THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPOT IN THE UNIVERSE

There is a place you can come where everything is beautiful. Tourists travel from place to place looking for beauty. With photos, and souvenirs, they try to take the beauty back home with them. They only get tired, and tanned.


Yet the most beautiful spot anywhere is right here. When you come here, you find that everything is so beautiful wherever you are.


Where is this place?
Don’t look here, and there; come within you.
When you are here, then any place becomes beautiful.
Then wherever you go, you add beauty there.


If you are unhappy, even the moon irritates you, sweet things nauseate, music disturbs. When you are calm, and centered inside, noise is musical, clouds are magical, rain is liquid love.


Book yourself on a trip to this most beautiful place in the universe.
Then you’ll find that every day is a vacation, and a celebration.

HOW TO MEDITATE INTO HIGHER STATE OF CONCIOUSNESS

We live most of our life through three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming and sleeping.

In the waking state of consciousness, we experience the world through the five senses. We seek elevation and joy from these senses. If any one of the senses is missing, the entire dimension of that sense is lost. One who cannot hear is bereft of the whole arena of sound. Similarly, he who cannot see is deprived of all the beautiful sights and colors. So, the sense is more important and much bigger than the object of the sense.

The mind is higher than the senses. The mind is infinite, its desires are many, but the capacity of the senses to enjoy is limited. Greed is wanting more and more of sensory objects. Even though one can only enjoy a limited amount during a lifetime, one wants all the wealth in the world.

Giving too much importance to sensory objects leads to greed; giving too much importance to the senses leads to lust; and giving too much importance to the mind and its desires leads to delusion.

We hold on to the concepts of the mind and want things to happen in a certain way. Thus, the concepts in our mind impede us from perceiving the infinite consciousness that is a part of us. This is not to say that the senses or the mind are bad. But we must learn to discriminate between things and be aware of what is happening at all times; that is when clarity dawns on us. This is the first step toward the higher state of consciousness.

In the waking state, one is constantly engaged in looking, eating, working, etc. The other extreme is the sleeping state where one is completely cut off and dull. The dullness and heaviness linger even after waking. The more one sleeps, the duller one feels since a lot of energy is expended in sleep. Then there is the dreaming state where one is neither asleep nor awake. Here, you neither feel at rest nor are aware of your surroundings.

Meditation

The higher state of consciousness is somewhere in between the waking, sleeping and dreaming states. Here, we know we "are" but we don't know "where" we are. This knowledge that I "am," but I don't know "where" I am or "what" I am, is called Shiva. This state gives the deepest possible rest that one can experience. And one can achieve this through meditation.

Meditation helps in two ways -- it prevents stress from entering the system and simultaneously releases accumulated stress. With the assimilation of meditation into daily life, a higher state of consciousness called cosmic consciousness dawns within us. Cosmic consciousness perceives the whole universe as part of oneself. When we perceive the world as a part of us, love flows strongly between the world and us. This love empowers us to overcome the opposing forces and the disturbances in life. Anger and disappointments become fleeting emotions that occur momentarily and then vanish.

A higher state of consciousness will not simply happen one fine morning. The sapling of consciousness is within you -- it needs to be nurtured through spiritual practices like meditation. Some coconut trees yield in three years, and some in 10 years. And those that are not nurtured never yield, they simply exist.

Attaining higher states of consciousness does not require any complicated strategy; one just needs to learn the art of letting go. The confluence of knowledge, understanding and practice makes life complete. When you grow into higher states of consciousness, you find that you are no longer thrown off-balance by different situations and disturbances. You become strong yet soft -- a delicate and beautiful individual capable of accommodating different values in life without any conditions. As your consciousness opens and the whole system gets physically, mentally and spiritually elevated, your life truly becomes worth living.

