AMBITION

When ambition enters, creativity disappears -- because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. He is always in the future -- and a creative person is always in the present.

Wherever there is desire and ambition, you are in bondage.

The family gives you ambition, and ambition is one of the hindrances for enlightenment. It gives you desires, it gives you a longing to be successful, and all these things create your tensions, your anxieties: how to be a celebrity?

All these problems are created because the society wants you to be ambitious, and ambition can only be created if there is a goal in the future. For ambition, future is needed. Become this, become that. It teaches you becoming. Its whole education system is based on the idea of becoming.

Love says respect the other as an end unto himself or herself; never use the other as a means. Nobody is a means for you, everybody is an end. But then ambition will flop.

How to find joy? Let your ambition disappear; ambition is the barrier. Ambition means an ego trip: "I want to be this, I want to be that -- more money, more power, more prestige.

Man wants two contradictory things together: he wants peace and he is ambitious. It is impossible. If you are ambitious, then your mind is bound to remain restless. If you want peace, then the first requirement is to drop all ambition. Unless you drop ambition you cannot be at ease, at peace, you cannot be relaxed.

PLEASURE AND BLISS

THERE IS PLEASURE

AND THERE IS BLISS.

FORGO THE FIRST TO POSSESS THE SECOND. - BUDDHA

Meditate over it as deeply as possible, because it contains one of the most fundamental truths. 

PLEASURE

HAPPINESS

JOY

BLISS

These four words will have to be understood, pondered over. The first is pleasure, the second, happiness; the third is joy, and the fourth is bliss.

Pleasure is physical, physiological. Pleasure is the most superficial thing in life; it is titillation. It can be sexual, it can be of other senses, it can become an obsession with food, but it is rooted in the body. The body is your periphery, your circumference; it is not your center. And to live on the circumference is to live on the mercy of all kinds of things that go on happening around you.

Pleasure is dependent on the other. If you love a woman, if that is your pleasure, then that woman becomes your master. If you love a man, if that is your pleasure and you feel unhappy, in despair, sad, without him, then you have created a bondage for yourself. You have created a prison, you are no more in freedom.

The second word to be understood is happiness. Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Happiness is a little better, a little more refined, a little higher, but not very much different from pleasure. You can say that pleasure is a lower kind of happiness and happiness is a little higher kind of pleasure -- two sides of the same coin.

Pleasure is a little primitive, animal; happiness is a little more cultured, a little more human -- but it is the same game played in the world of the mind. You are not so much concerned with physiological sensations; you are much more concerned with psychological sensations. But basically they are not different; hence Buddha has not talked about four words, he has talked about only two.

The third is joy; joy is spiritual. It is different, totally different from pleasure, happiness. It has nothing to do with the other; it is inner. It is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence, a meditative state. It is spiritual. 

But Buddha has not talked about joy either, because there is still one thing that goes beyond joy. He calls it bliss. Bliss is total. It is neither physiological nor psychological nor spiritual. It knows no division, it is indivisible. It is total in one sense and transcendental in another sense. Buddha only talks about two words. The first is pleasure; it includes happiness. The second is bliss; it includes joy.

Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you are a little bit, but in bliss you are not. The ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing. Buddha calls it nirvana. Nirvana means you have ceased to be; you are just an infinite emptiness like the sky. And the moment you are that infinity, you become full of the stars, and a totally new life begins. You are reborn.

Pleasure is momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is nontemporal, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever. Pleasure comes and goes; bliss never comes, never goes -- it is already there in the innermost core of your being. Pleasure has to be snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief. Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that you invent but something that you discover. Bliss is your innermost nature. It has been there since the very beginning, you just have not looked at it, you have taken it for granted. You don't look inwards. This is the only misery of man: that he goes on looking outwards, seeking and searching. And you cannot find it in the outside because it is not there.

ISA UPANISHAD EXPLAINED

THAT IS THE WHOLE.

That is the whole. ”That” means the ultimate, the absolute, the hidden aspect of reality, the invisible, the unmanifest. You can call it God truth, nirvana.

THIS IS THE WHOLE TOO.

And by ”this” is meant the phenomenal world, the manifest world, the world that  surrounds you. ”That” means your center, ”this” means your circumference. And both are whole, in fact both are one whole.

FROM WHOLENESS EMERGES WHOLENESS.

From ”that” emerges ”this”, and out of wholeness only wholeness can be born. You cannot dissect wholeness, you cannot divide wholeness. Out of wholeness only  wholeness is born, so both are whole.

WHOLENESS COMING FROM WHOLENESS,

WHOLENESS STILL REMAINS.

Although the wholeness comes from the whole it does not mean that the whole, the original whole, starts losing something. It loses nothing; it STILL remains the whole. This is a tremendously important statement. It will be good to try to understand it through YOUR experience.

You love somebody; that does not mean that because you have given; on the contrary, it may be even more. It is not ordinary economics. In the ordinary economics if you give something, of course you will have less. But The inner world is totally different.

