You is just Dead. When I say ‘Drop’, just disconnect from your past.

You can! You can disconnect!

Yet we always bring one more sentence into our mind: “No, I have tried so many times, but I am not able to. How can I disconnect from the past?”

When you say "I have tried so many times, I am not able to.", again you have brought the past in. All your prior incidents also constitute part of the past. “I tried”, “I am not able to”, “I failed”, etc. were also past experiences. As long as you bring these in, how can you say that you have dropped the past? No! That's you dragging in more of the past.

When you bring the past in again and again, into your life, into your present life, you live in the same mental setup. In Sanskrit, we call it

Samskara. Samskara means "mental setup": how you think, how you move, how you live. Your mental setup is what we call your Samskara. You tend to create a particular Samskara, a particular mental setup, and again and again, you live only based on that.

At some point in your life, you might have tried something, something which was impossible, and naturally you would have failed. These failures get recorded in you, in such a deep way, as such a deep impression, that again and again, you bring only your failures up to your mind, and you start thinking "No, No, I cannot! I cannot drop the past! It is too big a job for me. I am not so courageous." You bring these words again and again into your Consciousness.

We forget one important thing though: any word which is brought again and again into your Consciousness gets its power. Your Consciousness gives power to everything. Anything which comes in front of You receives power - whether it is good or bad – it simply receives power. Any thought, which appears into your Being just becomes energetic. Your Consciousness is so powerful, so radiant, it gives energy, it gives power to everything.

Bring any thought in front of your mind, in front of your Consciousness. That will become alive, just like a movie reel does in front of a projector.

Whatever slide you bring in front of a projector, that slide becomes reality. If you bring a slide of a temple, you will see that temple in reality. If you bring a slide of a church, you will see that church in reality. If you bring a slide of an actor, you will see that actor in reality.

Any slide which you bring in front of the projector lamp becomes reality. Similarly, any word, which you bring in front of your Consciousness becomes reality. Any Word!

You can realize this clearly in the dream state. Imagine the early morning, when you are just coming out of your sleep. You are lying in bed, neither completely taken over by sleep, nor are you completely aware. It’s almost a half-half state. At that time, if you just remember, or be aware of your dreams, you can see very clearly, how the words coming into your mind are becoming visions; are becoming reality. You might just have a word, an idea: "I see my friend coming into my house", and you will see the whole thing happening in your dream. It will be Word and Experience. If you experience this early morning dream, you can understand what I say: just Words appearing into your mind, and becoming a Vision or Experience.

Any word comes into your mind, gets the power, and it becomes Experience.

I had a chance to live with a group of tribal villagers in Madhya Pradesh in central India. I myself saw them give birth to kids without any pain: no pain, no assistance, no medicine, no attendant, no doctor, nothing. Without any fuss, they give birth to kids, and they take care of themselves.

I was shocked. I asked them – ‘How is this possible? Don’t you experience any pain?’ Their response: "Pain? Why should we have pain?" The very idea of pain does not exist in their lives. Let me repeat: the very idea of pain is not there in their lives. When that word or idea is not there in your mind, you don’t suffer that. We suffer only that which we recall, remember or repeat again and again. Anything, which is again and again, repeated by you, recalled by you, becomes reality. That becomes a solid truth, a reality for your Being.

If you keep thinking "I tried to drop the past, I am not able to", these words get repeated again and again inside your system. You decide you cannot drop the past. You cannot drop; you just cannot achieve it.

The difficulty is, when you decide something solid, you collect arguments only to support that judgment. Whenever you decide something solid, whenever you have some judgment about yourself, you collect the arguments only to support that judgment. You don’t think of anything else; you don’t bother about anything else. All you do is, again and again, you create more and more incidents, you create more and more arguments only to support your judgment. Anything you believe, you make it stronger, and you cling more to it. We never enter into reality; we create a big void between reality and ourselves.

On the one side, all the spiritual Mystics and Masters declare again and again: "Whatever IS, is Bliss! Whatever IS, is Consciousness! Whatever IS, is Energy!"

On the other side, the so-called normal people, they say again and again: “Whatever is, is Misery! Whatever is, is Suffering! Whatever is, is troubling us".

Where is the gap? Why does the same world look so beautiful for a Buddha, and so miserable for a Buddhu (fool)?

