A Bank manager used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning He did this for a month and could not do it any more He found himself trembling while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with the money in his custody He finally wrote a letter to his boss asking to be relieved of the job His boss told him that even if the money was lost he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job The manager slept peacefully

• Surrender is the shortcut to God

A Bank manager used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He did this for a month and could not do it any more. He found himself trembling while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with the money in his custody. He finally wrote a letter to his boss asking to be relieved of the job. His boss told him that even if the money was lost, he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job. The manager slept peacefully from that day onwards. Although he is doing the same job, the fear is not there any more. Why? Because the responsibility has shifted to a higher authority, that’s all. This is what surrender is. Do your duty, leaving the responsibility to existence. You need not surrender to God or to any Guru. There is a life force conducting this world. It is this life force that is causing the breath that goes into you to come out, and the food that you eat to digest. Simply surrender to this life force. The work that you do in your lifetime for your survival is lesser than the work required to convert a handful of food into blood inside your body. A research was once conducted to simulate the conversion of ‘one piece of bread into blood’. They found that the industry for it extended to three kilometres! This is the kind of mechanism inside you! Do you think that the life force that sustains this mechanism cannot sustain our lives? It very well can. Only we don’t have faith. A seed has to surrender to the soil to grow into a tree. It has to have faith in the soil and allow itself to rupture in order to blossom as a tree. In the same way, we have to place our faith in existence and surrender so that a new life, a life of eternal bliss can blossom. How do you do it? Every time you feel heavy in the heart or mind, just tell yourself that the life force that runs the world will take care of you also and move on, that’s enough. When you do this, you will see that all your depression and worries disappear and creativity blossoms in you. A deep peace pervades your Being. You begin to live in the moment. Surrender is your shortcut to God! It is the ultimate technique to merge with existence. Be blissful! PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

FREUD says all your thinking is association If you see a dog in the street you start thinking about all the dogs you have seen from childhood Then you remember your childhood you remember a teacher when you were a child There is no logical connection When you start verbalising you miss reality Every day the sun rises every day the sun sets every day something new happens To you it s one more Friday one more Saturday another Sunday The moment you label it as Friday you think you know everything about that day You just take it for

• Samskara -Its all conditioned by your Mind

FREUD says: all your thinking is association. If you see a dog in the street, you start thinking about all the dogs you have seen from childhood. Then you remember your childhood, you remember a teacher when you were a child. There is no logical connection. When you start verbalising you miss reality. Every day the sun rises; every day the sun sets; every day something new happens. To you it’s one more Friday, one more Saturday, another Sunday. The moment you label it as Friday, you think you know everything about that day. You just take it for granted. Because you take people for granted you don’t enjoy your relationships. You judge people first and collect arguments to support your judgement. You can never step into the same river twice, because by that time it has moved. People also move, they change, they are not the same as who you met before. By the time you meet them again your husband/wife has changed; something is added to them; either intelligence or foolishness. But you don’t agree. You hold on to the same mental setup. Sushruta wrote 5,000 years ago. He talks about open heart surgeries and transplants. He was a great enlightened Master. He said: every six months your liver replaces itself completely. Not even one part is same. Once in 21 days your intestine replaces itself. Modern day physiologists agree. Every cell is replaced continuously. Sushruta says: your mental structure plays a major role when these changes take place. A disciple asks him: why do we carry diseases over a number of years? Why does the new liver carry the same disease? Sushruta replies: you don’t believe you have changed, that’s why. You carry the same mental frame despite body change. That mental frame retains the disease. You don’t let go of that frame, you don’t let go of that disease. You don’t let go of your samskara. Samskara is the powerful mental root that drags you to travel the same path. Like Pavlov’s dogs which came running and salivated even when no food was served but the bell was rung, whenever you remember that past situation or person you react the same way, you move in the same rut. In the morning you worry about office, by evening you worry about your wife and children, unconsciously, without reason. The mood remains low even if you do not realise why. You do not live based on intelligence, you live based on information. • SRI PARAMAHAMSA NITHYANANDA

A POMPOUS professor came to a Zen Master to learn Instead of listening he started blowing his own trumpet The Master asked for tea and when it was brought started pouring a cup for his guest He kept pouring tea into the cup without stopping The cup overflowed and the tea spilt on the table Irritated the professor shouted stop can t you see the cup is full The master said so is your mind Unless you empty it what can you learn Acquiring knowledge is a transmission process For this transmission to take place effectively and effortlessly one s

• Meditation :Emptying your mind for wisdom

A POMPOUS professor came to a Zen Master to learn. Instead of listening, he started blowing his own trumpet. The Master asked for tea and when it was brought, started pouring a cup for his guest. He kept pouring tea into the cup without stopping. The cup overflowed and the tea spilt on the table. Irritated, the professor shouted: stop, can’t you see the cup is full? The master said: so is your mind. Unless you empty it what can you learn? Acquiring knowledge is a transmission process. For this transmission to take place effectively and effortlessly, one’s mind has to be empty and still. Only then the teaching, learning and above all the transmission can happen. Basic knowledge that we all learn from childhood, the type that learn our three ‘R’s with, is intellectual knowledge. To read, write, and calculate we use our head, our mind, to acquire the needed knowledge. At this level of knowledge transfer what happens is communication. Another type of knowledge needs the heart to be involved; one’s head is no use here. Can you become a poet using your head; can you become a singer or a painter using your head? You need passion to be a master. The son of a potter watched his father and picked up the art. He became famous as a master craftsman. People came to him and asked to be taught the way he learnt it. He said, “I don’t know how to teach you. If you want just watch me and do.” What was merely an intellectual communication becomes collaboration between master and the taught, when the heart is involved. Spiritual knowledge is knowledge of the highest kind; it is not knowledge really but wisdom. This can neither be taught nor learnt. Spiritual wisdom, the Truth of the Universe, has to be experienced, by transmission from an enlightened Master who is willing to transmit it from his Being to your Being. At this level, it is a communion of beings, far beyond collaboration and communication. Spiritual wisdom happens; it’s not taught or learnt. It happens in the silencing of your mind. It happens when your chatter, both inner and outer are stopped. Meditation is the key to silencing the mind. No spiritual knowledge is possible without the aid of meditation. Ego fills the mind otherwise. To go beyond ego, to go beyond mind, to go beyond chatter, meditation is the answer. PARAMAHAMSA  NITHYANANDA