AT THE HEART ALL THIS PHENOMENAL WORLD,

WITHIN ALL ITS CHANGING FORMS,

DWELLS THE UNCHANGING LORD.

Everywhere God is present; all that is needed is the eyes to see. Then you will see him in the rocks and in the stars and in the birds and in the animals and in the people around you. But the first experience has to happen within you; only then you will be able to see him everywhere else.

SO, GO BEYOND THE CHANGING,

AND, ENJOYING THE INNER,

The unchanging is the God and the changing is the world. Not against the changing, remember – beyond. Beyond is not against. ”Beyond” means LIVE in it, but live in such a way that you remain above it.

Don’t enforce – enjoy the inner. It is not a question of forcing. Meditation should not be enforced; you should not start a kind of regimentation, a violent discipline. You are not a soldier.

CEASE TO TAKE FOR YOURSELF

WHAT TO OTHERS ARE RICHES.

And the Isa Upanishad is not saying that, renounce the world. It says:

... CEASE TO TAKE FOR YOURSELF...

Don’t possess, don’t become owners of persons or things; just use them as a gift of the universe. And when they are available, use them; when they are not available. enjoy the freedom. When you have something, enjoy it; when you don’t have it, enjoy not having it – that too has its own beauty. It may seem like riches for them, but not for you.

CONTINUING TO ACT IN THE WORLD,

ONE MAY ASPIRE TO BE ONE HUNDRED.

Continue to act in the world, Aspire to live long and aspire to live deep, and aspire to live intensely and passionately – perfectly right! Even living and acting in the world you can become one. So there is no need to renounce.

THUS, AND ONLY THUS, CAN A MAN BE FREE

FROM THE BINDING INFLUENCE OF ACTION.

Not by renouncing action but by acting in such awareness, in such deep meditativeness, one becomes free of action and its binding effects.

UNILLUMINED INDEED ARE THOSE WORLDS CLOUDED

BY THE BLINDING DARKNESS OF IGNORANCE.

Upanishads call people ignorant... if they are living in the half they are ignorant. The materialist is ignorant, the spiritualist is ignorant, because both are unaware of the whole. Only the one who knows the whole knows.

INTO THIS DEATH SINK ALL THOSE WHO SLAY THE SELF.

And by dividing your being into two, is like slaying your very being, murdering yourself, killing yourself Don’t cripple yourself, don’t paralyze yourself. Accept your totality and live it joyously.

AUM

PURNAMADAH

PURNAMIDAM

PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE

PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA

PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE.

AUM

AUM

THAT IS THE WHOLE.

THIS IS THE WHOLE.

FROM WHOLENESS EMERGES WHOLENESS.

WHOLENESS COMING FROM WHOLENESS,

WHOLENESS STILL REMAINS.

AUM

Do Not Fight with Desire

If a desire arises within you, Shiva doesn't say to fight it. That is futile. No one can fight a desire. It is foolish also, because whenever you start fighting with something within you, you are fighting with yourself, you will become schizophrenic, your personality will be split. And all these so-called religions and philosophers have helped humanity to by and by become schizophrenic.

Everybody is split, everybody is divided and fighting with himself because so-called religions have told you, "This is bad. Don't do this." If the desire comes, what to do? You go on fighting with the desire. Shiva says don't fight the desire. But that doesn't mean that you become a victim of it. That doesn't mean that you indulge in it.

Shiva gives you a very subtle technique. When desire arises, be alert just at the beginning with your entirety. Look at it with your entirety. Become the look. Don't leave the looker behind. Bring your total consciousness to this arising desire. This is a very subtle method, but wonderful. Miraculous are its effects.

With the entire being the look is so fiery that the seed is burned, with no struggle, with no conflict, with no antagonism. Just a deep look with the entire being and the arriving desire disappears completely. And when a desire disappears without a fight, it leaves you so powerful, with such immense energy, with such tremendous awareness, you cannot imagine it.

ISA Upanishad

It is easy to understand. It is a very small Upanishad. There are one hundred and eight Upanishads and ISA is the smallest of them all. It can be printed on a single page, on one side only, but it contains all the remaining one hundred and seven, so they need not be mentioned. The seed is in the ISA. 

The word Isa means divine. You may be surprised that in India we don't call Christ 'Christ', we call him 'Isa' - Isa, which is far closer to the original Aramaic Yeshua, in English Joshua. His parents must have called him Yeshu. Yeshu is too long. The name traveled to India and from Yeshu became Isu. India immediately recognized that Isu is so close to Isa, which means God, that it would be better to call him Isa. 

The ISA UPANISHAD is one of the greatest creations of those who have meditated. 

NOW THE WHOLE (HOLY) ISA UPANISHAD FOR YOU HERE

AUM

THAT IS THE WHOLE.

THIS IS THE WHOLE.

FROM WHOLENESS EMERGES WHOLENESS.

WHOLENESS COMING FROM WHOLENESS,

WHOLENESS STILL REMAINS.

AT THE HEART OF THIS PHENOMENAL WORLD,

WITHIN ALL ITS CHANGING FORMS,

DWELLS THE UNCHANGING LORD.