THE ULTIMATE TRUTH OF LIFE

See the impermanence in life, that is the ultimate truth. Turn back and see, all that you did is now like a dream. Whatever you do in the future - you may become mayor of the town, you may rise to the highest position, you may have a lot of wealth - so what? You have cried and wept; you have gotten angry and agitated, so what? All has passed, the whole thing has finished. Tomorrow will pass too. This very moment, whether pleasant or unpleasant, will pass on.
Now and then, a pinch of unpleasantness comes. Do you know why? It makes you aware of your pleasantness. Suppose you never had un­pleasant moments in your life, you would never have pleasant ones either. You wouldn’t know what pleasantness is. Your life would stagnate with utter boredom. You would become like a stone. So, in order to keep you alive, now and then, here and there, nature gives you a little pinch. It makes life more lively. Accept it.
God does the same thing to you. Now and then, He gives you a pinch. Then you start weeping. However, just turn back and see, every time you had difficulty, were you not taken out of the difficulty? Any time you had some problem, you received a helping hand, you were picked up. There are stories of people who were drowning in the river and there was nobody there; they don’t know how they were saved.
It does not mean that you should jump into the ocean and see whether somebody saves you. You don’t have to be afraid in life. There is always support. So, every pinch you receive in life is for the best, to make your life more lively and enjoyable. Otherwise, there is no purpose in life. Why are people born? Why go through everything when death will come one day? Is this life? Are you born just to pay your bills? If you are born just to pay your taxes, electricity and phone bills, then life is not worth living.
Day and night you work so hard. You are waiting for Friday to come. The whole week is spent mad­ly working, coming home tired, eating, going to bed, sleeping, and the next day the same thing. Weekends have become another routine - the same gossip, the same sitting around drinking, watching the same movies, the same type of conversation.
If you’re awake, you will see there is so much foolishness! Just watch when four or five people get together and gossip. In a gossip session, you can immediately change the topic of conversation. This is the thing with a crowd. If ten people are talking about the weather and you change the topic to stock markets, everybody will immediately start talking stock markets, whether they know about them or not. And then from stock markets you change to health food. They will not even have completed the previous topic and will jump onto this! It is great fun.
We take many things in life for granted and that brings in a state of inertia. Getting caught in routine only adds to such a state of monotony. Few people venture out of their comfort zones for something challenging, something that triggers life. They either suffer great loss or they achieve exemplary gains.

But when a crisis like the economic meltdown hits, it just shakes the entire society with its dominant effect. It wakes you up from slumber. You suddenly realize the uncertainty of life. When your comforts are squeezed, you are compelled to move out to find new ways of sustaining yourself. From these crises one must learn that life is impermanent and so are its comforts and its troubles.

Lack of spiritual quotient will also lead you to depression and even suicidal tendencies. Whenever you are depressed, you don’t see beyond your little world. If you open your eyes, you will see there are people who are much worse affected than you. Prayer, meditation, yoga, pranayama will help one to see beyond their limitation and face the challenges.

Many feel it is easy to say pleasure is impermanent, but troubles appear to be permanent. Here, it is spiritual knowledge that gives you enormous strength to endure and find a way out. A crisis opens your eyes to something beyond, something which you had ignored for a long time. And a glimpse of that brings a sense of relief, joy and sometimes creativity.
A crisis brings forth the human values prevalent in society. Like the devastation in Bihar, Assam or Orissa, where people from all religions, whether rich or poor, helped each other. Suddenly the enormous hidden human face was visible, and you realize there is a lot of love and belongingness on this planet.
Being aware of this impermanent nature of life, of the changing nature of happenings – you will find that there is something in you that has not changed. There is a reference point by which you can say things are changing. Get­ting into that reference point, that is Being. That is the source of life. That is wisdom.

