April 06 2006 shiva sutras: Disengage from I

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There are different levels for which we can operate the body. One level for fear, one level for greed and the next level for prana means life force. We should try to operate our body from life force. If we let the cognitive shift happen in us only then this technique will help us. In this technique Shiva is asking us to have the cognitive shift to move the source of our energy from fear and greed to prana. That shift has to happen in us. It is only then that we will have the sensitivity to flow with the body. Then we will understand that moving our body is a pleasure. It is not pain. When we understand that moving our body is a pleasure we start working more and more. We become really productive. Not only productive for society but we will also start feeling the fulfillment. We will start realizing that we are living our life intensely. In India I have seen especially in villages, elders living with pride. They do not feel they are unwanted. Still I have seen elders who are eighty to ninety years and not feeling that they are unwanted. The other day one of our devotees in America was telling me ‘Swamiji, we have to compete with youngsters in jobs and other fields’. She is an elderly lady who said that they have to compete with youngsters. We have to prove ourselves upto their level. In India I have seen that these elderly people

don’t feel they are unwanted. They feel they are respected. Not only that they feel tremendous pride and grace because they live their life intensely. Whoever has not lived their life intensely will naturally feel unfulfilled or discontented. They go on cursing their sons, grandkids, mother-in-laws, daughter-in-laws, etc constantly. They curse everybody. They say this fellow has not taken care of me. That fellow has not taken care of me. He ran away to this country, he ran away to that country. He is not around me. We curse others only when we have not lived our life completely. If we live and if we are alive, we do not have to bother about others and we do not curse others. Years have passed but we have never had intense experiences in our lives. We just lived a mediocre life. What have we achieved in our life? Acquired a car and a house and paid mortgage to that car and house. By then thirty years will be over. Nothing else! Our whole life can be written in three or four lines. People come and ask me, ‘Swamiji why is it that in all graveyards the date of birth and date of demise is written’. On tombstones it is only these two dates, of birth and death that are written. I tell them it is because nothing much has happened between these two dates. In many lives only these two things have happened. Nothing much has happened between that two. There is nothing much to mention and that is why we speak about birth and death. If our life is driven only by fear and greed, fear means death, greed means birth. We will end up only from birth to death. Never will the life happen to us between these two. If we move and start moving our body for no reason without the root of fear and greed, it is only then that we will experience life or the prana itself. Unless we experience prana, this meditation is not going to work for us. if we are interested in doing something and if we are a painter, dancer, or an artist then this meditation is for us. if we do some voluntary service then this meditation is for us. Shiva gives so many different techniques for so many different kinds of people. We can use these techniques in so many different situations in life. This is the technique for people who move their body for no reason. If we are walking and if our hands are moving for no reason, when we are sitting and when our hands are flowing for no reason then this meditation is for us. When we are working and if our body is moving for no reason or when we are laughing and if our whole body is laughing, then this meditation is for us. This is for us. If that is not happening in us then we should try to come up to that level first by doing some social

service. Some service which does not give us money, name and fame or some social status. Even if it brings us name and fame we start calculating. We will start thinking, how we could get that name without going there today or how we could do that thing without going there today. We will start becoming intelligent. We will start becoming calculative. No, that is not going to work! We should be where we can experience the space beyond, name fame or money at least for half an hour. Then we will understand how to move the body without fear or greed. Here Shiva gives us a beautiful technique. Let us see the technique itself. He says ‘in a moving vehicle, rhythmically swaying’. Next time we are traveling in a car maybe from here to our house, sit in a relaxed way. It would be better not to do this if we are the ones driving. When we master the technique then we can do it even while we are driving. Once we master the knack for three or four days then we can do it. It is not that it cannot be done while driving. In the beginning we may not be able to do it while driving. Then the cop may catch us thinking that we are drunk. And especially if we are swaying in the car, we should be very careful not to try that, especially in this country. In India, usually all vehicles go in that way only, so no problem. They won’t catch us if we were to try that in India. On the other hand if we go in a straight way, they may catch us wondering what’s happening with us. Anyhow, if we are not driving, first thing is to feel relaxed. First, is to try to feel how our whole body is positioned inside the vehicle. Second, do not think we are only filled inside our skin. We should just jump out of our skin. We should feel the whole car is us. We should feel that we are connected to the whole car. The moment we feel connected to the whole car we will start relaxing. Please understand as of now we are always against everything. Whatever is around us, we are against it and we resist it. We have to just take a few minutes and feel we are filled in the whole car or the whole car is filled by us. The moment we start visualizing that the whole car is filled by us, we will stop resisting the movement of the car’s movement and our body movement. We will not resist the movement of the car. Third thing is to feel just like the car as if we are also flowing in the same speed. We are flowing because we are the car itself. We are no longer this body. Just jump out of the skin. Do not think we are enclosed only in the skin. Just think we are the whole car. Naturally we will feel the whole speed in which the car is going. Just relax in that speed. If something has to happen, it will happen. And just by our