It’s a very difficult conundrum, for which you cannot give any logical reason. Their country is the same, their situation in life is the same, their lifestyles are the same, everything is the same. Except the person, everything else is the same, yet, their viewpoints about the world are different.

When you carry your past, you have a layer called a reactive mind. You do not take logical decisions.

Please be very clear: A man who carries the past can never take any logical decision.

Let me give you an example. Say you were disturbed years ago by somebody in a yellow dress. The incident created a deep imprint inside you. You will recall it anytime you see somebody in a yellow dress. Unconsciously that memory will come up, and you try to keep away from that person. When you meet someone in a yellow dress, you start with a negative judgment, and if the person proves to be really genuine, then you open up. It takes you more effort and more energy to understand that person, and it is all just because of your single past experience.

This is what I mean when I say: anybody who carries the past has a reactive mind.

Let me give you another small example to understand whether you have a reactive mind or not. Say you are deep in thought, and suddenly you recall something which you don’t want to remember: some place, some person, or some situation in which you were disturbed, in which you were abused. It comes up in your memory, even though you don’t want to remember it. Immediately you brush aside that thought. You say to yourself "Let me think of something else; let me think of something else". You force yourself to change the course of your thinking.

If you are doing this, be very clear: you have something that I call a reactive mind.

These memories, which you don’t want to recall, or with which you are not comfortable, are what I call energy clots; just like blood clots. When there is a blood clot, blood cannot flow freely. In the same way, these energy clots do not allow your thinking to flow freely. A person who has got more energy clots will always feel suffocated; stressed; bound. On the other hand, take a person who doesn’t have energy clots. His thinking will be so free, his Consciousness will be so free, that he will never feel suffocated, stressed or bound.

It is the energy clots which decide, whether you experience the boundarylessness, whether you experience the expansion, or whether you suffocate yourself and continually get stressed. I have seen people feeling suffocated even when sitting by a beach. They will be sitting on a beach, on their so-called vacation, but they will not just be in that boundary-less experience; they will not be in that expanding experience.

I have also seen people, who are confined to a small room their whole lives. There is a person in my native town, who has been living inside a ten-by-ten room for the last thirty-five years. Thirty-five years! Nobody is binding him. He is actually considered an Enlightened Master and worshipped as such. His name is Thinnai Swamigal; he is a disciple of Ramana Maharishi.

His is a beautiful story; let me narrate it. He went to see Ramana Maharishi, and asked "Bhagavan! How can I achieve the Spiritual Experience? How can I achieve Enlightenment? Should I do some type of worship? Should I do some type of mantra (a mantra is a sacred utterance, usually a syllable, the invocation of a God, or a portion of a scripture) repetition? Should I chant some verses? Should I meditate? What should I do?"

Bhagavan casually said "Drop!" Just a very casual word: "Drop!" This person was so sincere - simply he dropped. He really dropped. Something just dropped inside him. From that time until today, he is just sitting in a room nearby and living happily. Nobody is binding him. Nobody is forbidding him from going out. He just says "No. I am happy. I don’t feel like it. If at all I feel like it, I will go". Hundreds of people come there to see him. He is sitting there, radiating peace and bliss. He says "I feel totally expanded. I am boundary-less. Where can I go?"

There are people who are sitting inside a ten-by-ten room, and feeling that boundary-less Consciousness; experiencing the Universal Consciousness. And there are people, who are lying in the beach and feeling suffocated and stressed. The experience of boundarylessness has nothing to do with the outer world. It has to do with the number of energy clots that you have; the reactive mind that you have. When you drop the reactive mind, when you start directly relating with Existence, your whole being is liberated.

Somebody went to a Zen master, and asked "Master, how can I achieve liberation?" The Master just laughed, and said "Who has bound you? When did you get into bondage?" Immediately, the disciple just became enlightened.

When I say the word ‘Drop’, whatever you understand according to your own Oxford Dictionary, just do that - that is enough. Whatever you know by the word "dropping", just do that. Whatever you think of as your Being, or whatever you think of as You, just drop that. The difficulty is that we are afraid. Our past experiences are the only property that we have; our ideas of “I” are the only asset that we have. These ideas are the only thing that we have accumulated throughout our lives. How can we drop that? If we drop that, how do we live? What can we hold on to, so that we may survive? All we have is our past life and past experiences. How can we be alive, if we drop them?

