Yoga and enlightenment

You are required to believe that you are being protected. Every day it must be so strong that it must have solidified into a rock within you so that nothing, no dynamite, no bomb, no weakness or doubt of mind can destroy this belief. Remember, if you have this strong belief together with devotion dedication and strict discipline, you will get whatever you want in both the material and spiritual planes. All of you need to practice yoga. By practicing yoga you can perform all the material and spiritual requirements. Yoga will be able to set your mind where you know good from bad, happy from sad, and understand what to do using the equilibrium of the mind. In that evenness of the mind you can enjoy the world of yoga and the material plane and also stand out in the material plane as a giant with all the success, where you will continuously ride the horse of success. Similarly, while that is happening, you can become a giant in the spiritual field as well and you can ride the horse of enlightenment. And both those horses will take you where you to where you want to go in your life.

This journey of yours is very important. This journey of yours is required. This journey of yours must be completed in this lifetime. If you get caught in the cycle of birth and come back in the next lifetime, earth will be hell for all who come back. Earth will be the most treacherous place to be in the next lifetime. Therefore, in this lifetime you should make all the adjustments and progress on both the horse of success and the horse of enlightenment. In both these you’ll get up on a pedestal. The pedestal on the material plane is called prosperity. On the horse of enlightenment there’s also a pedestal, and when you get on that pedestal it’s called realisation. With prosperity on the material plane and realisation on the spiritual plane, you can become a giant and have the power to receive whatever you want.

Each one of you is only unique by the way you look and your features, but you are not different or unique in intelligence. You are all the same in your understanding, your knowledge. There’s no difference between a teacher, a principle, a professor, and a cleaner. Each one has just developed their material intelligence and attained different states of success. Even a cleaner is riding the horse of success.

On the spiritual plain every one of you has within you enlightenment, which means 2 things. The first meaning of enlightenment is to remove all the obstacles from the mind and you become lighter and can transcend. The second meaning of enlightenment is Arul Perum Jyothi, Arul Perum Jyothi, Thani Perum Karunai, Arul Perum Jyothi. When you, the atma, and Param Shivam unite in realization, you will become like jyothi, light, in the eyes of everybody is in your company. You will continuously carry the fragrance of the jasmine on the spiritual journey and that fragrance of jasmine will take you to God realisation and eventually into the deepest state of samadhi in its different variations. At the same time, if you are practicing yoga (which is not just asana), the different steps of yoga, you will attain the state where you will have any kind of siddhi that you want, and that is called samyama. When dharana, dhyam, and samadhi are practiced together in the deepest sense of meditation, then samyama is attained. if you practice samyana you will be able to stop the rain, pull a train, to pick up the biggest lorry. Through samyama the strength that you believe in your mind becomes the strength that is actioned through your arms.

So yoga is very important and it is saddening to know that so few of you take the opportunity of practicing yoga at this institute. The knowledge that the students of yoga in this institute have about the spiritual life in general is not comparable to any other organisation. This institute is person-orientated. I urge all of you to find the time at least once in a week to come and join the Bhagavad Gita class, join the Patanjali Yoga Sutra class, and know what the answers are to questions that are normally posed to you by other religious organisations and people, that you do not know the answers for. Every answer on the spirit or material journey lies in the hands of the guru. Therefore you need to take this opportunity to join in and enjoy this yoga. Whatever condition you have, through yoga and meditation, you will be able to lessen or totally cure the condition and enjoy a healthy life.

Yoga means ‘to unite your atma with paramatma’, prior to which you, your physical body, is united to the atma, and that is all self-realisation. And in self-realisation, you understand the self that is situated in the highest plane of your body. And from understanding the self, and the purity of the self, you’ll transcend, you’ll elevate to the highest plane called God-realisation. And once you have realised God, you have nothing else to realise in this world. That should be the aim of each one of you. You coming here for service is also a form of yoga. It is called bhakti nada yoga, bhakti bhajana yoga, bakti satsanga yoga, which is also good. The only difference is the absence of the mind is only temporary. You have to do this daily, continuously, in a disciplined way at a specific time – only then you can attain God. The other way of yoga is also karma yoga. Karma yoga is physical working in a spiritual environment doing seva, and it can take you a whole lifetime to even realise the self. And then you have jynana yoga, the yoga of wisdom, the yoga of mind. It is a very difficult discipline as your guru would never be able to correct you because the book becomes your guru. In jynana yoga you use scriptures to attain God. And the 4th yoga is what we call raja or kriya yoga. This is the most powerful of all yogas. This is a healing yoga. In this yoga form are different headings or divisions: kriya mantra yoga (Om Kriya Babaji Namaha Aum), kriya kundalini yoga, kriya dhyana yoga, kriya asana yoga in which there are only 18 postures which you have to master in your own flexibility and ability. And once you do that you will find that all conditions that you were having will lessen or diminish. 

Shanti Om Shanti.

Paramshiva, Shiva and Muruga

Arul perum jyothi, arul perum jyothi, thani perum karunai, arul perum jyothi.