holding tight inside the car we are not protecting ourselves much. Of course, maximum protection is seat belt, that’s all. By holding tight to our body can we do anything? No we cannot do anything. By holding ourselves tightly it is not going to help us at all. It is not going to help. Of course we should not try this meditation while we are driving. First is to try when we are not driving, when we are relaxed and when we are sitting. Later on when we have mastered the technique and once this does not disturb our driving then we can try it even while driving. First thing is to not resist. Next we should relax with the movement of the car. If the car is swaying in one way let our bodies move or sway in that same way. We should be like a flower. We should not try to balance it consciously. Third is to feel as if our car is filled by us. Fourth, naturally we will feel we are flowing in that same speed as the car. Next step when we feel we are flowing with the whole car in that speed, we should just be. That’s all. Let us not be just the body. Let us be the vehicle in which we are flowing. People ask me ‘Swamiji, how is it going to help me if I feel I am the car and not just the body?’ That’s an important question. Please understand, if we were to employ whatever ways to feel that we are something more than the body, then suddenly we will catch the glimpse of the truth that we are not the body. All we need to understand is that we are something more than the body. There are three spaces. One is Mahakasha which means the whole cosmos. Next Katakasha which means the space covered in the building you are sitting in. The third is the Chittakasha meaning the space covered inside our body. Chittakasha, Katackasha and Mahakasha. Enlightenment is nothing but feeling ourselves as the mahakasha. It means that we feel that we are the cosmic space instead of the chittakasha the individual space. Straightaway we will not be able to take a jump from individual space to cosmic space. So we can use this katakasha as a step towards that if we feel that we are the space in the building, room or vehicle that we are sitting in, instead of feeling we are just a body. If we feel we are the vehicle in which we are sitting, we are taking one big jump. This makes it easier for us to take the ultimate jump. It is a beautiful step by step technique towards the ultimate spiritual enlightenment or towards the Atma gnana or self realization. The word Vishnu means who is all pervasive, the whole universe. Vishnu means who is all pervasive. Vyapakatva, means who completely fills everything. He is Vishnu. To experience Vishnu we cannot

straightaway take the jump into that cosmic energy. First we can jump into the katakasha then we can take a jump into the mahakasha. We can move from chitakasha the individual space into the katakasha the space in which we are staying and then the mahakasha the space which is cosmic energy. So it is one of the beautiful techniques to jump out of our skin. Jumping out of our skin always has a wrong connotation but here Shiva is giving us a beautiful technique to jump out of our skin to experience the katakasha and to take the ultimate jump into mahakasha itself. Chittakasha needs to expand into the katakasha so that it can expand and explode into the mahakasha. First thing, let me repeat the instructions so that it is easy for us to practice. When we sit in the vehicle relax. Do not hold the body. Let the body swing or sway along with movements of the vehicle. Be like a flower, a flower that is dropped in a vehicle. It will never resist. Be like a child. A child will never resist unless we train them. Pets which are in the vehicle will never resist, unless we train them. In the modern day societies we have spoilt even pets. I have never seen pets falling sick in India. In our Ashram we have so many cats, dogs, cheetah and snakes. I never thought they could fall sick. Here every house I go to, they ask me, ‘Swamiji, please heal my pet, he is not feeling well’. The pets are sick because we do so many things that are not natural. What to do, that is why they fall sick. I heard they even put many clothes on the pets. God! Anyhow, lets not talk any more about that. God! Now I have to tell Him to develop His system. He does not know that our pets will have winter, but we know? He created and he does not know, but we know? I am surprised. Anyway just be like a flower. Do not resist. Third is to feel that we have filled the car. Fourth, is to feel the speed of the car as if our whole body is moving. There are no two entities, our body and car. There is only one, the vehicle the car that is all. Fifth thing is to just be with that flow that’s all. Now naturally there will be one more question and that is how to practice this technique when we are not in the car. Shiva gives one more beautiful technique which is an alternative technique for that situation also. Just as how in a still vehicle by letting our self swing in slowing invisible circles we can experience the consciousness beyond the body, similarly he says here that we can experience the same when we are sitting in still vehicles which means houses. Our homes are still vehicles. Even sitting here, by allowing the body to move, or swing within its own way in invisible circles we can feel the slight movement always happening in our body.

If we sit in a relaxed way and feel the body we can feel there will be a slight trembling, slight movement, very slight invisible movements constantly happening in us. The more we try to possess the body, the more we will stop that flow. If we do not possess the body then that flow will be there. Kids feel that flow that is why they start whirling. They feel comfortable with that flow. They get the kick out of that flow because they have not yet learnt to possess their bodies. They have not created ego. They have not become dull. They have not started calculating. They do not ask ‘Why should I whirl?’ or ‘why should I move?’ or ‘How many dollars will I make by whirling ten minutes?’ They have not started calculating. They would not ask ‘Why should I jump around, why should I laugh?’ or ‘will I get the candy if I laugh?’ They have not started calculating. If they start calculating and start laughing their smile becomes ugly like us. I would say that the calculated smile is the ugliest smile. When we look at the next person before smiling for recognition, it is ugly. We can see in our lives even before smiling we just look at the next person. We ask his approval means even for that we don’t have the spontaneity. We just want to go with the society and think if everybody is smiling we should smile and then we smile. If nobody is smiling we think lets keep quiet, why to do unnecessary things. Or why to do something which others are not doing. We are so calculative. For every step we have some logical analysis. Before doing everything we calculate and we analyze. We measure. While doing this technique do not analyze, do not measure and do not calculate. The movements which are happening in us, let us allow it to happen, let it happen. If we see inside we can see that there are slight movements always happening in us and these are the invisible circles. Just be with that movement and allow that movement to happen. Whenever we allow that movement to happen and meditate on that movement, we will see suddenly and we will realize we are not a solid body. We are a flowing energy. Experiencing ourselves as a flowing energy is what I call Enlightenment or the Shiva consciousness or the Ultimate experience. Suddenly we will realize we are not just the body. We are just in the body, but we are not the body Meditation: I would suggest doing this meditation for at least eleven days so that we can start seeing that we are experiencing a different consciousness.