SO, GO BEYOND THE CHANGING,

AND, ENJOYING THE INNER,

CEASE TO TAKE FOR YOURSELF

WHAT TO OTHERS ARE RICHES.

CONTINUING TO ACT IN THE WORLD,

ONE MAY ASPIRE TO BE ONE HUNDRED.

THUS, AND ONLY THUS, CAN A MAN BE FREE

FROM THE BINDING INFLUENCE OF ACTION.

UNILLUMINED INDEED ARE THOSE WORLDS CLOUDED

BY THE BLINDING DARKNESS OF IGNORANCE.

INTO THIS DEATH SINK ALL THOSE WHO SLAY THE SELF.

AUM

Decision-Making

(The very word decision means ‘de-cision’; it cuts you off. It is not a good word. It simply means it cuts you off from reality.)

Decision is good when it comes out of life; it is bad when it comes only out of the head. And when it comes only out of the head it is never decisive; it is always a conflict. The alternatives remain open and the mind goes on and on, from this side to that. That’s how the mind creates conflict.

The body is always herenow, the mind is never herenow; that is the whole conflict. You breathe here and now, you cannot breathe tomorrow and you cannot breathe yesterday. You have to breathe this moment, but you can think about tomorrow and you can think about yesterday.

So the body remains in the present and the mind goes on hopping between past and future, and there is a split between body and mind. The body is in the present and the mind is never in the present; they never meet, they never come across each other. And because of that split, anxiety, anguish and tension arise; one is there. This tension is worry.

The mind has to be brought to the present, because there is no other time.

NOW THE MEDITATION - Watch You’re Breathing

When              : Everyday and/or whenever you start thinking of the future and the past too much.

Duration        : 1 hour

Just sit in a chair, relaxed, make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Just start looking at the breathing. Don’t change it; just look, watch. By your watching it, it will become slower and slower and slower. If ordinarily you take eight breaths in one minute, you will start taking six, five, four, three or two.

Within two or three weeks you will be taking one breath per minute. When you are taking one breath per minute the mind is coming closer to the body. Out of this small meditation a time comes when for minutes the breathing stops. Three or four minutes pass and then one breath. Then you are in tune with the body and you will know for the first time what the present is.

Otherwise it is just a word; the mind has never known it, the mind has never experienced it. It knows the past, it knows the future, so when you say present, the mind understands something in between past and future, in between something, but the mind has no experience of it.

So for one hour every day, relax into breathing and let the breathing go. It goes automatically. When you walk it goes automatically. Slowly, slowly there will be gaps and those gaps will give you the first experience of the present. Out of these days, suddenly the decision will arise, whatsoever it is.

It is immaterial what decision comes up. The most important thing is from where it comes; not what it is, but from where it comes. If it comes from the head it will create misery.

But if some decision arises from your totality then you never - never repent for a single moment. A man who lives in the present knows nothing of repentance; he never looks back, he never changes his past and his memories and he never arranges his future.

Decision from the head is an ugly thing. The very word decision means ‘de-cision’; it cuts you off. It is not a good word. It simply means it cuts you off from reality. The head continuously cuts you off from reality.

THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA

THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE:

1. SELF-RESTRAINT (YAM),

2. FIXED OBSERVANCE (NIYAM),
3. POSTURE (ASAN),

4. BREATH REGULATION (PRANAYAM),

5. ABSTRACTION (PRATHYAHAR),

6. CONCENTRATION (DHRANA),
7. CONTEMPLATION (DHYANA),

8. ULTIMATE TRANCE (SAMADHI).

The eight steps of yoga. This is the whole science of yoga in one sentence, in one seed. Many things are implied. First, let me tell you the exact meaning of each step. And remember, Patanjali calls them steps and limbs, both. They are both. Steps they are because one has to be followed by another, there is a sequence of growth. But they are not only steps: they are limbs of the body of yoga. They have an internal unity, an organic unity also, that is the meaning of limbs.

For example, my hands, my feet, my heart -- they don't function separately. They are not separate; they are an organic unity. If the heart stops, the hand will not move then. Everything is joined together. They are not just like steps on a ladder, because every rung on the ladder is separate. If one rung is broken the whole ladder is not broken. So Patanjali says they are steps, because they have a certain, sequential Growth

1. Yam: Self Restraint: Self-restraint means, the first meaning: to give a direction to life. Self-restraint means to become a little more centered. How can you become a little more centered? Once you give a direction to your life, immediately a center starts happening within you. Direction creates the center; then the center gives direction. And they are mutually fulfilling.

2. Niyam: Fixed observance: A life which has a discipline, a life which has regularity about it, a life which is lived in a much disciplined way, not hectic. Regularity... I tell you, unless you have regularity in your life, a discipline, you will be a slave of your instincts -- and you may think this is freedom, but you will be a slave of all the vagrant thoughts. That is not freedom. You may not have any visible master, but you will have many invisible masters within you; and they will go on dominating you.