This should be recited continuously. What is the meaning of ‘arul’? What is the meaning or ‘perum’? What is the meaning of ‘jyoti’? Arul is the total energy of Paramshiva, which is the light in the soul of each one of you. And that light should be daily energized to such an extent that when people look at you they only see you as jyothi, a light. From the most ancient times in the early Vedic scriptures, the light has been the most important aspect of a home, in our days. That jyothi is what you call today the God lamp or Lakshmi. It is very important that you stand in front of that Lakshmi and give your total self in the name of Arul perum jyothi, arul perum jyothi, thani perum karunai, arul perum jyothi.

This most powerful mantra was handed over by Paramshiva, the great lord of this universe. It surpasses any kind of definition of the term ‘god’. And this great jyothi was given by Paramshiva to Muruga to light up each one of you. Any worship of Muruga should be continued worship, not just a single moment of worship, not on one specific day. Muruga is that significant light, that jyothi. And in present times, because of the lack of this jyothi knowledge, the children are now becoming abusive towards their parents. It is shocking to find that your child can use such abusive language and actions against you in this modern time. And this all has to be linked to the weakness of the parents, that the parents have failed somewhere in their life to educate or to bring up that child in a proper manner.

It is very important for as long as possible to keep your child away from modern mechanisms and mechanics. The destruction to the brain comes from these mechanisms. It is very important that you start to nurture your children and know what your children are doing all the time. This is the most important thing that you are lacking in this life. You don’t know where your children are, what they are doing, who their friends are and whether they are good or bad. In the names of Muruga, you can save your child from destruction and distraction.

Right now is a very special time, and in this special time you should all worship Paramshiva, the light that has no ending, and bring it to the Shiva within you. It is important in all your lives to remember that God, in whatever form, energy or field you worship Him, will make His presence felt and you will enjoy his bliss.

 You will feel the energy lingering around you. Just absorb and enjoy that energy as much as you can. There is this light within you that also needs to find the joy without you. This is the moment to let the light within you find the joy without you. In the great epic (the Mahabarata) it is said that when the seer and the seen become one, at that moment there is pure union with God. When Paramshiva and the Shiva within you become one then you have a perfect, pure union with God. That is all that you need.

Arul perum jyothi, arul perum jyothi, thani perum karunai, arul perum jyothi.

The importance of navagraha

Hari Om,

I was asked a question today so I though maybe I would answer the question. Before we start I’m sure you all know that right now we are sitting with Saturn over us continuously and that can be good or bad.

I showed a [visiting] gentleman all the murthis today and the Kali murthi and he said about Kali, “This is the terror”. When he saw the Sani shrine he said the same thing, “Saturn is terror”. The only reason we have these grahas is to remind us to continuously pray and remember God.

If you didn’t have pain you wouldn't be sitting here. There’s some kind of want in your system that creates the pain. And the only obstacle to you not getting your desire is the 9 planets. You’re wondering how these affect your body. You know the lunar cycle is 27 or 28 days and the same cycle goes for the trance. According to how the moon is placed, that’s how we get the trance. The moon is not really a planet; it’s a satellite that reflects the light from earth. That can affect the ocean and the planet that is 80% water and 20% land. Our body is also 80% fluid and 20% solid. Everything in our body can become fluid, except for 20%.

You know, there are spiders in Brazil that bite you and put in some kind of poison and that part of the flesh becomes liquid and they drink it. Really. That is how this body is. It’s just a mass of fluid. And if the moon, such a small aspect of these 9 planets, can affect such a huge ocean, what is it going to do to us? Also, you’ve heard when people aren’t right in the head we say they’re a lunatic, they’re affected by the moon. You saw that one child here during full moon, he was in a bad shape, and other times he’s fine. Now, he doesn’t look at the calendar to see when full moon is.

Lets take all the planets. All the planets put together create for you fate – which we call graha, navagraha or naughara. And that affects you. And if we don’t satisfy these planets by worshiping them, then it will affect us. And I think, as you sit here, that some of you are here because of successful navagrahas to say think you. Of all the poojas, the most beneficial prayer to all of us is the prayer for the 9 planets. They don’t give you wealth. Don’t go and do the prayer because you want to own 20 trucks. But it will remove the obstacles that are there in front of you preventing your wealth.

Don’t misunderstand fate for karma. Fate is something else. Karma is brought upon yourself. Fate is placed there in your destiny. You develop the karma yourself. No matter what you do in this life you will experience it and have an encounter of the same thing in the next life. And if you don’t make a change you will continue with it. This is why we have the cycle of birth and death. We need to do all these things.

When a child is born you go to an astrologer and he opens the almanac and tells you the child is born this year, thidi, nakshaktra … so the child will be like this and if you do XYZ everything will be fine. But you know what, 90 % of the parents don’t follow the astrologer. Then as soon as something goes wrong they go to another astrologer. In Sri Lanka, especially, they know their nakshaktra, tidhi, and rashi and they have a chart. As soon as I go there they bring their charts and ask me if they are matching. They all have charts and they live by the charts. But we will go to the priest and ask for the right time, and for what to do but we won’t do it. For example, a couple who are getting married go to the priest and ask what time the bride must leave home. The priest will say, “8 o’clock”. But at 8 o’clock the bride is not ready so they take her handbag and leave it outside, and that’s supposed to mean she is outside.

