Your problems aren’t big as you think

By on July 1, 2016   /   Parenting  

Are you struggling with problems in life?
Do you feel overwhelmed or depressed by your problems?

The first thing I learned about problems in life from my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) is that our mind is not logical as such every moment our idea of pain, suffering, pleasure, joy, love and hate is constantly changing. Each problem is like a new wave which dissolves after sometime. The problem is we’ve been taught to think the mind is logical but the truth is the mind is more like an ocean. It is not a solid ground as we may like to believe, all ideas we carry about ourselves, ideas about love, pain, worries, fears, pleasure and God – these ideas are floating and not rooted.

One example in my life.
There was a time which I felt troubled in my marriage. I would imagine the different permutations of response I would give and the outcomes from my imagination. When I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cervix cancer in June 2005, suddenly the game of the mind shifted gear to the most basic survival need. The conflict in the relationship didn’t bother me after all, the issue of my basic survival became the main concern. This clearly showed that all my ideas of so-called problems in my life were just not solid. They existed based on my perception of suffering at that moment.

The second truth is that problem can wash away other problems, waves can dissolve waves. When one big survival-need type of problem hits me, it just washed away all my other problems. Other problems such as conflict in relationships and stress from job are no longer a concern. Suddenly all the problems I thought could never be resolved, just disappeared at that moment. Nothing really matters!

The third secret you should know is that whenever we undergo death-related fear, a huge energy is being released in the second energy center (Swadhistana chakra) – it is an automatic mechanism to bring us out of fear. Same way for pain experience, there is an automatic anaesthesia to protect us from pain. Beyond certain limit, we fall into the unconscious layer and we don’t feel the pain anymore. If we internalize this truth, we lose respect for the perceived problems and they no longer have power over us.  It is by making the problem seems big that our mind feels big and important. But the mind is wavering, constantly it creates waves, hence Patanjali says Sutra Verse #2 ‘Mind is an action, you can stop it.’ The first step to get out of this mind game is to become aware that your understanding of problems is not right.

In Patanjali Yoga Sutra Verse 13, it states that ‘The effort to remain constantly in that elevated state of awareness is abhyasa: Tatra sthitau yatno abhyasa.’ Abhyasa means again and again bringng yourself back to the center, elevating yourself to the higher state of consciousness, centering yourself in that truth. By melting the incompletions or hangovers you created unconsciously and living the right truths will bring you back to the center again and again.  This Sutra not only gave me one of the AHA! moments which shifted my perception about problems in life, but it also helped me to strengthen my spiritual practice so that I am able to find my center again and again.

Abhyasa (practice) is deeply connected to the muscles in our body. Whatever we repeat consciously become unconscious because it penetrates into the unconscious layers; that memory creates our body. Any conscious action you do again and again will strengthen you whereas any unconscious action you do repeatedly weakens your body.

Remember this truth – the problems we face are neither permanent nor impermanent as we perceive. We create problems from our unconscious practice or habits (negative abhyasa). When we are able to cognise this fundamental truth about problems, we can simply walk out of any problem and get back to our center of restful awareness. Namaste 😀

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Understanding of modifications of the mind

By on January 29, 2016   /   Health  

For those intellects out there, this is a sutra for you from Patanjali, the great sage of yoga.

In the 6th Sutra, he states that “Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory – these are the 5 modifications of the mind which may lead to suffering or joy, anguish or non-anguish.”

The revelation is right knowledge can lead to suffering or joy! Even though it is right knowledge, it is still a modification of your mind which is bondage. The mind leads you to bondage or freedom, you mind can make anything out of anything. Any situation can be experienced in any way. The mind can enjoy a certain happening or suffer due to it. It can experience joy or suffering in the same situation, it can comprehend pleasure or pain in the same situation, it can make you experience anything out of anything! That is the power of the mind.

Have you seen people creating guilt out of right knowledge? With the right knowledge, when you misunderstand it and apply it in the wrong way or when you misuse it, you can create agony, guilt and doubt inside you and other people. In the hands of wrong people, even the right knowledge can create suffering!

Next, all of us know that wrong knowledge can also lead us to suffering or joy. This is because wrong knowledge comes from our emotions, mood swings which are nothing but the function of liver and hormones. Do you notice how your mood changes during morning, at noon and at night? Your thought patterns and moods are all based on your liver function which is wrong knowledge. Another example, when you are hungry, your idea about food is very different, after you finish your meal, suddenly your idea about food is different. This also applies to lust: when you want the experience, your idea about the other person, your idea about beauty, your idea about the act, everything is different. When you are finished with the act, suddenly everything is different! Hence, Patanjali says any knowledge based on your senses, your hormones which changes from time to time, is wrong knowledge. That’s why Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) who is a living incarnation, emphasized that during the hormonal hijack, one should never make any important life decision.