TO THAT INDIA WHICH DREAMS AND DARE

Despite rising threats of religious terrorism, Naxalism and natural disasters, India is moving ahead. What makes India tick?  India was born in the midst of religious strife, violence and trauma. Religion has never been a unifying force in the world. What accounts for India’s continued strength in the midst of such religious and cultural diversity?
In this century, China has been held together by force while India has been held together by cultural and spiritual bonding. Though religious fundamentalism, caste violence, Naxalism and natural disasters have rocked India in recent decades, the country's resilience that is anchored in her spiritual values has become far more visible in the world.
India is married to its principles: liberty, spirituality and a nationalism that honours universalism. It is one of the oldest civilisations on the planet. When America was not yet discovered and Europe was in its Dark Age, India's glory was widespread. It was famed for art, architecture, spirituality and trade.
Over the centuries, the country has faced and survived many challenges. On the one hand, India has touched pinnacles of justice and equality, on the other Dalits have been oppressed. India is a country of non-aggressive, humane people, yet practices such as sati have prevailed. It is very difficult to judge India. There is no midway: either people have a high opinion or low opinion about India because it is full of opposites.
For centuries, India's negative aspects have been projected over the good ones. Fortunately, that's changing. As a country, divided by language and caste and subjected to centuries of humiliation, it continues to reel in low self esteem. Like an elephant that can uproot trees but is scared of the mahout's small stick, India can be timid at times. Even the West has called it a sleeping giant.
With one sixth of the world’s population, she could have already played a bigger role. She now needs to take her rightful place on the world stage. For this to happen, her people need to become more confident and take greater pride in their cultural and spiritual roots. We have to harness our spiritual values to fight terrorism and other social evils and to prevent our young minds from turning to violence. The issue of Naxalism has to be addressed at its roots and the misguided youth should be brought back to the mainstream. We have to remain open to learning and innovation, rather than simply imitating Western consumer and material values.

Today, we need to take steps towards:
1. Providing Job-oriented education.
2. Eradicating politics of corruption and malpractice.
3. Encouraging the educated and the youth to take interest in social development.
4. Attending to the agricultural sector. While industry has flourished, agriculture has been totally neglected.

5. Improving basic hygiene,

6. Preventing female infanticide and

7. Ensuring judicial use of water resources.

As the population continues to grow, solutions to these problems are still a long way away. The wisdom, which was India's glory, has been almost forgotten and needs to be revived.

We should work for an India where there is no place for violence and terror, the poor have both relief and justice, the middle class is free from fear and frustration and is able to dream and to dare, and the affluent take social responsibility and uphold human values. Let us hope for an India which is able to take the best of its wisdom and traditions into the 21st century, both for the benefit of ourselves and for the whole world family.

TO STEPS TO ENLIGHTMENT

Enlightenment or evolution has got two steps. The first step is from becoming somebody to nobody. It is not getting stuck in something or somebody. You get stuck being somebody in two cases - either you are too special or you are hopeless. People get stuck in the seat. If you don't give them a proper seat, that's it. That pushes their button. “What difference does it make if I sit on the sofa or on the carpet? I remain what I am.” Meditation is from being somebody to becoming nobody. Dissolving of ego is from somebody to nobody.
And this is not an instance here and there. This is widespread, nearly the same all over the globe. Maybe not so much in developing countries but especially in all the developed countries and metropolitan cities - there is absolutely no human quality at all being expressed. I wouldn't say they have died out. They are there but are never expressed. So there is such frustration, such pain, such suffering all over and we need to do something about it. 
 
The second step is from nobody to everybody. That is the state where you feel oneness with everybody, you feel that you are a part of everyone and everyone is a part of you. That is the reason why Jesus said, "If you have to go to my Father, there is no other way, you have to go through me and me alone." Krishna said the same thing to Arjuna. He addresses him in three terms. First he says, "Surrender to Him who lives in everybody's heart". Then he says, "Just surrender to me." And then he says, "Surrender to that divinity that is deep in yourself and get out of this illusion of ‘me’ and ‘you’ and all the separation.”
 
See, the body is decaying. Whatever you do, your body is perishable. The direction of body is towards perishing, is towards decay. And the direction of your soul should be towards the immortal, the non-changing, imperishable. As you grow older, your mind should mature and look towards that eternal something that is undying, that doesn't age. That is deep in you: the spirit.
The whole universe is one organism, one living Being. And each mind is just a part of that. This is the highest knowledge, the universal truth. You are in everybody. Only then the real service also begins. That service is really authentic. You see someone suffering and you feel you are suffering too or you see somebody getting hurt, and you also feel the pain.
 
