The Defensive Ego!

One of the functions of our Ego is to defend ourselves and protect us. Ego defends and protects not only physically instead most of the time emotionally. In this modern world, we are living a much-protected life physically than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. So mostly this defense is happening towards Emotional Dangers and Emotional Attacks.

Most of you have one or few people around you who "judge" you, "label" you, "criticize" you or "blame" you. And oftentimes there is fighting, quarreling, heated arguments about everything and anything. There are people around you who will constantly breach your personal boundary and will not leave you alone. No matter what you do some people will never be happy with your efforts and will find something that you did wrong today or ever and may give you a complete list of all your sins since you are born. Usually, such people are either spouse, parent or close family member. Because if it was anyone else you would have walked away on the first attack and would have turned your back easily. But in close-knit family situations, it becomes very difficult and hence you develop this "Defensive Ego". No one is born with it, remember that.

Sometimes you yourself go on pretending as something else, someone else who you are not and in order to hide your weakness or your reality you stay On Guard, Defensive with people around you. You create a fake world, a world of lies around you and then you go on defending that world, that fake personality, those Lies that you constantly keep on telling others. Others around you may not have proofs to break the web of your lies, but they can sense it, they know it in many ways. All your efforts give birth to suspicion and are the breeding ground for Emotional Attacks.

Such situations make you feel "unsafe" with Yourself. You do not want to be alone, you want to keep busy, you get anxiety attacks, your personality becomes neurotic, highly reactional, you find ways to avoid Yourself! Here you are not running from others, from the world, but you are running from yourself. Even when you are busy in any activity you keep on chatting with yourself and constantly "defending" yourself even during your mental chatter. Whom are you defending yourself from?

YOU! Yes!

This defensiveness makes you concerned with the outside world and how you appear to others. It makes it harder to notice what goes on inside you, with your inner feelings. When you are thinking, you do not feel much of what goes on with your subtle feelings. You only notice feelings that are at the surface. Retreating into your thoughts thus becomes a way of avoiding unpleasant feelings. When this goes on for too long you stop feeling the feelings. Many people call themselves fully logical and rational and deny that feelings are a real part of them.

The result of all these defensive tactics and games is that you lose touch with yourself. You really don't know yourself. Consequently, you are unaware why you are doing what you are doing. This Defensive Ego makes it impossible to deal with our deeper feelings, and the result is that these feelings stay hidden and do not dissolve. They disappear into your "Unconscious", but do not cease to influence you.

Whenever you are fighting or quarreling and are being argumentative then "truth" goes out of the window, nobody is interested in understanding or even listening to the "truth". When Defensive Ego is playing against anyone then it is no longer about the "truth" it is ONLY about NOT FEELING HURT.

• Yes if someone is Blaming you, you don't want to feel Guilty!
• You are already convinced that the other person is wrong or lying or not understanding!
• This gives you a chance to Blame too!

All this you do because you do not want to "feel hurt". You do not want to feel Guilt, Shame. You do not want to be wrongly accused of anything so you go on protecting, defending your Self-Image.

You may be using one feeling to avoid another. When you get angry, but you don't want to act angrily towards other people then it gets really hard. Thoughts full of anger just keeps coming up. You are angry of course because you got emotionally hurt. The reason you cannot stop being angry is that because then you would have to feel the underlying unpleasant feelings that caused the anger in the first place and you do not want to do that. 

Dealing with emotions like Guilt and Shame is difficult. Dealing with Emotional Hurt is difficult. Not impossible though. No one taught us how to deal with difficult emotional scenarios. No one taught us how to be true to ourselves so we do not have to protect any fake, false self-image. 

The Cat in a Bird Cage - Defensive Intellectual Justification!

What is that one thing that stops us from freeing ourselves; FEAR. Fear of what? FEAR OF LOSS. Fear of Loss of what? A possibility of loss of people around us, loss of loved ones, loss of health, loss of wealth, loss of self-image, image as a father, mother, husband, wife, or whatever. You fear if you admit the mistake you will feel guilt, which you will anyways because you know deep down if you did anything wrong. You fear if you speak the truth, the other person will walk away from you which he/she may already be doing, it's just that You do not want to accept that Truth Yourself. You fear losing relationships that you have and you cannot survive without them, so you are ready to lose the relationship with yourself, which anyways will cost you everything someday! You want short term benefits, small gratifications. You feel you put the fire down today, will see what happens tomorrow, why speak the Truth and face the volcano. Well, there wasn't any volcano to start with, you created it by this fearful approach. 