I tell you: when you drop the past, don’t think the memory itself will disappear. Your emotional attachment to that memory will disappear. Actually, when you drop the past, you will be able to live in the present, in a much deeper way, in a much more intense way, in a much more beautiful way.

Again and again and again, if you read the teachings of all the great Masters, it comes back to only one point: Drop, or fall. Fall In, so that you can rise.

Notice an important distinction here. Instead of falling in, many a time, we fall outside, towards the outer world. What I mean by this is that we fall for things which are in the outer world.

Of course, whenever you fall towards the outer world, naturally you will make only that as your reality.

Whatever you fall for, you will make that as your reality. That will become a solid truth in your life. Whatever you think of as truth, you will fall for that. Whatever you feel and fall for, you will make that as your truth.

- If you think the outer world is truth, you fall for that. If you fall for the outer world, you make that as your truth.

- When you fall in, fall for the inner world, you make the inner world as your reality. When you make the inner world as your reality, you fall more for the inner world.

So this is like a vicious circle: if you fall for the outer world, you make it more as your reality, and this leads you to fall more for the outer world. And if you fall for the inner world, you make that as your reality, and again, this leads you to fall more for the inner world. Either way, the circle goes on.

Which way you want to travel in is in your hands; this is what you are supposed to decide in life. We call this pravritti or nivritti in Sanskrit. Our choice is either towards the ephemeral, or towards the eternal. It is our decision, whether to travel towards the pravritti, towards the ephemeral, or towards the nivritti, towards the eternal.

When you drop the past, you simply travel towards the Eternal. You travel towards the Ultimate. You travel towards your Being. And you just remember what you are, and what actually is your Being.

Let me narrate a small story: there was a King, who ruled over his country. He had a son, who was a vagabond. The King was long unhappy about the Prince’s attitude and lifestyle. Pushed to the end of his tether, he decided to teach his son a lesson. So he told his son "Leave this country! Go out and stay somewhere else for ten years. If you are able to maintain yourself for ten years, then I might take you back.”

So the Prince was sent out of the country. He was the Prince, so he could sing, dance and enjoy himself, and didn’t know much of anything else. So he moved around begging from house to house, door to door.

The ten years stated in the King’s condition passed in this way. The King now said to himself "Now it is time to send people out to search for my son. We need to find out if has managed to survive and what he is doing". He sent his people out on the search.

One of the ministers in the search-party comes upon the Prince begging by the roadside. The minister approaches him, touches the beggar’s feet and says, "Sir! Do you remember us? You are the Prince of our country. The King wants you to come back. The citizens want you to come back. Please come back."

The moment the minister touched his feet, the beggar's whole body language changed. He had been a beggar until that moment. The moment the minister touched his feet, he said "Oh! Is that so? Alright. Get my chariot!" The man’s whole body language changed: beginning with his tone, and extending all the way to his mental setup. He climbed into the chariot, and strode majestically into the palace.

His mental setup is now completely different from what it was when he was begging. He can never associate himself again, with his old past as a beggar. His lifestyle, his body language, his mentality, his thinking setup, everything is now new. It did not take too much time for his mental setup to change.

The Prince didn’t ask the minister "How can I change? How can I drop my past? How can I change my mental setup?"

No!

In just a single moment, the whole cognitive shift has happened. Really, the cognitive shift takes only a single moment, a single second. All you need to do is to believe that the Kingdom of God, His heaven is straightaway available to you, and open your eyes. Start living. We tend to equate the Kingdom of God with special angels, special choruses, a special group of people taking us to a special cloud, where all the saints are singing "Hallelujah!", where we fancy that will be treated in an exclusive way. Just drop all these fantasies.

This very land can become Heaven. This very Life can become Heaven. This very Life can become the Kingdom of God.

All that you need to do is this: at present, you connect all the negative incidents of your life, and create an idea about yourself and the world.

Instead of that, connect all the positive incidents of your life and create an idea about yourself and the world. That’s all. Nothing else needs to be done.

Be very clear: there are positive things in at least 50% of everyone’s life. That is why we are still alive. If everything is completely negative, we can’t even live. Your being here now, your being here to read this book, that is enough proof, that at least 50% of your life is positive.

The difficulty is that we have developed our mental setup such that we cannot survive without worries and negativity. Just scan your mental thinking. If you feel relaxed, open and empty sometime, you start feeling uncomfortable. You start searching for some worries, something to think about, something to ponder over, something to contemplate. You can not be alive in boundary-less Consciousness.

