pkconsciousness

3 YUKTHIS FOR THIS NEW YEAR 

I see 2020 as a decisive warning, it is an alarm from the universe, we are left with only two options from here. We either transform our ways of living as a species and move towards sustainability and well being for the planet as a whole or we take the road to extinction with no future for us and the planet. Every one of you has a role to play in this.

So at the individual level what is the change you have to bring to your lives in 2021? The way I see it, every person needs to have 3 elements strongly in their life. It must become a part of you. Then you will be able to navigate through problems, challenges and uncertainties with ease.

The first is, to make diligent efforts to evolve in consciousness such that you learn to live free of suffering. 

The second element is connecting with the Universal Intelligence. 

Everyone of you must understand that the divine will come to you if you called. Not as if it were a transaction between the two of you, but from a space of true heartfelt connection. 

The third element is to be strongly rooted in a community of people who share a spiritual vision together. If you live with an isolated mind, you will become easily sucked into the vortex of negativity in the human collective consciousness. There is both light and darkness in the human consciousness. There are both beautiful states and destructive suffering states, which force are you going to tune into is your choice.

When you live an isolated life, you are like an individual tree that can be uprooted by a storm. But if you are together with a community of spiritual aspirants who seek enlightenment, then together you hold a strong spiritual vision to live in beautiful states of love, joy, connection, peace and grow into enlightened beings, then you are like a cluster of trees that strongly stand as one and fight the storm and win. 

In these times, you must live connected lives, nurture others and be nurtured spiritually. It is like the bond between the baby and the mother inside the womb. Through the umbilical chord, the baby receives complete and total support from the mother - be it nutrition, protection, education, everything through its connection. That is what your community is to you, like a mother. 

So enter the new year in a beautiful state, be sourced in the divine. Live connected lives, nurture others and let yourselves be nurtured by others spiritually and together move towards enlightenment. If you move towards an enlightened way of living, every other aspect of your life will come into greater alignment and harmony. Blessings to every one of you for a great new year, Blessings for great health, for great wealth and abundance to flow into your lives, and for you to walk the path of mukti, or enlightened way of life.

This New Year, all those who are rooted in an awakened consciousness will thrive and succeed

2021 is the beginning of a new era. It is the beginning of a time when those with an awakened consciousness will thrive. Those with an unawakened consciousness, those who are slaves of their suffering minds, will fail. Only those who are rooted in the power of their true self will succeed.

 In 2021, many will be the fears that society will spin, many will be the fears media will spin, many will be the fears your own mind will spin but don’t give in.

 If you have to shine brighter than you have ever done before, then you must be a Dheera in 2021. A Dheera is one whose intellect shines with the light of dharma or universal principles. A Dheera is one who shines with the light of a courage within.

 Don’t imagine that the more awakened you become, the more passive you will be.

That is a wrong notion. An awakened being is a Dheera, the courageous one who is capable of taking fearless action. 

The courage of the awakened one comes from 3 sources.

 Courage comes from being able to stand up against the tricks of one’s own mind by being a witness.
 Courage comes from being able to be rooted in the guidance of the heart without straying from your vision.
 Courage comes from being able to be connected to divine will and flow with it with faith.
 How do you build courage against the tricks of your own mind?
 Let me narrate a famous story from Swami Vivekananda‘s life. Once Swami Vivekananda was walking on the roads of Varanasi. Suddenly a big group of red faced monkeys began to follow him and surround him. The faster he ran, the faster they began to chase him – until suddenly a sanyasi  on the road side called out loud – 'stop running, face the brutes'. When Swami Vivekananda suddenly stopped running, turned around and stood firm – the monkeys cowed down in fear and ran away.
 To turn around and face the terrible fears being thrown by your mind is courage. In an unawakened state, your mind is like a sponge ever ready to soak up the fearful inputs of family, friends and media. Those fears then begin to chase you. In an unawakened state you either follow your fears, take their bites and succumb to them or you try to ignore them, which will only make your fears stronger. 
 Only a true Dheera, only an awakened being can stand up to these fears and be a courageous witness. Like terrified monkeys your fears will leave you. Like shadows they will disappear in the light.

Let us talk of the second kind of courage – courage to follow your heart.

 Whether it was a Sri Rama who walked away into the forest, an Arjuna who blew the conch to enter the battlefield, a Bhagat Singh who looked at his enemy in the eye or a Malala Yousaffzai who took a bullet because she believed in a rebellious cause – All greatness only happens when you follow your heart‘s calling.

 Circumstances may favour you or deter you. Allies may come or alliances may break. But if you want to achieve success from 2021, follow your heart – follow your dharma. Don’t buckle under pressure, be a Dheera.

Your third source of courage will be faith in the divine. Have the courage to take God for a friend. Ask the divine to sit in the driver’s seat and go wherever you are taken. In the battlefield of life, if the divine drives your chariot to meet your worst enemy – look in the eyes of your enemy without fear. 

Wherever the divine takes you, go with faith. Nothing can destroy you. You will be raised higher than you ever were by the divine. Free of every kind of fear – fear of disease, fear of loss, fear of defeat, fear of death - go forward to achieve your victories. You will become a true Dheera, the courageous & the victorious.

So many people are contributing to you, in that awareness is born gratefulness - By Sri Krishnaji.

Years ago, a gentleman came to me and asked to be mentored. In course of our conversation, he said I practice gratitude towards my mother every day. After sometime I asked him, “why do you ‘practice’ gratitude every day? You must really be angry with her.  Are you?”

The man fell completely silent. He did not have an immediate answer for that question. He requested me if he could take some time and reflect upon this question. I said, defintly, take a walk and come back.

After a long walk he came back and said, 

“Your question pushed me into seeing an uncomfortable truth. A truth that i have never seen before. 

Through out my childhood and youth my mother pushed me towards success, towards excellence. She was tough, harsh, demanding, never ever pleased with whatever I achieved. Today I am a successful businessman. I know I have to be grateful to her for who I am today. If not for her push I will not be this successful. And this is the precise reason why I practice gratitude.”

Now let us look at the story of this man. On the one hand his conscious mind is fed with all the values. That says, you should be grateful.  While on the other hand, his actual experience is the emotions of anger, hate and ingratitude that he is experiencing from the unconscious. He does not want to recognize anger, hate, ingratitude. Because he is not supposed to feel those emotions. If he feels them he is not a good human being. 

 He is only supposed to feel grateful. And hence he is a divided being- that is why he is trying to practising gratitude every day . 

I would say begin with your journey recognising what exactly you are feeling, 

Know this-Gratitude cannot be cultivated forcefully as an attitude . It has to be an awareness that has to grow in you. An awareness of the contribution not just of one person,  Why your mother alone,- but an awareness Of the contribution of all the people in your life, of the tree outside your garden,  Of  the innumerable life forms , of the divine. 

It is an awareness that you exist  because of all these being’s contributions. 

Without them you are not. 

As this  awareness grows in you there is spontaneous arising of gratitude with in you. To nurture this awareness would be a magnificent way to awaken the state of gratitude with in you. 

Do not make it into a cheap habit of continually  saying thank you, because that is what you ought to do  and that is how are expected to be. 

Do not also make it into a compulsion a kind of guilt driven exercise, where you say -I have to be grateful, I have to be grateful. 

you donot “have” to feel anything. 

There is no compulsion in this universe that you “have” to feel something. No, 

That is a new prison you are creating for yourself in the name of spirituality. Grow ! Grow in your awareness of how life as a movement is flowing into you. 

So many people are contributing to you, in that awareness there is gratefulness, that gratefulness will make you in to a responsible human being - not a burdensome responsibility , but will provoke you to action. Action that will create a difference around you, action that will make the world around you more beautiful -that to me would be gratitude.

Most people live mediocre lives.

 I use the word mediocre and not ordinary because there is a great beauty in being ordinary- without a struggle to be special, without a struggle to be noticed. There is a great beauty to life when a struggle to be anything different disappears.

 An ordinary day with your morning coffee, evening walk and the many daily chores can feel extraordinary. It is a gift to live with an uncomplicated mind.

 If you live with a complaining, disappointed, anxious mind you are living a mediocre life; are you not?