3. Asan: Posture: And every step comes out of the first, the preceding one: when you have regularity in life, only then can you attain to posture, asan. Asan means a relaxed posture. You are so relaxed in it, you are so restful in it, that there is no need to move the body at all. In that moment, suddenly, you transcend body.

4. Pranayam: Breath Regulation: If the body can be in rest, then you can regulate your breathing. You are moving deeper, because breath is the bridge from the body to the soul, from the body to the mind. If you Can regulate breathing -- that is pranayam -- you have power over your mind.

Have you ever watched that whenever the mind changes, the rhythm of the breath immediately changes? If you do the opposite -- if you change that rhythm of the breath -- the mind has to change immediately. When you are angry you cannot breathe silently; otherwise the anger will disappear. Try it.

5. Pratyahar : Abstraction : wherever I go I could not get the exact meaning for this word pratyahar. Always it has said as repent. But After so much of confusion I am translating it as returning back to the source. In many of the books it is said as repent, it can not be repenting, it must be returning. In the childhood you are innocent, when you grow you will be acquiring the knowledge, your innocence goes because of this knowledge. And by and by when you become old you are becoming innocent again. This is returning back to the home. The same happens with your awareness. You have it ; you lose it; you regain it. This is what is returning to the source.

After pranayam that is possible -- pratyahar -- because pranayam will give you the rhythm. Return, is possible. Now you know the way.

6. Dharana: Concentration: Then comes dharana. After pratyahar, when you have started coming back nearer home, coming nearer your innermost core, you are just at the gate of your own being. Pratyahar brings you near the gate; pranayam is the bridge from the out to the in. Pratyahar, returning, is the gate, and then is the possibility of dharana, concentration.

Now you can become capable of bringing your mind to one object. First, you gave direction to your body; first, you gave direction to your life energy -- now you give direction to your consciousness. Now the consciousness cannot be allowed to go anywhere and everywhere. Now it has to be brought to a goal. This goal is concentration, dharana: you fix your consciousness on one point.

When consciousness is fixed on one point thoughts cease, because thoughts are possible only when your consciousness goes on wavering -- from here to there, from there to somewhere else. When your consciousness is continuously jumping like a monkey, then there are many thoughts and your whole mind is just filled with crowds – a marketplace. Now there is a possibility -- after pratyahar, pranayam, there is a possibility -- you can concentrate on one point.

7. Dhyana: Meditation: If you can concentrate on one point, then the possibility of Dhyana. In concentration you bring your mind to one point. In Dhyana you drop that point also. Now you are totally centered, nowhere-going -- because if you are going anywhere it is always going out. Even a single thought in concentration is something outside you --
object exists; you are not alone, there are two. Even in concentration there are two: the object and you. After concentration the object has to be dropped.

All the temples lead you only up to concentration. They cannot lead you beyond because all the temples have an object in them: the image of God is an object to concentrate on. All the temples lead you only up to dharana, concentration. That's why the higher a  religion goes, the temple and the image disappear. They have to disappear. The temple should be absolutely empty, so that only you are there -- nobody, nobody else, no
object: pure subjectivity.

Dhyana is pure subjectivity, contemplation -- not contemplating "something," because if you are contemplating something it is concentration. In English there are no better words. Concentration means something is there to concentrate upon. Dhyana is meditation: nothing is there, everything dropped, but you are in an intense state of  awareness. The object has dropped, but the subject has not fallen into sleep.

Deeply concentrated, without any object, centered -- but still the feeling of "I" will persist. It will hover. The object has fallen, but the subject is still there. You still feel you are. This is not ego. In Sanskrit we have two words, ahankar and asmita. Ahankar means "I am." And asmita means 'am.' Just "am ness" -- no ego exists, just the shadow is left. You still feel, somehow, you are. It is not a thought, because if it is a thought. That "I am," it is an ego. In meditation the ego has disappeared completely; but an am ness, a shadowlike phenomenon, just a feeling is still there.

You can still fall back. A slight disturbance -- somebody talking and you listen -- meditation has disappeared; you have come back to concentration. If you not only listen but you have started thinking about it, even concentration has disappeared; you have come back to pratyahar. And if not only are you thinking but you have become identified with the thinking, pratyahar has disappeared; you have fallen to pranayam. And if the thought has taken so much possession of you that your breathing rhythm is lost,  Pranayam has disappeared: you have fallen to asan. But if the thought and the breathing are so much disturbed that the body starts shaking or becomes restless. Asan has disappeared. They are related.

8. Samadhi: The Ultimate, Trance:

When asmita also disappears, when you no longer know that you are -- of course, you are but there is no reflection upon it, that "I am," or even am ness -- then happens samadhi, trance, ecstasy. Samadhi is going beyond; then one never comes back. Samadhi is a point of no return. From there nobody falls. A man in samadhi is a god: we call Buddha a
god, Mahavir a god. A man in samadhi is no longer of this world. He may be in this world, but he is no longer of this world. He doesn't belong to it. He is an outsider. He may be here, but his home is somewhere else. He may walk on this earth, but he no longer walks on the earth.