There is so much suffering in the world and that's why we need to be very active in giving this knowledge to as many people as possible. You can. All those who have learned meditation, and all those who have not learned meditation also, just get together, do some reading and satsang, meditate together, eat together; share lives together. Once in fifteen days, once in a month, have a sort of community get-together. And talk about knowledge. Instead of gossiping or talking something just trivial, why not talk about knowledge, wisdom? Putting your mind into something that is eternal is worth doing.
 

We need to improve the quality of life. Just look at the children when they are in kindergarten, in nursery school; there is so much joy, there is so much happiness, celebration in their life. And, as they grow older, when they go to high school, see how they are? Do they grow in joy, in bliss, in celebration, or are they going towards violence, hatred, unfriendly behavior, stress, frustration, agitation and dullness? Is this what we are doing to the children? And we spend thousands of dollars to bring this suffering on to them. And this we call as education? Losing all the human qualities is called education! That's ridiculous, no?

SECRET OF MEDITAION By Guru- SRI SRI RAVISHANKAR

On a free day, just lie down and keep looking at the sky, a moment comes when the mind becomes still, there are no thoughts and you don’t know where you are, but you know you are. An experience of the center everywhere and circumference nowhere. Limitless awareness can happen through just watching an empty space, because our mind is also space; consciousness is a space.
You listen to music and then a moment comes when you are completely engrossed in the music and you snap out of it. You no longer hear the music, but you know you are and yet you have no boundaries. In the language of Yoga, it is called Laya Yoga, which means dissolving in it. That leads you to meditation.
Any wonderment or astonishment also leads you to that state. Whenever a ‘Wow!’ arises in you, there is no mind, there are no thoughts, but you just are.
Sense of touch, smell, taste, sight and sound can all lead you into meditation, provided you do it in the right way. It needs a certain skill to experience that.
Emotions can lead you to a state of meditation; both positive and negative emotions, not only positive. A state of shock can also take you into meditation. Again, it is a little risky.
You know, when you feel utterly hopeless, you say, ‘I give up!’ When you are very angry, what do you say? ‘I give up!’ It means, ‘This is it. I can’t take it anymore.’