You continuously feel that you need something, some material to chew on. You need something to chew on. That is the reason you catch hold of some subject or another and start pondering. If you cannot find any subject, if you are not able to re-hash any material, you start fearing "How long will life go on smoothly like this? I don’t know when it will change. I don’t know when bad things will start happening."

You always start bothering about something else. Always you are habituated, trained to connect all the negative things, and create an idea about yourself and about the world.

Please be very clear: we judge the world in exactly the same way in which we judge ourselves.

We never believe that others are speaking the truth, because we never speak the truth.

You can always see that you always think: “When I am like this, naturally the other person will also be like that only. When I live like this, naturally he will also be like that only”. You judge everybody else the same way in which you judge yourself.

The Bible says "God created Man in his own mould". I tell you one more thing: Man creates the World in his own mould.

To reiterate: God creates Man in his own mould; Man creates the World in his own mould.

Whatever you think of as “You”, you create the world in the same mould. You project the same world. Whatever idea you create about yourself, that idea also plays a major role about your idea of the world. It is you who create and project, it is you who experience.

The difficulty is, we never leave any separation between ourselves and our thinking systems. We are much too associated, much too caught up with our thinking system, we never begin to suspect it. We never suspect our thinking system and our perceptions. We never doubt. We doubt everybody else, but never ourselves.

You doubt everybody else, but never yourself.

Before satisfying any desire, your mind says something. Once you achieve that desire, your mind says something the exact opposite. Even though this is your experience again and again and again, you never suspect your mind. You never doubt your mind.

Before achieving it, you think about an object in a specific way. Before achieving, even the mustard seed looks like a mountain. You desire the object; you cannot live without it. I was browsing the SkyMall Magazine on my flight here. They word the product advertisements in such a wonderful way, that you feel that those products are basic needs. You feel as if you cannot be alive without those products.

Before achieving, even a mustard seed looks like a mountain. Once you have achieved it, even a mountain begins to look like a mustard seed. Again and again, your mind cheats you. You run, run, run, run, run to achieve something. The moment you achieve, you find a feeling of emptiness coming up inside you.

Still, you never suspect your mind.

You suspect, you doubt everything else, except your idea about yourself, and your idea about the world. This is what needs to be doubted; this is what needs to be suspected.

The moment you start doubting your idea about yourself, and your idea about the world, you drop. You just drop. This doubt is more than enough, the very doubt is enough to give you the courage to drop. As long as we don’t doubt our understandings, we keep going on and on.

I was watching a beautiful movie the other day: ‘What the Bleep Do We Know!?’ A wonderful movie! The filmmakers have done a great service to the world by making that movie.

One of the people in the movie asks a beautiful question: your dream and this world are both seen by your brain in the same way, in an equal fashion. Then how can you say that one is reality and the other is dream?

How can you claim that one of this is reality, and that the other is a dream conjured by the mind?

They create the basic doubts, which are supposed to be created in every individual, in every human being. The moment you enter into this doubt, you drop. When you drop, you really rise. When you fall in, you rise.

You rise to the Ultimate Experience, the Ultimate Consciousness, that which we call Divine, God, Universal Intelligence, or Cosmic Energy. So I pray to that Ultimate Energy, the Cosmic Energy, let us all fall into it, and become the Divine Energy, that Eternal Bliss, Nithyananda.

Questions & Answers

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the issue of speed? The world in many contexts seems to be moving faster and faster and faster. What impact does this have on our Consciousness and our ability to drop?

A: The faster the world moves, the more difficult it is to drop. The faster the world moves, the more information you get. You are processing much more information, and this also adds more stress. Amidst all this processing, you forget to question the basics.

One important thing to note: when everybody is engaged in so much of work, you forget to question the whole system. There is so much to get done, to be accomplished, that you have no time to question the basic premises underlying the system.

That is why, in India, the first thing they do in their traditional education system, is to raise the basic doubts. Till the age of twenty five, nobody can take up any job.

Each person will have to raise the basic doubts, and live with it. And question again and again; search. Only when they achieve the balance of discovering the answer unto themselves, into their Being, only then, are they allowed to enter into life: whether into marriage, making money, or anything else.