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa very beautifully quotes a story of a little child busily playing with its toys The mother knows that even if she calls her child at this point the child would not bother because the toys are most dear at that point in time The toys are the very life of the child The mother gets busy in the kitchen and doesn't even see the child because she knows the child does not need her attention But she waits for her child to call her After a while the child gets bored with the toys it starts to look

• She waits till we call Her...

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa very beautifully quotes a story of a little child busily playing with its toys. The mother knows that even if she calls her child at this point, the child would not bother, because the toys are most dear at that point in time. The toys are the very life of the child. The mother gets busy in the kitchen and doesn't even see the child, because she knows the child does not need her attention. But she waits for her child to call her.

After a while the child gets bored with the toys, it starts to look here and there in search of the mother. Now the mother throws a glance at the child. After a while, the child gets very anxious that it can't find its mother and starts to wail and cry its heart out. Of course, this time the mother comes running and carries the child in her arms.

He goes on to say that this is exactly how our relationship with God is. When we are busy with our toys, we can't be bothered about God or enlightenment. Well, like Swamiji says, instead of small toy cars, we are busy with biggers ones, that's all! Money, bank balance, car, house, family... these are the toys we get immersed in, so much so, that we forget our Mother. We cry over these toys, get stressed up, worried and what not!

She knows that if she comes when we are busy playing, we will only treat Her as a disturbance. So She waits patiently for us to look at Her.

After many lives, when these toys no longer interest us.. when a sense of understanding dawns upon us that we have been playing with the same toys, life after life... a sudden awakening happens.. to search for Her, to search the divine. Because that is where we belong, that is whom we should be calling upon. But until we are ready, the Mother leaves us alone. She knows we don't need Her :)

Sometimes, the Mother out of Her compassion sends a wake up call because she knows that if she leaves us alone, we will take ages to realize that we have been caught up with the toys! She sends living enlightened Masters again and again to wake us up. This awakening or realization is the greatest gift one can ever have!

Imagine the freedom that results when you realize that you have been crying over something so vain, so petty! Suddenly all the so-called worries, sorrows drop, because we now know the space we came from. We now understand our true source, our true nature.

Thank you Master for bestowing this awakening on us. What compassion! Blessed are we....

In the previous post we wrote about the holiday our friend was going to embark on full of uncertainties ahead In this post let us see why we like to take holidays in the first place Nowadays it's trendy to be planning out vacations to exotic places with family friends and hence the number of travel fairs budget airlines newspaper ads etc etc What is it that makes us feel drawn to the idea of a vacation The first sad truth is that we are looking at the slightest opportunity to run away from our life our daily routine We

• The real vacation - within!

In the previous post, we wrote about the holiday our friend was going to embark on, full of uncertainties ahead. In this post, let us see why we like to take holidays in the first place. Nowadays, it's trendy to be planning out vacations to exotic places with family/friends and hence the number of travel fairs, budget airlines, newspaper ads etc etc. What is it that makes us feel drawn to the idea of a "vacation"?

The first sad truth is that we are looking at the slightest opportunity to run away from our life, our daily routine. We have become so mechanical with our lives, we literally treat our body as a machine and each day as just another day. No wonder it feels "the same old job", "same old house", "same old family" etc. We have lost the essence. We have become dead. We have stopped seeing each day as a fresh day, each moment as a new moment. This is why we have lost the spirit to live our lives and it's no wonder we want a break.

As our Master says, when we infuse "spirit", even a "ritual" comes to life, this is "spi-rit-uality". Without the spirit, even spirituality becomes just another ritual.

Secondly, our true nature is that of freedom, without any bondages, without any conditioning, without any limitations. We are limitless energy, boundless joy, infinite bliss. But because we are forcing ourselves to live in familiar thought patters and societal conditioning, we have gradually started to identify ourselves with that solid and bounded mind-body system. When we visualise a large beach or a vast valley amidst huge mountains, our heart jumps with joy because our inner core connects with that vastness. The bounds are broken.

Another important thing, in a vacation, nobody knows us, nobody recognises us, our societal labels have no meaning. That is why we look out for a vacation where we become "nobody", because deep down our true nature is that of emptiness. We are nobody.

Deep down, we want to be away from our labels, because that is not our true nature. But again and again, we are pulled to it because we think that is what defines us. This is the conflict we go through all the time. As as result, even when we are there lying at the beach, this conflict haunts us. We are there worrying out work, home etc. As Paramahamsa Nithyananda says "worrying at office is called work, worrying at home is called home-work and worrying at a beach is called vacation!".

The best part is that a true vacation is something we can take within us, not at an external beauty spot. Imagine being 24 hours in vacation in our inner space, unclutched by all the nagging thought patters, worries, fears etc. That is what Swamiji called living enlightenment. With the grace of a living enlightened master, this is very much possible. That is the only reason masters have descended, to remind us of our infinite possibilities. Let us all take a vacation in our inner space and relax into it. Happy holidays! A related video in Swamiji's own words below: