Guruvaani

Preciousness within

Objects will gain value and lose value, but space will never lose value. When you buy a cup, what do you give the value for? Do you give money for the space inside, or for the outer material? Have you ever thought about it? If you have a lump of clay in your hand, is there any value for it? But when the lump of clay is made into a cup, you give value for the space. And that value will never diminish. The purpose of the space is always served. Whether it is a stainless steel glass, stainless steel cup, or glass, or china clay, or silver cup, the space inside the cup is what really serves, isn’t it? That is what really matters. Space can never lose its value.

So what is precious? Whatever you think is very precious is very costly, very expensive. The most expensive things are least used! They’re least useful. How do you put value on something – by its utility, or by its rareness of availability? If something is available in plenty, you don’t value it more. Why do you value gold so much, or diamonds so much, or any precious stones so much? It is because they are not easily available. If diamond is just found on all over the street or if the mountains are just diamonds, everywhere, who would value diamonds, right? So what is more valuable? It is that which is useful.

Take, for example, iron and gold. Gold is more expensive and iron is basically essential and useful. Without iron, you will collapse. Your body needs iron every second to survive. Iron is valuable, because it is the most useful thing. And whatever is most useful, what is most valuable for your life is available in plenty. Water is most essential in life. You value water, air etc which are so essential in life, and they’re available in plenty. Isn’t it? Now which is precious – iron or gold? You can live without gold, but you cannot live without iron.

We have a whole wrong system of evaluation in the world! We value useless things a lot. A piece of stone, red, or yellow, or pink, or whatever, is very rarely available and so we want it even if it is so expensive! We put all our earnings, all our money into it. But that is not essential to life at all! To have that diamond, emerald or jade etc, people breathe in all the polluted air all the time, work day and night, earn a lot of money, and put them in the jewellery. Is this not utter foolishness? What is most precious, your health, you are destroying. You’re not breathing in good air, but you are buying diamond and whatnot… those precious stones! This is lack of education!

There are two types of sadhaks or seekers. The first type of seekers is those having the capability and capacity to digest knowledge, and act according to knowledge. The other type of seekers are those who make mistakes, knowingly make mistakes and feel sorry for them later on. To repeat, the second type of sadhaks is those who make mistakes but who are pained by their own mistakes. Even then, you are on the path of devotion, because the pain of not having done something that you should be doing or should have done will make you deep. If you cover your mistake, you will not even feel bad about it deeply. If you feel deeply bad about it, you feel your helplessness, your weakness, that weakness itself can make you a prayerful seeker. And then you will see whatever that was bothering you will fall away from you. Whatever habit you don’t want to have, you’ll feel that it has fallen off from you when you cry for help.

It is said, the Divine dawns in you when you cry for it, when you sing for it. When you sing, very quickly the Divine love comes back to you, dawns on you again; it comes to one’s experiences. This is for sure!

The Divine is only waiting for you to dig a little deeper into yourself; that is all. Because it can then fill you with much more nectar! The deeper you are, you’ll be filled with more nectar. Divine is waiting to give you more. It wants you to create more space in you.

Cry from your soul for help. This is for those seekers who are weak. Those seekers who are strong, for them, with the power of knowledge they can sing with that joy of what they have achieved! Sing with the gratitude in your heart. Sing the glory of the Divine. The moment you sing in gratitude, in glory of the Divine, it immediately dawns in you, and fills you up again.

There are two aspects. One is a seeker who is grateful for all his growth and all that he has received, so grateful with the knowledge. The other is so helpless and weak due to own weakness. And both will be helped. And both can grow when they both sing. Because in that singing, either with pain or with joy and gratitude, the Divine dawns and the experience happens, for sure!

Of all the truths in the world, Divine love alone is the supreme. Because anything else you do, be it a righteous action, if it has no love behind it, that action is worthless. Suppose you have knowledge and the knowledge does not create love and totality of awareness in you, that knowledge is useless! How can you even have the knowledge if there is no love? If you love astronomy then you will go more deep into it. Of the eternal truth, only love stands, and it is the most important. And what is Love? Love is not just an emotion – “Oh, I love you so much.” That’s not love. Love is seeing that there is no difference. “I am you, you are me. You are part of me, I am part of you.” Feeling that oneness is love. And it’s not just an intellectual understanding, but coming in the level of experience and living that.

