Tapasya is the penance you do for enlightenment throughout your life. That alone vibrates in your being. When you start competing with others, you forget your own self. You forget to strengthen your own being, which is your actual untapped source of energy. If you have physical strength and intellectual strength without the strength of the soul, it is of no use. It is only when you discover the strength of your soul, that you have touched your life source. Question: Swamiji, once we are able to be without jealousy, have we completely gotten freedom in at least one aspect of our shortcomings? Of course, if you are able to see a space where love can exist without passion or jealousy, you have definitely moved forward, but continue moving with complete awareness because you can very easily slip back into your old unconscious ways and find yourself going through all the old emotions once again.

Hold on to the newly discovered awareness and move with it. It can open up many more beautiful avenues for you to explore. Dont stagnate. The greatest danger is to cling on to a few experiences thinking that they are solid. Masters never allow their disciples to stagnate in any experience. They always prod them on further so that the disciple may look deeper and deeper in his quest. People who have had visions of Gods and Goddesses most often tend to stagnate in their spiritual journey. They feel there is nothing more to be seen and therefore stay right there holding on to that experience. This should never be allowed to happen. You see, until you have reached the state of eternal bliss, you can hit rock bottom at any time.

So remember that and nurture your awareness continuously to take you to realms of deeper and deeper understanding. Understand one thing: the work of a Master is so delicate. He has to handle each and every one of you with utmost care and delicateness. He has to see in which way each of you will grow and make you flower in that way. Each of you has been through so many lives and have accumulated so much ignorance. He has to work through all that and wake you up. life offers plenty of solutions, but there is always something that fits you the best. The intelligence lies in finding that out. When you apply your own intelligence and find it out, you will enjoy the benefits of it.

Whereas, if you start looking at others and start applying their solutions to yourself, you will lose track of where you stand. A small story: An old woman was going about dusting her old house in a remote village. Suddenly the door opened and a young sales man walked in. He spoke excitedly when he saw the woman dusting. He told her that he had many gadgets that would help her clean her house. The old woman said, But The man interrupted her and pulled out a lot of rubbish from a bag and put it on the floor. The old woman tried again, But The man told her to stand by and watch. He pulled out a device and explained, You see this machine? It will clean any amount of dust in no time.

It is so light in weight and therefore very easy for you to handle at this age. Let me demonstrate. The old lady tried, But The man interrupted, Just show me the plug point. The lady finally said, But electricity hasnt yet reached our village! In life, we need to be able to figure out what suits us the best! If we are clear about this, we will grow without a worry. But most of the time, we covet and apply others solutions to ourselves, and then feel unhappy. If we are clear about where we stand and what we need, we will grow steadily. Even setbacks in this way of living will only be ones that teach us how to function more intelligently. In this way, you function with your own intelligence and so it becomes an experiential understanding.

When you simply follow another's solution, there is nothing happening inside you; you are simply operating from your periphery. When nothing happens inside you, you cannot grow; remember that. When I say that you cannot grow, I mean you dont evolve from within. Material benefits may come, but you remain dead inside. Remember that only when you grow from within, you are really growing. Dont get dangerously caught in outer world races. See them as mere play and play them well. Material benefits are needed for survival but all these should remain in the periphery. Your inner core should steadily grow. It is this that will guide you in your play outside. When you learn to tap your own intelligence, you will see how irrelevant it becomes to be looking at another's progress or activities.

You will see the absurdity of the whole thing. As your intelligence grows, you will understand that each one has to run his own race and not against each other! The real race is towards discovering your infinite intelligence. Where is the scope for comparison to come in? The process of discovering your infinite intelligence is what life is all about. That is why I always say, life is the path and not any goal. As your intelligence grows, you will become more joyful and you will be able to play the game of life more effectively. So stop comparing and start discovering the source of your real growth. The vishuddhi chakra is the seat of higher creativity. When the energy of this chakra is unlocked, you will see that a tremendous flow of creativity becomes available to you.

When you change the quality of your being, naturally the quality of your doing also changes. Whatever you do, you do with greater efficiency, greater creativity. As a result, the quality of your having also changes. You will be happy with whatever comes your way and you will see that material wealth and success flow towards you naturally. So drop comparison and return to your being and discover eternal bliss or nithyananda. Now let us enter into a meditation technique called the Shakti Sagar Meditation. It will make you understand experientially how you can harness the tremendous energy source that is available to you through your vishuddhi chakra. The Shakti Sagar Meditation (Total duration: 30 minutes) The Shakti Sagar meditation is taken from Zen Buddhism. The key to this meditation is to keep the mind fixed on the vishuddhi while the body moves.

Stand with your eyes closed and focus on your vishuddhi chakra. Stand behind a chair or some support and hold it and start walking slowly, very slowly in the same spot where you are standing. Now start increasing your pace very gradually. Keep walking faster and faster in the same spot. Push your limits only to the extent that you can, with no discomfort. Dont over exert yourself at any time. At all times focus on the vishuddhi. You will be able to feel the energy coming from it. The important thing is never to slow down at any point in time. Stop after 20 minutes. For the next 10 minutes, just sit down quietly wherever you are. Keep your eyes closed and focus on the vishuddhi. You will absorb the energy that is generated during the movement.

When you do this, the cosmic energy enters through the vishuddhi chakra and becomes a tremendous source of energy to you. While doing this meditation, you may wear your mala around your neck. It will serve to store the energy that you create during the meditation. (At the end of the meditation, Swamiji chantsOm Shanti Shanti Shanti hi) Slowly, very slowly, open your eyes. We will meet for the next session. Thank you. T he next chakra is the ajna chakra which is located between the eyebrows. In Sanskrit, ajna means will or order. The ajna chakra is known as the master chakra. This chakra is locked by seriousness and ego and it can be made to flower by innocence, simplicity and intelligence, and by shedding all forms of ego.

(Meditation Technique: Divya Netra Meditation - a Zoroastrian meditation technique.) The ajna chakra is known as the Chakra Raj the master of all the chakras. This is such a significant chakra that there is no religion that has not worked on activating it. When the ajna opens, the whole being enters into a different realm. A whole layer of faculties opens up. That is why all the oriental gods are represented with a third eye in their forehead. The third eye is a symbol for the awakened ajna. There is an old saying, that if you die in Varanasi, a sacred city in India, you will automatically get liberated. Varanasi is not just the city as we know it. It is also the region where the vaarana, that is the eyebrows, meet the naasi, that is the nose, which is the exact location of the ajna chakra.

It symbolically represents the death of ego in the liberated or enlightened state. The ajna chakra is concerned with ego, with seriousness, with thinking too much about ourselves and therefore taking life too seriously. Seriousness is not necessary What is seriousness? Seriousness is nothing but paying undue importance to something, at the cost of everything else. It stems from the inability to see that all of life is just a drama that is unfolding every minute. Seriousness is the result of over-expectation from life. A small story: Two boys were building sand castles on the beach. They suddenly had a quarrel and one of the boys got angry and kicked the sand castle. The other boy went and complained to the king about his serious problem.

The king began to laugh at him for making so much out of just sand castles. But the king's advisor, a Zen monk, started laughing at the king. He asked, When you can fight battles and lose sleep over stone castles, why do you laugh at these boys for fighting over sand castles? All our seriousness is just about sandcastles! Understand that. For the child, at that young age, sand castles seem precious, whereas for us at our age, stone castles seem precious, that's all. Whether it is a sand castle or stone castle, the seriousness behind it is the same; just the object of seriousness is different. So dont laugh when children fight over sand castles. Seriousness closes your mind to the openness and freedom of life.

It makes you dull and dead. It curbs your thinking and makes you stick to the familiar patterns that you know all the time. In a Zen monastery, there was a competition among disciples over who had the best garden. One disciple was a very serious sort. He took the competition also very seriously. He kept his garden always neat and clean, and well-swept. All the grass was of the same height. All the bushes were neatly trimmed. He was sure that he would get the first prize. On the day of the competition, the Master went around all the gardens. Then he came back and ranked the gardens. This disciple's garden got the lowest ranking. Everyone was shocked. The disciple went and questioned the Master about it.

He asked, Master, what is wrong with my garden? Why did you rank me the lowest? The Master looked at him and asked, Where are all the dead leaves? A garden maintained in such a way is no longer alive! It is dead. Seriousness kills spontaneity. It destroys creativity. Science has proved that when you perform a task in a relaxed and light manner, your thinking and decision-making capacity is automatically enhanced. The same task when performed in a serious manner dulls your mind. All our seriousness is just sickness. When I say all, I mean ALL. And all our sickness originates from seriousness. Seriousness begets sickness and sickness begets seriousness. One night, a man called me on the phone and started crying. He said, I fall at your feet, Swamiji! Please help me.

Im so depressed! I am going to end my life! and so on. I tried to calm him down, and finally said, Why dont you come to the ashram tomorrow morning and spend a few days with me? Let us see what can be done. He replied, Tomorrow Swamiji? Oh tomorrow I have to go to the office shall I come next weekend? Most of us are like this: getting unnecessarily tense about our so-called problems. Just one jolt is enough and our seriousness will drop. When we wake up to reality, we see how insignificant our problems really are. When you do something too seriously, when you are too concerned about the result, you are actually not allowing yourself to perform at the optimum level.