 Most people live their entire life oscillating within the vortex of

some security and insecurity

some pleasure and disappointment

some excitement and boredom

 Is this all there is to the glory of human consciousness?

No. This is but identifying a tiny shrinking pond with the ocean.

 Human consciousness is incredibly rich. Every one of you is capable of incredible glory.

 Preethaji and I believe that a journey beyond mediocrity happens to any human being not through accumulated information but through a powerful experience that can catapult you to higher states of consciousness.

 Fundamentally there are three kinds of transcendental experiences that reveal to you a dimension beyond the mind.

The first of these is a mystical experience, which is also called a conversion experience. When you have a mystical experience you convert from being an atheist or a believer to a Discoverer of the divine.

 In a mystical experience, your pineal gland which is located in the region of your third eye in the middle of your eye brows gets activated and the mystical dimension opens up to you revealing a sacred dimension.

 When seekers have such an experience, they give up destructive addictions and become faith-driven.

 The second kind of transcendental experience is a transformation experience.

 When seekers have a transformational experience the neurons in the heart get activated in a massive manner. You go beyond obsession, go beyond self centricity to a space of causeless love and compassion.

 The third kind of transcendental experience is an enlightenment experience or an awakening experience.

 When seekers have such an experience, your entire nervous system gets charged with massive jolts of electricity and you go beyond the limited self to the realm of oneness, into the realm of non-duality.

 Your spiritual current surges.

 These experiences don’t necessarily transform you into saints. They will transform you into awakened parents, awakened leaders, awakened teachers and awakened researchers and awakened wealth creators.

 You rise above mediocrity.

 And Ekam is created to be a gigantic mystic powerhouse that can push you into these 3 dimensions of consciousness - an extraordinary consciousness.

Awaken to the truth of oneness of humanity - By Sri Preethaji 

EKAM MEANS ONENESS

To us, every human experience is sacred. We see that there is one human experience, one humanity.

That is what Ekam means - it means oneness. Ekam is an enlightened state of consciousness where you are awake to the oneness of our existence.

We are one with all forms of life. We are one with the Universe.

When you are not established in this great spiritual realisation that we are one, your actions and behaviour cause division and conflict. You inflict pain upon yourself and another. Your actions lead to disharmony in nature and destruction to earth.

You move away from oneness when you begin to see the other as being different from you. Very often in your conversations you tell people, ‘I am not like you’ ‘I don’t behave like you’ ‘I am different from you’. You may not behave like someone else or express emotions the way someone else does. But are you really different from the other? We are one in our  experience of sorrow and happiness, we are one in our fears, peace, pain and pleasure. 

Right from childhood, you are taught to emphasize your differences and prove your superiority. You are taught to build your identity on how different you are. Division is at the very basis of our educational system and the foundation upon which you build your career and your achievements. 

May be a thousand years ago, humanity had lesser number of factors upon which people divided themselves. But with civilizational progress and scientific advancement, the walls that differentiate us and divide us have become numerous. Our obsession to be unique and stand out as being different from the rest has assumed maniacal proportions creating distortions and aberrations in personality. As a civilization, we are inventing ever new ways, through our clothes, through our life style, through our activities - to constantly be different from the other. 

This disease and sickness of the human mind has to be healed for you to move into a space of oneness. When division ceases conflict ceases to exist. You feel one, you live in harmony, you naturally care for another from a space of love.

Diwali as a festival has a divine dimension, a playful dimension, a relationship dimension and an ecological dimension. It is as much a celebration of lights as it is a celebration of wealth. It is on this day that Mahalakshmi is supposed to have emerged from the ocean of milk with a lotus in her hand And Vishnu claimed her as his wife. 

Lakshmi the goddess of prosperity is known to visit places that are bright and clean. And is known to walk away from places that are dingy. That is why over centuries we light lamps at the entrance of our homes as an invitation to Lakshmi  

What most people do not know is that Lakshmi is also a joyful goddess and is attracted to spaces where hearts are joyful  to give her blessings of abundance. 

Diwali Also has a relationship dimension.  it is a time when siblings honour each other’s presence in their lives. For most of you, your siblings would have been your first Playmates isn’t it?