Till the age of twenty five, it is called the period of Brahmacharya. This period means studying; living with the Existence; living with doubts; searching in yourself.

Of course, the greater the speed the world is moving at, lesser is the possibility of dropping.

You can drop Out, not drop In.

Q: Are there many phases to this dropping in, like you talked about one phase, this person who is living in a ten-by-ten room.

A: Yes, there are many phases. Just see what happens when you drop in.

What happens after you drop in, is manifold, totally different. But dropping in is a common experience. Once you drop in, then whatever happens when you rise, it raises in thousands of ways.

Somebody goes around the world and preaches. Somebody sings and dances like Mira. Somebody sits under the banyan tree like a Buddha.

Somebody just walks around naked like a Mahavira. There are so many expressions.

After dropping in.

But the dropping in is common for everybody. After that, when you rise, you rise in myriads of ways. Ramana Maharishi himself never sat inside a ten-by-ten room. He moved around within the whole city, at least inside that city; he never went outside the city. But his disciple was sitting inside one room.

So each one has his own method of expression. Buddha was quiet and silent; peaceful. Krishna was singing and dancing. So, it’s totally based on the individual's experience.

Q: Things are speeding up so much that we cannot drop. In general, everything seems to be moving faster, that it almost seems like it is by design that we should not drop.

A: I think you must take a little time to doubt the basic conclusions. The other day I read a beautiful book "The Final Theory". If you have read that book, you might have been just as surprised as I was. The basic ideas about the gravity, Newton's Law, Einstein's Theory: everything is questioned. Everything is questioned. I was shocked: how did we miss such basic questions about these theories?

When we accepted Newton's Theory, or Einstein's Theory of Relativity, we felt that almost everything, at least I felt that almost everything was answered. That everything was in place. But when I read this one book "Final Theory", my understandings, my ideas are shaken. It turns out that there are so many basic scientific questions which we have not raised at all.

So, before going further we must raise some basic questions. We must take the time to doubt the basic ideas. We cannot put the responsibility on society saying “It is speeding up, it affects me in this way or that way, so I cannot.”

Of course, when you say that you cannot, you will go along with it - no problem. But if at all you want the truth, the Ultimate Experience, if at all you are really in search of bliss, you must raise these questions. See there are two things that we are all searching for: some people are searching for the status, some for the state. If you are searching for the status, you can run with the speed.

Status is different; state is different. If the state comes, status will follow. If the status comes, you cannot be sure that the state will follow. So, if you really want to achieve the state of bliss, you have to question the basic assumptions which you have made.

Q: Swami, what are the steps to drop? You just said "Drop". How do we empower the mind to drop?

A: The first step is to drop this idea. The mind will then empower you. “Mind is too difficult;

I have tried this so many times, mind never accepts;”

All these are just ideas to which you have given such strength. Just try to relax from these ideas.

Decide: “For the next ten days, I will not repeat these ideas into my mind. I will not allow these words to come in my mind.”

Just for ten days. Just for ten days, don’t give any power or strength to these words: “It is very difficult to drop, Swamiji. You don’t know. Saying is very easy, but doing is very difficult. I have tried many times. It is very solid. Mind is very complicated.”

Just don’t give power to these words for ten days. For ten days, repeat "No! The mind can be dropped. After all it is I who is thinking."

To be sure, are you clear that nobody else is sitting inside you and thinking? You are the one who is sitting and thinking. When you are sure that it is you who is sitting and thinking, why can’t you change? It is after all you. It was you who created your world, your perceptions of weakness, word by word, sentence by sentence.

The moment the first word comes in your thoughts, just catch it. Why do you allow the whole sentence to come out? Then you go around bemoaning "Oh! This is difficult! This is difficult! This is difficult!" The moment the first word comes out, catch it. Just say “Stop! For ten days I am packing you off on a holiday!”

So just from today, for ten days decide: “For the next ten days, I will not give power to these words.”

I tell you: after the tenth day, these thoughts will never come back. I tell you, because I am working with thousands of people. In the last two years, I have met close to a quarter million people individually. And I have two thousand healers doing healing service in four hundred centers in twenty countries.

With all my experience I tell you: I have seen at least ten thousand people like you who ask this question. Exactly the same question! All the ten thousand can drop. And there are many thousands who are successful.

Just for ten days, not more than that. I am not asking you for anything more than that. Just for the next ten days decide: “I will not repeat these words and give power to these words.”

