My completion with the Unknown

By on August 12, 2016   /   My personal journey  

In the path of spiritual awakening, one of the things we have to go beyond is the fear of the Unknown. During December 2013 Inner Awakening program in Bali, a 21-day spiritual retreat conducted by a living avatar, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji), I realised that I have a tremendous fear of the Unknown, a fear of my own possibilities. At that time, I didn’t know how to complete with this fear but I did acknowledge this fear of Unknown in me.

Swamiji, my Guru (the dispeller of darkness) has been working on this dimension of our awakening since 2015 when he started the Upanishads (ancient Vedic scriptures) discourses. Just by imbibing the truths from the Source, a major cognitive shift has started to happen in me coupled with his initiations into Shivoham in December 2014, Nithyanandoham in December 2015 and the most recent Suddhadvaitam process in Kumbh Mela, Ujjain in May 2016.

This week, I started a process of Manifesting Powers training conducted by one of Swamiji’s ordained Acharya (teacher), Mahayogini Nithya Mahayogananda. She explained that the muscle memory we carry comes from the father’s component while the bio memory we carry comes from the mother’s component in the process of creation. The bio memory refers to the way we cognise our self (whether it is conscious or unconscious, right or wrong, complete or incomplete). There is at least 20% of the mother’s bio memory still sitting within us which we need to complete and drop. Swamiji said that unless we awaken our bio memory by changing the cognitions we carry about our self, we will continue to exist in an unconscious way. Constantly we carry a feeling that life is difficult, a feeling of being beaten and abused by life and blaming life and we create hell for ourselves. So the first task we were given was to investigate the fear of Unknown which was correlated with my mother’s spiritual relationship with the divine, God and the Unknown.

I grew up in a village (kampong) in Singapore surrounded by cemeteries and Nature in the 70’s. As Taoists, we had both family deities and ancestors tablet which my mother offered prayers and rituals diligently. She would grow chickens at the backyard of our house and slaughtered the poor chickens during festivals as offering. I remembered I always ended up being her assistant in the slaughtering of chickens as my other siblings would run away from it. She would make me hold the chicken’s legs while she did the killing. I would spare the gross description of the slaughtering here but I always felt petrified by witnessing the cruelty done to the chickens just to please Gods. During the festivals, she would cooked up a storm and demanded the family to help. She would often become angry if things did not turn out the way she wanted. I dreaded those festivals because it was literally a torture for me and my siblings. Without understanding the context of what she was doing because she never spoke about it except blindly following what she was told by her parents or others. I only saw her beliefs as a blind faith filled with fear and greed – like a bargain with God by pleasing them. I never really understood why we had to do these rituals, so meaningless filled with hypocrisy. I was so delighted when we finally moved to public housing in an apartment because I was liberated from seeing the chickens being killed. As a result, I developed certain resistance towards rituals and have low patience for long rituals which do not resonate with me.

I couldn’t relate with the family deities let alone following the rituals. To me, they were just a picture! Just going through the meaningless rituals was dreadful for me. I felt that people go to God only for begging for something in life. I was not spiritual at all in the growing up years, even though I explored other religions but none of them resonated with me. Till my early 30’s, the only Divine form I prayed to was Quan Yin – the Cosmic Mother of Taoism and I would seek refuge at the largest Quan Yin temple in Singapore. There were simply too many questions about myself, world and God that remained unanswered, I was carrying a fear God and the Unknown.

When I first met Swamiji in 2006, who is the embodiment of Cosmos, my fear got triggered – the fear of Unknown!  It was only after being initiated into the Science of completion and living this truth – I am divine (Shivoham) that I am able to start seeing my divine self.

Two nights ago, when I did the assignment given by Ma Mahayogananda i.e. to complete on the clash between my idea of God vs. my mother’s idea of God and the fear of the Unknown, I was able to see everything my mother did was based on her intelligence and frequency at that time. Her connection with God was through ritualistic offering. To her, she did what she knew with sincerity and devotion. She did not have the grace of an enlightened master to shed light in her, that was her way of relating with Divine. After the completion, I felt an overwhelming sense of love and gratitude for her because she added a different perspective to me in relating with God. I remember Swamiji once said that every faith, belief and connection with Divine, however raw, is a possibility for that being to evolve which should be encouraged with love and respect.

My connection with God is through the love from the Master and having Guru Bhakti towards Guru from feeling of gratitude and love, completing the cycle of love into Self in Advaita with Him. From my mother’s life, one thing I did learn was being diligent in my rituals like Guru puja which I never miss unless I am on the road. I am grateful to my mother for that bio memory. The great thing is she never interfered in my choice of religion, beliefs and faith, as such we didn’t have to fight on this aspect of my life. I completed with the differences with understanding and surrendered everything at the Guru’s feet. When I sat with myself in silence this morning, suddenly I experienced a click that I AM the UNKNOWN – the SELF! This revelation created a remembrance that I came down to play and enjoy the leela (divine play) with Self. Over! I just relaxed into the silence of Existence.  Sadashivoham! 😀

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Spiritual practice breaks your patterns

By on August 5, 2016   /   My personal journey  

A few years ago, I used to have a pattern of being quick-tempered whenever I felt violated by people or situations. So much so that it was taking a toll on my relationship with my loved ones. It was only after I met Swamiji, a living enlightened master (also known as Paramahamsa Nithyananda) that I learned how I actually strengthened certain responses unconsciously and how to get out of the patterns.