Siblings embody a fragment of our parents. They possess within them the affection and strength of a father and the immeasurable love of a mother. Many times we also see they carry with them the trust of a friend.

Over the years it is possible each of you has got engrossed in your own family troubles. Diwali is a reminder to step away from all this tumult of life and reconnect to each other with love. You bless each other for a long and a beautiful life of happiness. 

Diwali also has an ecological dimension. It was not created to pollute the air and earth with fire crackers. 

The south of India has a very interesting story for why Diwali is celebrated. Let me share that with you.  

In his Varaaha avatar, God Vishnu as a Wild boar saves mother Earth by lifting her out of the waters. Born of this union between Vishnu and Bhudevi is Naraka. 

Naraka Starts off as a strong and a good person but over thousands of years he loses his goodness and becomes an asura or a Rakshasa who begins to torment people and torture all living beings.

Several ages later Vishnu who is now born as Sri Krishna is married to Sathyabama who is herself an incarnation of Mother Earth. Now Krishna's citizens complain to him and ask him to end the torture of Narakaasura. 

With his wife Sathyabama he goes to war with Narakaasura and together with her help he manages to kill Narakaasura. In his final moments of passing Naraka reconnects with his mother and asks that his death not be a morning but a celebration of his reunion with his mother. That is why Diwali is celebrated in the south of India. 

The day Naraka is killed is celebrated as the first day of Diwali or Deepavali. 

 if we were to understand this story in contemporary terms, where do you think it will take us? Think about it.

Do you know what the word NARAKA actually means? It means "a piece of earth". 

A piece of earth that has moved away from the mother. 

It refers to human consciousness that has moved away from nature, from mother earth. On Diwali, with the lighting of lamps- this darkness and separation in our consciousness is dispelled and we are united with mother earth. 

Finally Diwali is fun. It is a time to catch up with family and friends, to dance, to dine and play together. It is a respite from the relentless race towards success or survival. 

So this Diwali consciously choose to get off the routine of responsibility and have fun with your loved ones.

We have seen religion divides, race divides, caste divides, class divides, position divides and now elections and politics are dividing.

But why division?

That we have different views of life is a fact. That we live different life styles is a fact. That we believe in different gods is a fact. That our skin colors are different is a fact. But why should facts divide? Can they not exist like different flowers in the same garden? Is it worth alienating ourselves over an idea or an ideology?

Division and separation of every kind will take away our humanity from us. For over two and a half centuries United States has been divided between the ideal of universality on one hand and actual painful divisiveness in society on the other. 

Each time divisiveness has surfaced, American society has either brushed it under the carpet or it has clung to its ideals tighter. 

Have ideals ever transformed an individual or a society? If transformation has ever occurred it has only been because seeing the truth in its entirety even if it is painful. 

The fact is that millions in this advanced nation are still giving into feelings of separation and division on the basis of race,  on the basis of class. They are not able to see a fellow human being without the labels. 

It is this division from the highest to the lowest level in society is seeping through as violence, death on the streets and as conflicts within families.

These elections are a test of fire for every citizen of United States.

Can a father and a son, a husband and a wife or two friends have entirely different views on who the right leader is for the country and yet love each other ? Can neighbors still care for each other regardless of their political inclinations, regardless of their racial diversities?

Please stop being violent over violence. Hateful over hate. Vengeful over revenge. 

History has shown it again and again that anger and hate will only bring the worst in people. 

Make a decision as a nation to move towards peace. Dissolve divisiveness from your thinking itself. Make a decision as a nation to move towards oneness.  

Let this be a coming of age ceremony for America. In the coming days let not your differing views build into anger for each other. Because elections will pass; but the habit of anger will remain. Leaders will come and go; but you would have lost precious relationships. 

Division and separation is simply not worth it for any reason. 

Let us Bless America that it may rise in oneness and togetherness. 

BLESS U.S.

1 November 2020                                                                                              

10AM HAST

12PM PST

3PM EST

8PM GMT    

1:30AM IST

Namaste. 

Let us today understand American elections from a karmic perspective.