All these are just words, pure words.

And it is you who create the words, self-contradicting words, and get into trouble.

All of it is purely words.

You go and face the corner of a room, where the two walls meet, and you cry "Oh! I am in a prison! I am in a prison! I am caught! I am caught!" You never turn and see the third side; you never turn and see that the room is actually wide-open.

You never take the time to turn around to another side, and see that you are free. You are liberated.

You are always hitting yourself with the second person and third person; you are always looking at the outer world, at everything else other than yourself, the “I”, the first person. You never look into the first person to see that you are liberated.

First of all, there is no First Person. You always hit your face in the second person and the third person; and you think that you are bound. Just turn around: there is no First Person.

Neither are you bound, nor do you need liberation.

All your fears, your worries, your feeling of separateness are built on your idea of being the First Person; your idea of "I"; your idea of the First person.

The First Person itself doesn’t exist. He is not there in the way you think. Please be very clear: In the way you think, He is not there.

Just turn in, and see! He is not there. Then why do you need to liberate yourself from the Second Person and the Third Person? There is no need.

But as long as you are hitting your head against the Second Person and the Third Person, you will never be liberated. It’s like you are hitting your head on the wall: you can never be liberated. The moment you turn in and see, the moment you fall in, you will see that there is no First Person.

You are just fighting with your concepts. You are just fighting with your assumed fears; your assumed boundaries; your assumed anxieties. The fear of separateness is nothing but a concept - it is just based on, built on the concept that you are somebody.

When you look, you will understand: you are not as you think.

Q: I am in constant physical pain for the past 5 years. Can you help?

A: I can help you in two ways.

The first is: try to drop that word 'pain' and start seeing the whole thing as a new experience. If you are feeling pain somewhere, just see what is happening in that area? Like a child sees.

How curious a child is, when it sees something new? In the same way, look at the pain and the area in a very curious way. That is the first step.

The next, I will try to help you by healing after the class. Both of these will help you.

Q: This is a follow-up question to when you said that there are thousands of ways in which we can Rise, after we Fall In. Some people laugh, some stay quiet, etc. Is it possible for us to do the same things that we are doing every day?

A: Of course! You will do the same thing every day, but in a different way. A much better way, that’s all.

Your energy will not be sucked in, as it is currently, by your psychological worrying. Right now, up to 80% of your inner chattering is taken away by unnecessary worrying.

Try this simple experiment: Speak whatever comes to your mind for ten minutes, and record it. Whatever comes up, don’t edit it. Just record it as such. Then transcribe the tape; write it down. Read the page.

You will find that not even 10% of what you have written will be directly related to your life, or is going to help you. Not even 10% of your thoughts will be directly related to your life.

You will find that something is simply going on in your mind. It is almost like running a lunatic asylum. Each sense is pulling the mind in different directions; there are so many different kinds of thoughts. You don’t even realize this most of the time.

But when you drop the past, once you start living in the present, once you start experiencing the Consciousness, this waste in energy will not be there. You will not be drained so easily.

We are drained so easily because even to take a single decision, you have to move your file through ten thousand tables. Thousands and thousands of your energy clots have to say yes. Only then, only then will you take, will you be able to take a single decision. If the energy clots are removed, you will be able to make that same decision in a split second.

The other day in St.Louis, Dr.Collins, who has been researching my Neurological System, was analyzing what happens in my brain at the time of meditation.

He says that my right brain is so active, many, many times more active than the left brain. He says, "Swamiji! The information in your brain will be processed so easily and so quickly. If the left brain takes minutes to process some information, the right brain takes only fraction of a second to process that same information. The same information. And you will simply be making decisions, without any worry.”

He also says: "The right brain is more related to the global thinking and timeless zone. You will be continuously experiencing the timeless awareness, which is the greatest freedom".

Time-bound awareness or space-bound awareness is what we call bondage. We call this Bandha in Sanskrit. Bondage. Timeless awareness and spaceless awareness is what I call Mukti in Sanskrit. Enlightenment. Liberation.

So all you need to do is to drop the past, and you will find that you will be able to do your job in a much better way, a much more creative way, a much more beautiful way, a much more spontaneous way, and a much more responsible way.

This ability to take spontaneous decisions is what I call responsibility. If you are able to take spontaneous decisions, you are responsible. You have responsibility.