We compromise so we have difficulties. When it comes to God’s work there should not be any compromise at all. No matter what somebody tells you. God’s work must continue. Write that in your head. When he comes back to bite you it’ll be like a boomerang. Many years ago I was at the worst ebb of my life. It was so bad we couldn’t even buy food or milk for the children. But it was a cycle. We did what was necessary at that time and everything has changed and, ever since, that’s all we do. But, unfortunately for you all, you always find excuses not to do it. If I say service is from 7 to 8 pm, then at 8 o’clock everyone is looking at their watch and watching me to see if I’m going to stop service. There is no time limit for God. It stops when it’s finished – and it’s never finished. God’s work is never finished. It continues always, every day. So navagraha is the most important aspect in this journey.

Parents and children

GAYATHRI DEVI, GOOD FRIDAY

Hari Om.

In our lives many things are important and essential. But there’s one aspect of our lives that the present youngsters fail to acknowledge and that is the role and duty of their parent in their lives. The most important factor in each one of our lives – and the fact that we are who we are – is due to the effort and ethics of our parents. In this day many of us think our parents are old-fashioned and we might have some wise friend or aunt who might be advising otherwise, telling us to do it the other way. I want you all to understand one thing, especially the youngsters: when you are in deep trouble, in the most difficult time of your life, when everything in front of you is collapsing, no friend or aunt with wise words will come to you. But your mother and father will find, do and procure anything to make sure their child is happy. It’s strange but true.

The children of today have a strange idea that parents are still living in their days. So when a parent tells them something they say, “That was in your days, Ma. This is in modern days”. In these modern days we have more drought and more load shedding. In the olden days we didn’t have all that. The reason we have all these things is that in modern times you are careless and as youngsters you are all careless. I can tell you as we sit here, on Monday we will have news that 3 or 4 youngsters from Tongaat have had an accident. The reason is they were speeding, drag racing whatever. Do you think they listened to their parents? No.

But in some cases parents are delinquents too. The parents give their child everything. And in that the child gets spoiled. We must be able to nurture, grow and develop our children to the best of our ability and the children need to know that there’s nobody out there closer than their parents. Not your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife – they are not closer to you than your parents. I’m saying this because we have so many youngsters at the Gayathri Peedam and so many of them have delinquent parents. You know why a child can’t think any more? Why do we have to tell them the same thing 10 times before they understand what we said? It’s because their fingers and eyes do the thinking on their cellphones. They cannot live without the cellphone. We have failed miserably in our duty. You go to a restaurant: mother, father and 2 children, each of them is on their cellphone doing their own business. They’re supposed to be a family. Why is this? Because we have failed as parents. You don’t know what the cellphone is going to do to you and your child. As soon as the child cries for a cellphone we give it to them because we don’t know any other way to quieten the child. When we were young there were methods to quieten us – things that really worked. And if I had my way right now I’d do the same thing to all the delinquent parents and children here.

Please, children, first and foremost in your life, before anything else, are your parents. Only after that siblings come. Parents know when their child is being hurt somewhere in America or when the child is sick somewhere in India – they know and will make that call at the most appropriate time because they are the most connected to you. Not your wife, girlfriend, or friend. It’s not about having a good time. It’s like being vegetarian. We’re told that it’s unfortunate to be a vegetarian because everyone who is vegetarian meets a meatarian. When they ask you if you are a vegetarian and you say “yes” they say “shame”. It’s shame on them, not on us. In the same way we become weak with our children. You know why you were born into that family?

Do you know why it took your mother 13 years to deliver you? It’s because for 13 years she couldn’t have a baby. God needed to find the right karmic consequences for each one of you including the child. That’s why it takes so long. For some people it just happens, but for others it takes longer. God has to find that child for you and you need to nurture the child without the child going anywhere out of alignment of parent-child discipline. It’s very important. God didn’t send a child to you and when you don’t have a child you go to 21, 22, 23 astrologers and all those temple people and when you have the child after 3 or 4 years you loudly say, “I shouldn’t have had you, I was better without you”. Same parent. Delinquent. Parents, just like prana, are the life-giving force for each one of you.

If you have parents nurture them like they are the life. That’s all. You must look after your parents, that is your duty. You must listen to your parents, that is your duty. Sometimes they say mad things. Tashi always says, “Dad, something’s wrong with you”. I said, “Something’s wrong with God, he sent you to me. Nothing’s wrong with me. Something’s wrong with God”. He sent Bhavta to my house like I’m not satisfied with 3 females already so he had to send another one.

Anyway, I know it’s the Easter weekend and you are the crazy people who go to temple when everyone else goes everywhere else. All religious people, spiritual people are crazy. Please believe that. Spiritual people don’t do different things, they do the same things you do differently. If you stir your tea clockwise they’ll stir theirs anti-clockwise, but it’ll taste sweeter than yours.

Hari Om.