A Final Word : Yam is the bridge between you and others – live consciously; relate with people consciously. Then the second two, niyam and asan -- they are concerned with your body. Third, pranayam is again a bridge. As the first, yam, is a bridge between you and others, the second two are a preparation for another bridge -- your body is made ready through niyam and asan -- then pranayam is the bridge between the body and the mind. Then pratyahar and dharana are the preparation of the mind. Dhyan again, is a bridge between the mind and the soul. And samadhi is the attainment. They are  interlinked, a chain.

What is ENLIGHTENMENT?

What is ENLIGHTENMENT?

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find.

Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go.

Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it.

Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away.

You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.
God is your very being. So the first thing is, don't think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal; it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it.
Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.

Don't be disturbed when I say that enlightenment is a state of hopelessness -- it is not negative. Hope arises no more; desire is created no more. Future disappears. When there is no desire there is no need for the future.
The canvas of the future is needed for the desire. You paint your desires on the canvas of the future -- when there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the canvas unnecessarily? You drop it. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color tubes? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future and the color and brush and technique, and all that, comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, you throw away the colors -- then suddenly you are here now.

This is what Buddha calls chittakshana -- a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment.

There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, there is no special place for it -- it can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment there should be no thought, no desire, no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....

7 m ARIVU - A Different Trailer.

At First Thanks to AR MURUGADOSS and his TEAM, bringing BODHIDHARMA into picture.

Bodhidharma is thought to have been born in Kanchipuram, near Madras, fourteen centuries ago as a son of a king in the south of India. There was a big empire, the empire of Pallavas. He was the third son of his father, but seeing everything -- he was a man of tremendous intelligence -- he renounced the kingdom. He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs, in trivia. His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end.

And the second thing that I would like you to remember is that although he was a follower of Gautam the Buddha, in some instances he shows higher flights than Gautam the Buddha himself. At the age of seven he purportedly began making observations of precocious wisdom.

Bodhidharma got initiated by a woman who was enlightened. Her name was Pragyatara. His teacher, Prajnatara, changed the boy's name from Bodhitara to Bodhidharma. Following his father's death, Bodhidharma served Prajnatara for many years spreading Buddhism. Bodhidharma left his monastery in India to follow his master's last wish that he go to China and spread the teaching.

People who had reached there China before him had made a great impact, although none of them were enlightened. They were great scholars, very disciplined people, very loving and peaceful and compassionate, but none of them were enlightened. And now China needed another Gautam Buddha. The ground was ready.  Bodhidharma was the first enlightened man to reach China.

He looked very ferocious. He had very big eyes, but he had a very soft heart -- just a lotus flower in his heart. But his face was almost as dangerous as you can conceive. Just the sunglasses were missing; otherwise he was a mafia guy!

He lived on the mountain whose name was Tai... Bodhidharma was the first man who created tea -- the name `tea' comes from the name TAI, because it was created on the mountain Tai. And all the words for tea in any language, are derived from the same source, tai. In English it is tea, in Hindi it is CHAI. That Chinese word tai can also be pronounced as CHA. The Marathi word is exactly CHA.

The way Bodhidharma created tea cannot be historical but is significant. He was meditating almost all the time, and sometimes in the night he would start falling asleep. So, just not to fall asleep, just to teach a lesson to his eyes, he took out all his eyebrow hairs and threw them in the temple ground. The story is that out of those eyebrows, the tea bushes grew. Those were the first tea bushes. That's why when you drink tea, you cannot sleep. And in Buddhism it became a routine that for meditation, tea is immensely helpful. So the whole Buddhist world drinks tea as part of meditation, because it keeps you alert and awake.

In the history of martial arts, Bodhidharma holds a special place. Suitably impressed with his great spiritual power and discipline, the monks asked him to teach them his methods for gaining enlightenment. He began to teach them the Chan (later Zen) method of seated meditation. The monks at the time, often falling asleep during protracted sessions of seated meditation considered necessary for gaining enlightenment.

To improve the monk’s physical and mental health, Bodhidharma devised and taught them a series of static and moving yoga-like exercises that are now usually called 18 Monks Boxing, the Sinew Change Classic and the Marrow Washing Classic. Although many variations exist, posturally, these ancient exercises show the influence of classical Hatha Yoga and even Kalaripayat (a complex fighting art from ancient India). 

Bodhidharma created an exercise program for the monks which involved physical techniques that were efficient, strengthened the body, and eventually, could be used practically in self-defense. When Bodhidharma instituted these practices, his primary concern was to make the monks physically strong enough to withstand both their isolated lifestyle and the deceptively demanding training that meditation requires. It turned out that the techniques served a dual purpose as a very efficient fighting system, which evolved into a marital arts style. 

Bodhidharma was poisoned by some disciple as a revenge, because he had not been chosen as the successor. So they buried him. We have heard so much about Jesus' resurrection. But nobody has talked much of the resurrection of Bodhidharma. Perhaps he was only in a coma when they buried him, and then he came to his senses, slipped out of the tomb, left one sandal there and put another sandal on his staff, and according to the plan, he left.

