Is negativity robbing your life?

Currently I am writing my first book on completion with body and I was searching for technique to transform the muscle memory. The search ended when I found a discourse by my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) gave when he was expounding on Patanjali Yoga Sutras.

What is muscle memory?

Muscle-memory is that part in you which makes the decision to do any act spontaneously, and executes it within micro-milliseconds – even before you become aware of it! Swamiji explained that muscle-memory means your everyday actions and reactions. Your actions directly impact your muscles memory. Anything you do consciously again and again directly strengthens your muscles. So the more you age, the stronger you should become! That means you should become stronger and more intelligent as you age. The paradox is this is not happening because of the negative practice we create over time which strengthens the unconscious ideas in our inner space and weakens us. If you understand the science of practice (abhyasa), you will be stronger every moment and your muscles will be very strong!

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My completion with the Unknown

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! 😀

Encourage every possibility with love and respect

Do you see possibility or impossibility in life?
How often do you shut down a possibility in your life?
Do you keep every possibility available for your child?

The more I work with children, the more I truly embrace the beauty of the space of possibility we can hold for them and ourselves. In life, nothing is impossible really! Life is a huge possibility, every human life is a tremendous possibility waiting to be realised. When we are awakened to our true nature – all knowing, all powerful and eternal Self, we can manifest anything we want in life which not only fulfils us but also do so much good for the entire Universe.

I remembered one important truth shared by my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) which struck a chord in my being. He said that “A possibility happening inside you is like a new bud, like a tiny plant just sprouting out. It should be treated with a lot of love and respect! Every hope, every faith, every trust, and every little possibility should be kept alive, encouraged, and enriched – that is dharma. In the Vedic Tradition, we have a great heart to encourage every possibility.”

That’s the main reason I am so in love with Vedic tradition because it gives individuals so much freedom and space of possibilities to explore and discover. It is so life-affirming which keeps me constantly in a state of excitement and ecstasy about my possibilities and the people I touch. Can you imagine if we can hold this space of possibilities for the next generation? The whole human civilisation will make a quantum leap into Satya Yuga, the Golden Age of Enlightenment!

Frankly, I have also seen many people losing so many things in life, just because they cannot keep the possibility open! Due to their narrow ideas and wrong cognitions about life, they postpone the decision and seal off the possibility. NO!! Don’t shut down your possibilities, or postpone them, just because you cannot encounter or face certain situations in life. A person who shuts down his/her possibility is an atheist. Atheists are people who do not have the subtle grooves in their brain to grasp the subtle higher truths of life. So they just shut down, saying – Nothing like this exists. Shutting down any possibility, shutting down any hope is atheism.

What causes us to shut down our possibilities?

The biggest culprit is the rigidities of  rules that got inserted into our consciousness by parents, schools, religious organisations and society. With rigid rules, so many possibilities are stopped! You would have observed how rules stifled a child. When you try to give all these silly rules to your child because you think you know the best way, this is the time you shut down the possibility in your child.  He/she feels like a bird with clipped wings. By and by, children respond to life by not even trying because no matter what they do, you will not give them the space and time to explore and make mistake. Nothing wrong in making mistakes in life, it is a part of learning process. When children are not in the space of expansion or being happy, they won’t do it! Unless you give your child a space to make mistakes, you are not making him/her responsible. A possibility can only flower with responsibility. If you want to make a genius out of your child, be very clear you have to make them responsible. Other than the rule of no-violence (ahimsa), no other rules should be solid.

In Swamiji’s Vedic school called Nithyananda Gurukul at Bengaluru Adhneenam, the Gurukul balasanths (child-saints) are given so much space and time to explore and discover their own possibilities. Every child has the freedom to be who they want to be. The space of possibilities is at its peak, it is like a heaven on planet earth for every intelligent being to realise their ultimate possibility.

How can we open up more possibilities?

Swamiji shared that “Keep all hopes alive, even if it is false hope! All hopes lead you to hopelessness, not because they are false hopes, but to lead you to reality. Hope by its very innate intelligence leads you to reality. So keep all the hopes alive. Whenever the possibilities are shut down, hopes are reduced. Everything should be fluid, which a person can bend or alter as per his growing responsibility. Everything should be a flowing guideline, not a rigid rule. Shutting down the possibility is adharma (life-negative). The master keeps even the smallest possibility open. I have happened on planet Earth to open and fill everybody with all hopes; to awaken all the possibilities of you.”

From my own experience, the moment you are connected with a living master, he takes you on a beautiful journey of self-discovery of your higher and higher possibility. I can see what I thought I couldn’t do in the past, everything is becoming a possibility in my life now. As the embodiment of life itself, an enlightened master encourages every possibility in every being as an expression of the Whole.

In essence, let us all encourage every possibility with love and respect in every one in every moment and discard all the rigid man-made rules which bind us. Constantly, keep our hopes alive by taking responsibility to give time, energy and life to experience our highest possibility. Namaste 😀