Living life as joy and ease is spirituality. Spirituality is not some ritual, or doing something. It’s a very pleasant, uplifted state of your being and seeing that the whole world is all spirit or consciousness. Seeing that there is one Big Mind among all the human beings, animals and all the life in the world is spirituality, and that Love is the essence of Life.

An Article by H.H.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Timeless moments

Amongst the twenty-four principles that have formed this creation, time is one of the principles. Every moment, every single moment is important. Time is not elsewhere. It is here, now! The silent part of the Divine is known as maha kaala.

Shiva is known as Mahakaal. Mahakaal means great time. We often say, “I had a great time”. Isn’t it? Great time means the moments present in the timeless moments. When there is peace in the mind you will not sense the passage of time. When there is no peace in the mind even the two minutes that have passed by give you the feeling as though two hours were spent. Lord Shiva is also known as “Kaala Samhaara Murthy”. (It means the Lord who slays Time). How is it possible to slay time? It is possible by extreme bliss. When you are blissful you will not feel the passage of time. When you are not aware of the passage of time, then it is said that time has been slayed.

There is a close relation between time and sadness. When we are very sad, we perceive time to be too long. When you are happy you do not feel time. So what is happiness or bliss? It is our very self. That self is the Shiva tattva or the principle of Shiva.

Adi Shankara has sung in one song “Oh you foolish-minded people, do not search for your soul”. People wander to all kinds of places in search of the soul, for Shiva. Shankaracharya says that foolish are those who do not realize that “I am Shiva”. Do not see or think of Shiva as somewhere high up in the sky residing there all alone. Just peep into your self.

Usually when the word God is mentioned everybody looks up immediately. What is there up above? It only rains from above! There is nothing above. Everything is inside, neither above nor below. Looking inside or being inside is meditation.

When you look at someone close to you, your friend or somebody, what happens to you? Something happens inside you. You feel as though some new energy is passing through you. Capture that great moment. It is those great moments, which are timeless moments. Okay, you might have experienced those timeless moments by the presence of that person, that person might have brought forth those emotions in you. So what? Instead of getting immersed in that person or in the situation, just be with the spring of bliss rising up in you.

From despair to fulfillment: the path to sanyas

Maya means that which can be measured, that which draws you back into this world. Observe the Mayapati or the owner of Maya. Then that consciousness, that presence becomes predominant and your whole existence will be filled with that presence.

How many times in life you have experience this, “I am nothing. I want nothing”? When you are depressed you say “Oh! I do not want anything. Just leave me alone”.

When you have no enthusiasm you say that you do not want anything. That is of no use. In spite of having everything, have you ever contentedly felt “I do not want anything”? Or have you ever had some few moments where you felt “I have everything with me. I am everything”? If, in those moments of happiness and love, if you have felt that way, then you have had sanyas in those moments!

In this year, how many days were you in sanyas? How many days were you struggling, being caught in Maya? Turn back and remember this whole year. How many months, how many days, how many weeks you were in suffering? How many days you were in sanyas? Were you in sanyas at least for a few days? Even for a few moments if you live in the feeling that “I am nothing, I want nothing”, or “I am everything, I have everything”, you will gain good strength and peace in you.

Do not run away from anything. Do not reject anything. Do not go away from anything. At the same time let your attention also be on the self. This is a delicate balance. That balance is yoga.

An Article by H.H.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

A fresh breath of… Ayurveda

Life has four characteristics: it exists, evolves, expresses and extinguishes. And for these, it depends on five elements: the earth, water, air, ether and fire. These correspond to the five senses: sight, smell, taste, sound and touch.

Ayurveda is the study of life — Veda means to know and Ayur is life. According to Ayurveda, life or existence is not rigid compartments — it is a harmonious flow. Even the five elements are not tight compartments of defined objects — they flow into one another. Each one of the elements contains the other four. So, the approach of Ayurveda towards life is holistic.

The subtlest element in us is space, which the mind is made up of, and the grossest element is the earth, which our bones, skin and body structure are made up of. To understand the physiology, its characteristics and its reflection on the mind, the human system is divided into three Doshas or imbalances: Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

When an illness arises, it manifests first in the thought form, which is the subtlest aspect, and then in the sound form. Thereafter it manifests in the light form, that is, in the aura. It is only then that the illness manifests itself in the body. To begin with, simple symptoms arise in the fluid form, which can be eradicated, and then only they manifest in the grossest form, where they need medication. In aromatherapy, an illness can be cured just through fragrance. It is mostly focussed on the preventive aspect.