He wanted to die in the eternal snows of the Himalayas. He wanted that there should be no tomb, no temple, no statue of him. He did not want to leave any footprints behind him to be worshiped; those who love him should enter into their own being -- "I am not going to be worshiped." And he disappeared almost in thin air. Nobody heard anything about him -- what happened, where he died. He must be buried in the eternal snows of the Himalayas somewhere.

 

Not everyone, of course, accepts these legends. (Debates usually center on when Bodhidharma actually lived, what he actually taught the monks at Shaolin and what historical accounts recounting his life and teachings can be said to be accurate.) Although the historicity of the account given above has been called into question, there is little doubt that the figure of Bodhidharma casts a long shadow in terms of his influence on both Buddhist thought and Shaolin Boxing. Still, less discussed is the monk’s importation and propagation of certain yogic principles and ideas that seem to have been influenced in their character by Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the foundational work of Raja Yoga.

- Compiled By Sarveswaran.

FAKE MASTERS

It is difficult to speak when you know, and it is very easy to speak when you don’t know what you are speaking about. Then the brain goes on functioning like a mechanism, like a robot. It is a tape. To relay information is easy; to relay wisdom is very arduous. That’s why the people who are not enlightened can go on talking with so much apparent inside knowledge.

Now the Beautiful Story

 

When Buddha became enlightened he remained silent for seven days… this is a beautiful story from the Buddhist scriptures. The gods in heaven became very much worried. It happens rarely that a man becomes a Buddha and even more rarely that a man becomes not only a Buddha but capable of being a Master also — this is even more rare. Many people become Buddhas but only a few of them become Masters. The others remain silent. When they have attained, they fall into deep silence.

This man, Gautam Siddhartha, had become enlightened and he had all the capacities to become one of the greatest Masters in the world. The gods were right. We know what happened — he became one of the greatest Masters in the world. In fact, no other Master is comparable. More people attained to enlightenment through him than anybody else. It seems difficult to surpass him.

The gods were right. They came down to the earth and they went to see Buddha who was sitting under his Bodhi tree. They argued with him and they tried to persuade him that he had to speak. They challenged his compassion. And Buddha said, ‘I have been thinking about it myself but it seems futile. Firstly, if I speak, nobody will understand. Secondly, whatsoever I speak will not be the truth, will not be the hundred per cent truth. It will be untrue in many ways — because that which I have known cannot be reduced to a linguistic form. It is formless. I have got the taste of it but to assert it seems impossible.

And even if I try and even if I succeed, who is going to understand it? They will not understand. I know perfectly well that they will not understand because if, when I was ignorant, somebody had talked to me in the way that I would be talking to them, I myself would not have understood. It will look absurd. It is absurd. So why bother? I will keep quiet and disappear into the great nothingness.’

Then the gods thought about it, brooded over it, and they said, ‘But there are a few who will understand. There are always a few, very few, but they will understand. Yes, if you speak to ten thousand people maybe only one will understand — but even for that one you have to speak.’

And Buddha said, ‘That one will become enlightened even without my speaking. One who is alert enough to understand me will be able sooner or later to reach by himself, so why bother?’

The gods were at a loss. Now what to say to this man? They brooded again. Throughout the whole night they thought and meditated and in the morning they came again and said, ‘You are right, but still you have to speak because there are a few who are just on the verge. If you don’t speak they will not understand, they will not move. If you speak, they will move. You are right, there are a few who will move on their own — but just think of this: if out of one million people even one is standing at the boundary and will not take courage to move without you? why not speak for him? If even one man becomes enlightened out of your whole life’s effort, it is worth it.’

And Buddha had to concede to the gods. He spoke.

BEING CHOICELESS

How to be choiceless where important decisions are needed?

Yeah, I can understand your problem. But it is very subtle, and it comes to everybody who wants to remain choiceless. But there is a misunderstanding, that’s why the problem.

Choicelessness does not mean that you will not have to choose. In life, in practical things, you will have to choose, you will have to decide. If you want to go somewhere you will have to decide whether to go by car or by plane or by train. And you will have to decide – you cannot just leave it and you cannot remain choiceless. The practical thing will have to be decided.

About practical things when you are making decisions the only thing to be remembered is that they are trivia. Whether you go by train or by car or by plane does not matter really. So whatever you decide is okay; it doesn’t matter. There is no need to ponder over it so much; anything will do. But even when you choose there is no need to become too much attached to your choice – that’s what choicelessness is. There is no need to become too much attached to the choice. If somebody else is going by car and you are going by train, you need not declare that you are right and he is wrong. That means you have become attached to the choice. You are thinking it is very very important or something; you are making too serious an affair of it.

And if you choose to go by car and later on you find that it would have been better to have gone by train, then too there is no need to feel repentance and guilt about why you didn’t do that. By being choiceless it means that one has to choose, but one has to remain unattached… in practical things. 