According to neurophysiologists, deep-rooted mental patterns (also called samskara in Sanskrit) create mental grooves in our brain, just like rivulets in sand, which makes the water run in certain patterns. They say that each time we react in a certain way repeatedly, we strengthen the power of the pathway. Each time the water runs in the same pathway, the rivulet becomes deeper. Same way, each time we react in a certain way to a situation, we strengthen that pattern. For example, if you have a habit of flaring in anger every time you are stressed, you are encouraging and strengthening that engram of anger due to stress. This is a very important truth that everyone must catch because the worst suffering we have is not recognising our pattern is the source of our suffering.

Swamiji gave this understanding beautifully, he said “The river running in the same direction becomes stronger, deeper, and more permanent. Same way, in your brain you have so many rivers – Ganga, Kaveri, Yamuna, Saraswati, Godavari, Narmada, Sindhu! Some of the rivers in your brain are wild rivers like forest rivers. They have the power to suddenly flood and cause calamities in your life. So you need to make a dam to divert such rivers; to make them flow in a different direction. Making that dam and diverting the river to a different direction is what I call sadhana – spiritual practice.”

Neuroplastic science also says that your brain has the ability to create new grooves and pathways, and the existing ones will heal and disappear if it is left on their own. So whenever you are really feeling the stress, fear or anxiety, do something very active such as doing a cathartic meditation or intense weight-lifting to make the body active. You will create a new engram, a different flow of energy, a new groove in the brain simply by working on the body intensely.

Swamiji explained that the next time whenever fear or stress happens in you again, the whole thing will automatically get converted into useful energy instead. When awareness is added to your rajas (restless energy), it can just become part of your life and can be directly useful to you. If you are stressed, if you have anger or fear towards somebody, just take it out with awareness in the gym, yoga or do some intense cathartic processes. He had given several cathartic processes from different traditions: 1) Manipuraka shuddhi kriya or talking in tongues, 2) pranayamas like bhastrika, kapalabhati, 3) loud chanting of Upanishads or Vedic mantras. In the Christian tradition, talking in tongues is called Glasalolia. In the Hindu tradition, we call it Manipuraka shuddhi kriya.

If you learn how to release your stress and fear through catharsis, you will see that you will be creating new rivulets. You will stop strengthening the old patterns, the ugly mental set-up of suffering and torturing yourself, instead you will be able to divert your energy to something life-positive which strengthens your ability to handle yourself with greater confidence.

From my own experience, the way I got out of my anger pattern was through a regular sadhana of daily yoga practice which included silent sitting with myself to unclutch from the dust I collected unconsciously as well as creating a space to witness my thought currents. After the initiation into Nithyanandoham and Suddhadvaitam processes, my sadhana has evolved to daily manifestation of experiences, powers and revelations. Swamiji taught the world the powerful science of completion (poornatva) and through the power of will and declaration to drop and complete with the incompletions which created the thought patterns and emotional patterns. Recently he has given a more subtle technique called pure questioning, when perform with authenticity, can lead one back to the space of completion and inner peace.

In essence, the next time you become aware of certain blind spot or thought pattern which you are suffering, go for spiritual solutions or practices which can heal the cracks in your inner space as well as create new subtle brain grooves such that your transformation becomes permanent. Namaste 😀

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Silence is the source of inspiration and creation

By on June 10, 2016   /   My personal journey  

Do you know the power of silence?
Are you aware that our body actually heals faster when we are in silence?

After coming back from the 21-day Suddhadvaitam program at Kumbh Mela in Ujjain for 2 weeks, I am experiencing this vibrant silence in my inner space – the no-mind zone. I just want to sit by myself and unclutch from this mind maze because I could clearly see the inner chatters but the main difference is I can stop the thoughts whenever I want. As per Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra Verse #2, it states that ‘Yogaha chitta vritti nirodhaha’, meaning ‘Withdrawal from mental patterns is Yoga’. Now I am living it! I can say it is such a tremendous freedom!

I am able to distinguish that thinking is a simple yet subtle action of the mind. I am the only one who is responsible for the mind to go on in action. The moment I become aware, I can reclaim my responsibility over my unconscious actions, the mind can just be stopped by centering on my breath awareness and applying the unclutching – a powerful technique initiated by my master, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji).

Swamiji said that if the Cosmos (brahmaanda) is reflecting as it is in the inner space (pindaanda), the human body heals itself when we infuse silence and put the mind in restful awareness. The macrocosm is in a state of eternal silence, if we are able to get back to this original silence of a meditative state without the disturbances of the mind, the body (microcosm) naturally heals by itself. Unfortunately, we have been habituated to move away from this meditative state as taught by society. We always turn to solutions from outside because we have forgotten that it is the state of being in the inner world which determines the state of doing in the outer world.

I notice a deeper level of healing is happening within me, for example, the eczema I used to have at the elbow joints and knee joints had cleared up since I returned from Kumbh Mela. Suddenly, there is so much love for self and the whole which I never experience before.

The more I rest in the silence, the more I discover the power of being silent in the gaps of the breaths. Another fascinating happening is the stream of inspirations which keeps bubbling out from that space of silence. I was inspired to create a new yoga module based on working on negative emotions which I will be starting next week. When I directed my awareness in the silence to the new book I started writing this year, I was shown the new thought trends in the book content. As explained in Shiva Sutra by Swamiji, it is said that the gaps between the breaths is the space where we experience the Shiva consciousness (divine consciousness). It is like you are plugged into the Source and there is a whole new Source of inspiration which is coming from the Spirit (energy) and it is no longer coming from the limited identity (matter) anymore. In that space of silence, you are flooded with energy and intelligence. You start existing in a difference space and constantly you will be having inspirations and expressing creativity because God becomes your supply of knowledge and creation.

In essence, silence is the very source of inspirations and creation. The more time you spend being in silence, the greater the healing and creativity you will express. If you observe the body language of mystics, sages and enlightened masters, you will be able to notice it is the silence which creates their intense presence. Namaste 😀

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