Of course, you need to make plans and you need to think ahead. But do it with sincerity, not with seriousness. Seriousness is not the same as sincerity. Sincerity is focusing on the task with enthusiasm and youthfulness. Sincerity is giving the task your best without worrying excessively about the result. When you are serious, you dont enjoy; you dont laugh. How can you laugh when you are serious? They are mutually exclusive. Either you are serious or you are laughing; you cant be both at the same time because the very definition of seriousness is such. But when you are sincere, you can be laughing and playful. You can continue to do the job on hand in a playful and creative way and the job will get done in a joyful fashion, and because you have finished the job, you have been sincere.

With sincerity, there is no worry, there is only enthusiasm. When you are serious, you are being egoistic, because you fail to see that the whole thing is only a cosmic drama. You feel that you are a separate entity, too much of I and so you are serious. If you understand that the whole thing is only a drama, you can never be serious. When this understanding happens at a deep level, you will simply do things for the sheer joy of moving in tune with the cosmic drama or Existence. And when you do it this way, you are not serious, you are just sincere in playing your part, that's all. Chronological planning Vs. psychological planning You see, there are two types of planning: chronological planning and psychological planning.

Chronological planning is planning on a timescale. You decide that you will get up at such and such a time, finish your morning routine by a particular time, reach the office at a particular time, and get certain tasks done that day at the office. This is alright. It is a practical way to organize your work in a way that can give the best results. This kind of planning with sincere action will take you from happiness to more happiness! Psychological planning on the other hand, is planning in your head with no relevance to time or space. It is just constant serious planning going on in your head, over and above the chronological planning. It keeps you thinking that you are serious and dutiful.

It is actually nothing but complex negativity being applied to the chronological planning that has already been done. You keep analyzing your plan, and getting into a dull state because all your energy is going into analyzing the plan again and again. Psychological planning boosts your ego. It makes you feel great and worthy. It helps you to stay serious. It makes you feel that you are handling things of a great magnitude. It makes you feel that it is wholly in your hands to worry about it and make it happen. You keep hankering after every small thing that needs to get done and feel that your happiness lies in getting that done. This is psychological planning. This is actually a way of postponing happiness, postponing life, waiting for something particular to happen to start enjoying life.

We always think, If I get married, my life will be settled. So let me work towards getting married. If I have two children, my life will be fulfilled. Once I retire, Ill be peaceful. It is the attitude: now Ill be serious; later Ill be happy! In the end, you will be happy neither now nor then. You will lose your capacity to be happy at any time. Just live with simplicity, with spontaneity and with innocence. Strive for totality not for perfection Dont harp too much on perfectionism. I tell you: perfectionism can make you neurotic. Whatever you do, do it wholly, totally. Then automatically, whatever you do will be total and you dont have to worry about perfectionism at all. Perfectionism is always something from your mind.

It becomes a goal for you. You work towards it as a goal. And when you work towards it as a goal, it becomes dead and mundane. But when you are total, you are established in your heart, and it becomes a deep experience. The outcome then has to be beautiful and it will give you joy also. Then, whatever you do, you will be in tune with Existence. Perfectionism never gives you joy; it only fulfills your ego. Even if you feel fulfilled at the end of it, it is only a fulfillment of your ego, never a fulfillment of your being. Be very clear that perfectionists are the biggest egoists. They miss the dimension of being total. Totality is possible when you enter into it deeply.

Perfectionism is never possible because it is in your mind and your mind keeps changing its definition of perfection. Also, have the courage to make mistakes. Serious people are always afraid to make mistakes. They take themselves too seriously. They think too much about themselves. It is too much to make mistakes and have someone point it out to them. Actually I tell you, these people who are afraid of making small mistakes, end up making big blunders! What is wrong in making mistakes? You will say, 'swamiji, I cant afford to make mistakes in my work; that is why I am so serious. What you say might be true; your work may not permit you to make mistakes, but that is not the point I am trying to make here.

When you make a mistake, people will point it out and you will not be able to bear it. Your ego is bound to get hurt and you are very sensitive to this; you know this. So to avoid getting your ego hurt, you try your best not to make mistakes. You plan so unconsciously and continuously to keep guarding your ego. But the reasons you give are all different. It is not that you are lying. It is just that you are not aware of the subtle way in which your system works, your ego works. But if you deeply analyze and see, you will understand what I am saying. There is nothing wrong in making mistakes. In fact, by making a few mistakes, you come to know clearly how to avoid making mistakes, because you have experientially understood it.

The more you learn from mistakes, the more you know about how not to make mistakes. Knowing how not to make mistakes is a very important thing. Only then you have seen both sides of it; only then you have explored the two sides experientially. Else, there is always the danger of falling into the unknown side at a critical time when you really cant afford to. However, dont make the same mistake again! Your mind always repeats patterns. Dont do it with mistakes also. Make new mistakes! And move on to better and better understanding! I am not saying to deliberately make mistakes. That is foolishness again. I am only saying, do things to the best of your intelligence and enthusiasm but without worrying about whether it might be a mistake.

The moment you are worried that it might be a mistake, you are worried about your ego getting hurt.