During those moments, if you don’t slip into frustration or depression or violence, you will find that there is a moment where it snaps and there is no mindedness. So, whether it is positive emotions or negative emotions, like fear, the mind stands still, it stops. It can lead you into that spot.
The next is intellectual stimulation, through knowledge, through awareness you can go into meditation. This is called Jnana Yoga.
If you have been into a space museum, you are in a different state of consciousness when you come out of the museum. There is a different context, because you have seen yourself in the context of the universe. Who are you? What are you? Where are you? How are you in reference to the unfathomable, infinite universe?
If you have studied Quantum physics, you start to see that everything is just atoms, just a wave function, just energy. If you really listen to Quantum physics and then you study Vedanta or the Art of Meditation or Yoga, you will find striking similarities. You will find that the same language is being spoken.
Adi Shankara said, ‘All that you see doesn’t exist’.
One of the top scientists of our times, Dr. Hans-Peter Durr said, ‘I studied matter for the last 35 years, only to find out that it does not exist! I have been studying something that does not exist’. So, through knowledge also you can experience a state of meditation.
I won’t go into the benefits of meditation. You can go to google and find out. There are greater minds that have done a lot of research on meditation and have put it there – what are all the benefits of meditation. Any meditation has some benefits. But the secrets of meditation, that is what we are interested in. We are inquisitive about this – what are the secrets?!
There is a difference in the Orient and in the Occidant when it comes to secrets. In the Occidant, anything that is shameful is kept a secret. In the orient anything that is sacred is kept a secret. I find a startling difference between the two.
If you say something is very secret, it must be very sacred. That is the attitude in the orient. In the orient, a shameful act is never kept a secret, it is always confessed. There is nothing to hide there. But what is to be secret is one’s mantra – a sound which is kept very secret in the mind.
Why is it kept secret? It is said that mantras are like seeds and seeds sprout in secrecy. You put the seed under the ground and cover it with mud and then the seed sprouts and becomes a tree. Of course the sprouts you eat are different. The ancient concept of mantra is a sound which is kept very secret in you grows from inside; means it resonates inside you. Anything that you keep to yourself as a secret does not leave you but it takes you deeper and deeper to the subconscious layers. That is one of the reasons for confession also.
Why do you confess and say something out? This is so that it does not go deep into your consciousness. A mistake or sin that you did, once you confess, it just goes out. It no longer goes in and bothers you. But the mantra; a sound which has been given, and that too by one who is deep into meditation, one who has mastered it, helps you go deeper. The sound (mantra) is given to another person, a student saying, ‘Keep it to yourself, it is your personal mantra, and let it grow.’
Here the meaning of the sound is not important, just the vibration is important. Understanding the meaning is superficial compared to the vibrational aspect of any sound.
It could be the same sound which everybody knows.
In olden days they used to do four days of celebration to give a mantra. They would call all the relatives and friends when the child was going to be initiated. They would bring horses and put the child on the back of the horse and have a procession.
This was the ancient way of doing it.
Spiritual journey is considered very sacred, very personal and yet a matter of pride. You are getting a secret sound and that is a big pride because it is sacred.
Meditation happens in transition. Actually meditation happens, you can’t do it. You can only create a congenial atmosphere for it to happen.
Somewhere in the teenage the mind starts drifting. It doesn’t happen before teenage. Before the hormones become active in our body it does not happen. A child’s mind is always focused on something and it sticks there. But as the hormones in our body starts functioning more and more, the mind starts swinging and wavering, and that focused attention becomes less and less.
In earlier days, before this happened, before someone gets into their teenage, they used to train him or her in yoga and meditation. So all through the teenage when the mind is swinging and going here and there, already a youth is trained how to handle the mind. It is a very good age to start, at 8 or 9 years old. Just before the hormonal changes start appearing is the right time to initiate one into meditation, yoga and all the martial arts. Body is ready and is flexible and mind is ready.
This is most ideal, but any time is good to start meditation, any age is okay. But the most ideal is to start at 8 or 9 years old.
Today, even 8 and 9 year old kids have such a wavering mind. So many things influence the child. Like food has an influence on the mind, environment has an influence, lifestyle has an influence. So many things have an influence. But all those influences are minor.
Sit comfortably, spine erect and body relaxed.
You know, sometimes people sit with their body so stiff for meditation. The whole time they will be so body conscious and what comes out of them is only anger later on because they put so much effort, and that effort and stiffness doesn’t really bring in that meditative quality.
If you have meditated, you should feel light like a flower, where your inside feels so soft, beautiful, delicate, delicious and comfortable. But if you feel uptight, angry and upset inside then mediation has not happened. Now don’t sit and think, ‘Oh I have to feel very soft and gentle, and whatever Guruji said. This has to happen.’ It is not going to happen because the anxiety itself will be a block for that to happen. That is why I said it is a very delicate situation. You cannot expect things to happen, you simply have to be. Just be!
Experiences come, they change and they go. Everyday there will be different experiences, never mind, just the procedure needs to be correct. Procedure is what, not being uptight and at the same time not being loose in the body. If you start with your body being loose then it doesn’t work. If you start with lying down on your coach with your legs up, thinking you are meditating, you are fooling yourself. It is not going to work. It is not like the way you watch television, with a bag of potato chips. ‘Oh, by eating also you can get into meditation. Guruji has said it’, no! Your spine erect but body relaxed, your shoulders relaxed, you start like that. Not stiff but your shoulders are relaxed and head is straight. Then you close our eyes and let go.
During meditation if the head goes down, it is okay. Your head may go down or go to the side, whatever position it takes is fine. But you don’t start with that.
The best example is how a coat hangs on a hanger. Like that the body is hanging, just the spine is erect.