The holistic approach of Ayurveda includes exercising, breathing and meditation. Breath is synonymous to life. For all practical purposes, if someone is not breathing, that’s the sign that there is no life there.

It is very interesting to notice the relationship between breath and the three Doshas in the body. These Doshas affect certain parts of the body more than the others. For example, Vata Dosha is predominant in the lower part of the body — stomach, intestine etc. Diseases like gastric problems and joint aches are caused due to this. Kapha Dosha is predominant in the middle part of the body. Cough is mainly a result of Kapha imbalance. Pitta affects the upper part of the body i.e., the head — short temper is a sign of Pitta.

In the breathing techniques, the three-stage pranayama has effect on these three Doshas. Among different breathing techniques, there are specific breathing exercises for lower, middle and upper parts of the body. After the three-stage pranayama, you would feel that the Doshas in your body have altered. Something in the body changes; you no longer feel the same, you feel more balanced. The pranayama brings that balance in the system. Once you get in the rhythm of the pranayama, you will find the balance setting in. Making it a habit is difficult, but not the practice itself. Definite rhythms or breathing patterns correct these Doshas and bring the balance to the connected parts of the body. You can also find the three Doshas in our fingers and the nerve endings. For example, the index finger is Kapha; the middle finger is Vata, and the ring finger, Pitta. You can discern the Doshas running in the body by the shape of someone’s fingers. Practice of Mudra pranayamas, i.e., gently pressing the nerve endings in the fingertips in a subtle way and breathing with the Ujjayi breath, also balances the Doshas in the body.

How to bring good health to a system? First, attend to the ether element that is the mind element. If your mind is clogged with too many impressions and thoughts, it is draining you of your resistance power and is preparing your body for some illness. If the mind is clear, calm, meditative and pleasant, the resistance in the body increases. It would not allow an illness to come into the body. Thus, the first remedy is to calm down the mind, provided by the ether. Then come to the air element, the breathing. Aromatherapy depends on this element. And then light — the colour therapy. You can see an illness in the aura of a person before it manifests in the body. Some physicians have done research on the aura photography, especially in cases of ulcers, cancer and diabetes. They took photographs six months before these diseases could manifest in the body and found some spots. By energising our system with the prana — life energy or breath — you can clear the aura and prevent the illness before it comes. That is what yoga does. Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, says that the purpose of yoga is, “Stopping the sorrow before it arises.”

And then, come to the water element. Fasting with water, purifying the system with water can bring a balance in the system. And final recourse, of course, is different medicinal herbs, medicines and surgery. All these come when everything else fails or when we neglect these other steps; then it becomes inevitable.

Our breath has a lot of secrets to offer to us, because for every emotion in the mind, there is corresponding rhythm in the breath. And each rhythm affects certain part of the body physically. Observing the great correlation between these sensations, the level of body and moods of the mind is meditation.

Have you observed the sensation you experience when someone praises you? Or, when you feel happy looking at a sunset or are meeting someone very close and dear to you? You feel a sense of expansion of mind, of consciousness. Though we do feel that happiness and the sensation is happening, we fail to notice the connection. It is because our attention is on that object, not on the sensation. And when you are miserable, there is a sensation of contraction. Somewhere you feel tight and tense inside; there is a contraction of the consciousness — that’s misery, sorrow. Knowledge is, knowing that which expands. What is this something in this body which is expanding and contracting, which is feeling happy or feeling miserable, which is expressing and which is experiencing, which is evolving and which is moving through the events? This knowledge, this enquiry is the study of consciousness, of life, of prana, of Ayurveda.

Breathing is the first act of life and this is also the last act of life. In between, though we are breathing in and out forever, we do not attend to the breath. If you attend to the breath, you’ll find that in one minute we breathe nearly sixteen to seventeen times. If you are upset you may go up to twenty; if you are extremely tense and angry, maybe twenty-five breaths per minute. But if you are calm, pleasant and happy, you will breathe ten times; and if you are in deep meditation, then only two breaths or three.

If you observe an infant and its breathing pattern, you will be amazed how balanced it breathes. Infants breathe from all the three sections of the body. Their breath goes very deep, and as they breathe in, their belly comes out; as they breathe out their belly moves in. But more nervous and tense you are, you will do the reverse. You don’t have to go to a school or learn these things from anybody. If your mind is very keen and observant, then you learn a lot just observing people, children and the nature around. But our mind is preoccupied with so many things, judgements, opinions and impressions that we are unable to observe and perceive the refined things in nature.