For example, now you want to be here, read this message or you may feel these are absurd and want to do your own work. There is no need to be much worried about it. If you feel like, read this message – then read the message. Nothing is lost, what can you lose? Maybe financially you will be a loser but spiritually if there is some gain you can read. If you feel that there is no spiritual gain and you will be financially a loser, then why read this? Go!

But whatsoever you do, remain unattached. If you read these messages then don’t think that you have done something great; otherwise there will be attachment. If you leave these messages, don’t start worrying that you have done something wrong; otherwise you become attached. And once you decide about practical things, do them and forget about them; no need to waste time.

PLANNING

Through PLANNING you are Committing  SUICIDE

 

All that is great, all that is beautiful, all that is true and real are always spontaneous. You cannot plan it. The moment you plan it, everything goes wrong. The moment planning enters, everything becomes unreal.

Whenever you start planning you have divided yourself, you have become two; the one who is controlling and the one who is controlled. A conflict has arisen, now you will never be at peace.

Spontaneity, living as a whole…. If you want to live as a whole, you cannot plan. How can you plan? You cannot decide for tomorrow, you can live only here and now. The future is unknown, and how can you plan for the unknown? If you plan for the unknown the planning will come from the past. That means that the dead will control the living. The past is dead, and the past goes on controlling the future.

The future is always an adventure, but you don’t allow it to be an adventure. You plan it. Once planned, your life is running on a track. It is not a river. Life cannot be planned, because through planning you are committing suicide.

Life can only be unplanned, moving moment to moment into the unknown. But what is your fear? You will be there to respond; whatsoever the situation you will be there to respond. What is your fear? Why plan it? The fear comes because you are not certain of whether you will be there or not. You are so unconscious, that is the uncertainty. You are not alert.

You are going to have an interview for a job, so you keep planning in your mind what to answer, how to answer, how to enter the office, how to stand, how to sit. But why? You will be there, you can respond. 

But you are not certain about yourself, you are so unalert, you are so unconscious, you don’t know – if you don’t plan, something may go wrong. If you are alert, then there is no problem. You will be there, so whatever the situation demands, you will respond.

Through planning life becomes more and more unconscious, and the more unconscious you are, the more you need planning. Before really dying, you are dead. 

Alive means responding, sensitive. Alive means: whatsoever comes, I will be there to respond, and the response will come from me, not from the memory. I will not prepare it.

LORD SHIVA'S 5th Technique of 112

ATTENTION BETWEEN EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT.

This was the technique given to Pythagoras. Pythagoras went with this technique to Greece, and really, he became the fountainhead, the source of all mysticism in the West. He is the father of all mysticism in the West.

This technique is one of the very deep methods. Try to understand this: ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Modern physiology, scientific research, says that between the two eyebrows is the gland which is the most mysterious part of the body. This gland, called the pineal gland, is the third eye of the Tibetans -- SHIVANETRA: the eye of the Shiva, of the tantra. Between the two eyes there exists a third eye, but it is non-functioning. It is there, it can function any moment, but it does not function naturally. You have to do something about it to open it. It is not blind; it is simply closed. This technique is to open the third eye.

ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Close your eyes, then focus both of your eyes just in the middle of the two eyebrows. Focus just in the middle, with closed eyes, as if you are looking with your two eyes. Give total attention to it.

This is one of the simplest methods of being attentive. You cannot be attentive to any other part of the body so easily. This gland absorbs attention like anything. If you give attention to it, both your eyes become hypnotized with the third eye. They become fixed; they cannot move. If you are trying to be attentive to any other part of the body it is difficult. This third eye catches attention, forces attention; It is magnetic for attention.

ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT... If this attention is there, for the first time you will come to experience a strange phenomenon. For the first time you will see thoughts running before you; you will become the witness. It is just like a film screen: thoughts are running and you are a witness. Once your attention is focused at the third eye center, you become immediately the witness of thoughts.

This fifth technique is a technique of finding the witness. ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET THE MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. Now look at your thoughts; now encounter your thoughts. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT.

When attention is focused at the third eye center, between the two eyebrows,suddenly you become a witness.

Now you can feel the form of breathing, the very essence of breathing.

First try to understand what is meant by "the form," by "the essence of breathing." While you are breathing, you are not only breathing air. Science says you are breathing only air -- just oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases in their combined form of air. They say you are breathing air! But TANTRA says that air is just the vehicle, not the real thing. You are breathing PRANA -- vitality. Air is just the medium; PRANA is the content. You are breathing PRANA, not only air.

Modern science is still not able to find out whether there is something like PRANA, but some researchers have felt something mysterious. Breathing is not simply air. It has been felt by many modern researchers also. In particular, one name is to be mentioned -- Wilhelm Reich, Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who called it "orgone energy." It is the same thing as PRANA. He says that while you are breathing, air is just the container and there is a mysterious content which can be called ORGONE or PRANA or ELAN VITAL. But that is very subtle. Really, it is not material. Air is the material thing -- the container is material -- but something subtle, non-material, is moving through it.

http://www.orgone.org/articles/ax9kelley1a.htm

Wilhelm Reich did many experiments, but he was thought to be a madman. Science has its own superstitions, and science is a very orthodox thing. Science cannot feel yet that there is anything more than air, but India has been experimenting with it for centuries.