You can look at a situation from a cultural perspective, from a political perspective, from a historic perspective or from an economic perspective. 

On these many people have spoken. But what is the karmic perspective? 

When ever you see an individual or a group of sensible people making a totally insensible decision. You must understand there is a negative karmic force at work. 

Now most of you know, karma means our actions, as also the merit and demerit of our actions. It is an energetic accumulation of the pain or the joy we may have given to others. 

The ancients in India speak of one of the mysterious ways in which karma operates. They say “ Buddhi karmanusare” which means your karma becomes a huge force that will generate thoughts and desires in you and make you act in a particular way and the consequences flow. 

Just as India has its karmic debt of centuries of untouchability to clear, many European nations have to clear the Debt of plunder and atrocities in the rest of the world, America has it’s karmic debt to clear. The pain it has caused million of native Americans has to be cleared. 

Should this kind of negative karmic accumulation only be cleared through suffering the consequences? 

Yes & No 

No nation can completely escape the consequences of karma . But you can break free of it if there is an awakening - if there is a breaking away from the very thinking that made you accumulate the karmic debt in the first place. America needs to move beyond its prejudice built on race, gender and ethnicity and move towards oneness. It is only with such an awakening to oneness in consciousness that the dense fog of negative karma would clear. 

Let us all Bless America that it may do right for itself and the world.

Namasthe

We are now in the Navratris. More than 800 million hindus in India are celebrating this festival in the honour of the mother goddess. 

However very few would know its esoteric significance. You are those whom I will lead into the heart of this great celebration. 

The week before last, we saw the play of Maha Durga, in the first of the 3 Navratris. Last week we saw the divine play of Maha Lakshmi on the 4th, 5th & 6th days of Navratri. 

Today we will see the Leela of the Divine as Maha Saraswati on the 7th, 8th, 9th days & Parashakti on the 10th day of Vijaya Dashami.

When Krishnaji and I lead seekers on the path of enlightenment, on their journey into their depths of consciousness, beyond the dark forces of suffering, beyond the dark forces of craving, he or she is met by the third dark force.

In the scripture this dark force is depicted as Shumbha & Nishumbha, the two asuras. The mother goddess then assumes the form of Maha Saraswati. Maha Saraswati is not a warrior goddess, she is the great goddess of wisdom, dressed in white, she rides a Himalayan Swan or a Hamsa.

The depiction of the divine mother in this form is so full of symbology. She is dressed in white to symbolise that she would take you beyond Sattva too. As Maha Durga she took you beyond Tamas or the dark qualities of laziness, anger and greed. As Maha  Lakshmi she took you beyond Rajas or the dark qualities of incessant craving and aggressive desire. As Maha Saraswati she takes you now beyond sattva too. Sattva is being calm, being contented and free of desire. 

But is being calm and contented the end of a seekers journey? No. This is not the end of your journey as a seeker. You need to go beyond sattva also to the fourth dimension towards enlightenment.

The Himalayan Swan on which she rides is a very rare species. A graceful bird which known to fly at the highest of altitude. It is actually beyond any bird's flight. Which means the seeker now lives in a transcendental consciousness beyond all chaos of the world. 

The word Hamsa in Sanskrit means I am you. It represents a state of undifferentiated consciousness, it represents unity consciousness.

On your journey from the 7th night onward, you invoke the wisdom of the universal mother to go beyond separation, to go beyond Maya.

Shumbha & Nishumbha are seen as the third and final dark forces in mythology. I see them as representing the illusion of separation. In ignorance you feel you are separate from your life, you feel you are separate from your fellow human beings, from the universe, from the divine, from everything.

It is this root-ignorance of separation that causes so many divisions and strife in the world, divisions based on gender, on color, on caste, on religion, and nationality and race. 

When with the power of wisdom you see through the illusion of separation, you rise victoriously into the tenth day of Vijaya dashami. 

As you emerge into the light you celebrate the divine as Para Shakti or the ultimate force that animates the universe. You are one with Para Shakti, the all. One with the intelligence that is spread across the multiverses.

You awaken to cosmic consciousness. This is the journey of the seeker through Navratri or Dusshera.