You may ask – How can wrong knowledge create joy? According to Swamiji, wrong knowledge can lead one to joy for only a short period, but it is not permanent joy. It is joy that leads to bondage, to more suffering. So even if it gives you temporary joy, wrong knowledge is still wrong knowledge.

There are only 2 things your mind can do – it can either continuously condition you or it can continuously liberate you. Your imagination can either go this way or that way, it cannot stay still. You either progress or you go down, in the inner world there is no such thing as being stuck. If your imagination is used by you to liberate yourself, to remove all conditioning, it is called meditation. If your imagination is used by you to bind you more and more, to create more and more bondage for you, it is called mind. Imagination can either lead you to hell or heaven. People can either move completely away from the spiritual path or completely get enlightened.

Even with this great knowledge of Yoga, I’ve seen people create one more bondage – like feeling depressed due to misuse of this knowledge or misinterpretation of this great truth. That is why these great truths should be heard directly from an enlightened being. The enlightened being knows how to interpret Patanjali and from what context the truths are expressed.

Here Patanjali emphasized the importance of a cognitive shift by a master. The moment we experience a cognitive shift, our comprehension is illumined. We will be able to directly relate with the truth without difficulties or complications, without torturing ourselves. This cognitive shift happens with the initiation of an enlightened master. For instance, the science of unclutching is the direct initiation (energy transmission) by Patanjali where he spoke about in the 2nd sutra – “Mind is an action, you can stop it”. In the entire Yoga Sutra, Patanjali did not mention about initiation because he already knew that enlightened beings will continue to come down to planet earth to remind humanity of this science as a form of initiation and keep this tradition alive for future generations. It is only with a living master who can take you to the right imagination and lead you beyond the mind, the no-mind state of ecstasy!

In sum, the right knowledge, wrong knowledge and imagination are different modifications of the mind which only lead us to the extremes of joy or suffering, anguish and non-anguish. Beware of them! Namaste. 😀

  • Source – 108 truths of the Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.
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You are untouched by suffering

By on January 22, 2016   /   Health  

This is the straight truth by Pantajali, the great sage, the father of Yoga: Suffering can never touch you!

How many of you are ready to accept this truth?

If you are able to grasp this truth, then you are already a living yogi! But for the majority of people, their cunning mind is not ready to accept that it is so simple because it still wants to do the nonsensical game of clutching and identification with thought patterns.

If we look in deeply, we will realise that everything is just a game. The mental game that doctors, psychiatrists, psychologist, priests used to exploit us by using guilt, fear and greed. Since young, we are very strongly made to believe by parents, educationists, society, politicians, by people at large that we have an unconscious mind and subconscious mind especially the psychiatrists and psychologists. The funny thing is they don’t even understand fully about their own mind, let alone trying to guide the world! No wonder they created a mess in the human consciousness with all kinds of disorders and we are suffering from it. For example, Sigmund Freud is the biggest fraud who sold a big hypothetical and fraudulent system of thinking to the world, which can never be questioned, and which can never be proved. Recently the scientific father of the disease ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Leon Eisenberg, just before his death, he gave a confession. He said, “ADHD is a fictitious disease.” Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners also made a statement: “ADHD is a fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction.” It is the conspiracy of the psycho-pharmacology units all over the world which fabricated this delusion and made us believe it due to some vested interests.

In the Vedic tradition, only enlightened masters, who have already gone beyond the mind, are qualified to talk about the mind. He is able to give the unadultered truth and solution so as to raise the collective consciousness of planet earth.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) is one such living master among us, he declared this simple truth “There is no such thing as suffering, there is no such thing as healing and there is nothing to be healed.” Any thought pattern, any incompletion or any memory we are carrying from the past, cannot touch our inner space. The truth is the past actually does not have any control over our inner space. All the so-called suffering is really unnecessary. This is because we are constantly made to believe that our past has a very strong connection with our present. We are constantly taught the idea that we are carrying an unconscious mind filled with many engraved memories, committed sins and karma. We were told that if we have suppressed some thoughts or emotions, we have to release it or if we were abused, we have to heal that wound through past life regression. These are nonsensical ideas put into our consciousness. That is how we create a disorder for ourselves and suffer. If only we realise that we are responsible for clutching again and again with the old thought patterns and allowing them to cause the unnecessary suffering upon ourselves.

Patanjali says that “Till we reach the state of yoga – the cessation of the mind or the withdrawal of thought patterns, there is clutching and identification with thought patterns”. He went on to explain that the modifications of the mind or mental patterns are five-fold, they result in the alternation of anguish and of non-anguish, suffering and peace. He is telling us that we are all qualified for enlightenment if we renounce our self-doubt, self-hatred and self-denial patterns. All we need to do is just stop our action called mind and relax into our true nature. We will experience the state of NOW and nothing else is required.

In essence, no suffering can ever touch our pure consciousness which is by its nature blissful, powerful and all knowing. Just relax into your true nature NOW. Suffering exists only with ignorance of this truth. Namaste 😀

  • Source – 108 truths of the Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.
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