This sutra says that when you are focused between the eyebrows and you can feel the very essence of breathing, LET FORM FILL. Now imagine that this essence is filling your whole head, particularly the top of the head, the SAHASRAR -- the highest psychic center. And the moment you imagine, it will be filled. THERE -- at the top of the head -- SHOWER AS LIGHT. This prana essence is showering from the top of your head as light. And it WILL begin to shower, and under the shower of light you will be refreshed, reborn, completely new.

LORD SHIVA'S 24th Technique of 112

EYES CLOSED, SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. THUS SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE.

EYES CLOSED...

Close your eyes. But this closing is not enough. Total closing means to close your eyes and stop their movements; otherwise the eyes will continue to see something which is of the outside. Even with closed eyes you will see things – images of things. Actual things are not there, but images, ideas, collected memories – they will start flowing. They are also from outside, so your eyes are still not totally closed. Totally closed eyes means nothing to see.

One has to practise it. A long period will be needed; it cannot be done suddenly. You will need a long training. Close your eyes. Anytime you feel that it is easy and you have time, close your eyes and then inwardly stop all movements of the eyes. Do not allow any movement. Feel! Do not allow any movement. Stop all movements of the eyes. Do not do anything; just remain there. Suddenly, someday, you will become aware that you are looking inside yourself.

The false identity that ”I am the body” is only because we have been looking at our bodies from the outside. If you can have a look from the inside, the looker becomes different. And then you can move your consciousness in your body, from your toe to your head; you can now have a round inside the body.

Close your eyes; SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. The first, outer part of the technique is to look at your body inwardly – from your inner center. Stand there and have a look. You will be separated from the body because the looker is never the looked at. The observer is different from

the object.

Once you know how to move, once you know that you are separate from the body, you are freed from a great bondage. Now you have no gravitational pull; now you have no limitation. Now you are absolute freedom. You can go out of the body; you can go and come. And then your body becomes just an abode.

EYES CLOSED, SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL – body and mind both. THUS SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE.

See your body and mind, your structure. And remember, body and mind are not two things. Rather, you are both: body-mind – psychosomatic. Mind is the finer part of the body and body is the grosser part of the mind.

So if you can become aware of the structure of body-mind, if you can become conscious of the structure, you are freed from the structure, you are freed from the vehicle, you have become different. And this knowing that you are separate from the structure is your true nature. That is what you really are. This body will die, but that true nature never dies. This mind will die and change, and die again and again, but that true nature never dies. That true nature is eternal. That is why that true nature is neither your name nor your form. It is beyond both.

LORD SHIVA'S 1st Technique / 112

Lord Shiva has given 112 techniques to the world.

He calls it TANTRA.

TANTRA means technique. TANTRA is science, TANTRA is not philosophy. To understand philosophy is easy because only your intellect is required. Science is not concerned with why, science is concerned with how. That is the basic difference between philosophy and science.

All these techniques of Shiva’s are simply turning the mind from the future or the past to the present. Unless YOU are different TANTRA cannot be understood, because TANTRA is not an intellectual proposition, it is an experience. To understand TANTRA, You will need a change... rather, a mutation.

"Really, when you try the right method it clicks immediately. So I will go on you the methods here every day. You try them. Just play with them And these methods are simple, you can just play with them.

Take one method and play with it for at least three days. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the other methods, do not play with other methods. Stick to it - at least three months. Miracles are possible. The only thing is that the technique must be for you".

So now I will take each technique.

1. RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH

COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE TURNING UP (OUT) – THE BENEFICENCE.

That is the technique:

RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS.

After breath comes in -- that is, down -- and just before turning out -- that is, going up -- THE BENEFICENCE. Be aware between these two points, and the happening. The gap between the two is of a very short duration, but keen, sincere observation and attention will make you feel the gap. If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, THE BENEFICENCE. Then nothing else is needed.

It looks so simple. Such a simple technique to know the truth? To know the truth means to know that which is neither born nor dies, to know that eternal element which is always. and remember YOU ARE REALLY ETERNAL!.

Breath and consciousness should become one. The breath goes in -- you go in. Only then will it be possible to get the point which is between two breaths. IT IS SO SIMPLE BUT WILL NOT BE SO EASY. Move in with the breath, then move out with the breath: in-out, in-out.

Buddha tried particularly to use this method, so this method has become a Buddhist method. But The Original source is From Lord Shiva. In Buddhist terminology it is known as Anapanasati Yoga. And Buddha's enlightenment was based on this technique -- only this.

This one technique is enough for millions. The whole of Asia tried and lived with this technique for centuries. Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon -- the whole of Asia has tried this technique. Only one technique and thousands and thousands have attained enlightenment through it. And this is only the first technique Look for more here.