Your Fear keeps you chained to your Guilt, Shame, Emotional Hurt. You would rather be hurt than walk-away. You would rather be in Guilt & Shame than Forgiving Yourself. You would rather fight endlessly and inflict an emotional wound on yourself and others to protect your self-image by speaking tons of lies to yourself and others than Speaking Truth. It's like how a Pigeon closes his eyes and pretends that Cat is not there in front of him and will not eat him and he is safe! Is he really? This is how defensive ego forces you to live in Denial of Truth, Denial of Love, Denial of Life.

What is the opposite of Emotional Hurt? Self Love!

When you love yourself unconditionally and accept yourself the way you are, you stop pretending to be something else to yourself and to the world then you start to "Heal" and the emotional hurt goes away. When you "Forgive" yourself because you love yourself unconditionally, then you no longer feel guilt and shame. You forgive yourself understanding that "you were only human" to commit a mistake, you did not know any better, life did not give you any user manual to be wise before everything happens. Life is teaching lessons constantly that too through difficult ways, painful ways, emotional ways, so forgive your inner child and love yourself unconditionally. 

When you are able to Forgive & Accept Yourself Unconditionally this "Defensive Ego" DIES! Remember I said above that "you were not born with it" then how did it got developed in you? Because somewhere in the journey of life, you stopped loving, accepting and forgiving yourself instead created a cage of Defensive Intellectual Justifications. See the picture above, the cat in a bird cage? Yes! That's what you have done to yourself. You have created intellectual justifications for all your situations, like why you the cat needs to be inside the bird cage? Or why you the colorful parrots need to hang around a bird cage which has a cat inside? :-)

It's never too late to get rid of this unwanted weight of defensive ego, one less baggage to carry!
Forgive yourself, Accept yourself and Be Courageous.

Being Shiva's Echoflections program is designed to help you get rid of Defensive Ego and take control of your Emotional Well-being. 

~ Adiguru

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Million Fingers - Pointing to the same Moon!

Many people read lots of Spiritual Scriptures, Texts, Upanishads, Vedas, Tantra Scriptures and Spiritual Journey of Enlightened, Self-Realized Masters and try to understand them really hard. They try to find the "Ultimate Truth", "Christ Consciousness", "Brahm/Shiva/Shoonya/THAT" in those scriptures. After years of struggle, their efforts go in vain and ultimately they become disappointed by all the Scriptures and starts to "not believe" in any of them. Initially they "believed" in them thinking they will find the Ultimate Truth/Brahm/Shiva/Shoonya/Anatta/No-Self in them. They also feel really surprised by the fact that they all contradict each other, it feels to them as if All Enlightened Masters were against each other and all teachings are opposite of one another. This makes them wonder how come they all achieved to the ONE TRUTH when they can't describe it in a similar way? How come there must be some "Ultimate Truth" when all Scriptures talks about it differently? How can Enlightenment be similar for all these Masters? They think definitely Enlightenment, Self-Realization for one Master may be different from another. Is it really so?

The first point to understand here is that Enlightened Masters lives/lived in different Era/Time, Culture, Country and are surrounded by different people to whom they are explaining their own experience, their journey. That explanation becomes the Sacred, Spiritual Scripture. For example, Yeshua/Jesus was in Jerusalem, Lao Tsu was in China, Nanak, Kabir, Sadhguru, Ramana Maharishi, Osho, Yogananda, Buddha, Nisargadatta and so many others in India, Rumi in Turkey, Adyashanti in the USA, Eckhart Tolle in Germany, Gurdjieff in France and so on. In other words, this means that people living in any country or anywhere on this planet Earth pursue their Spiritual Journey Consciously and are Enlightened, Self-Realized. Enlightenment/Self-Realization is not the private property of some limited age, cast, creed, country, religious people. It happens to all those who are hell-bent upon finding the TRUTH! Who are damn serious about fixing themselves and filling all the holes so they can be WHOLE!

Once anyone is Enlightened/Self-Realized people around notice the change and can't stop asking about it and by and by the word goes around and many become disciples, many come to get guidance and they start explaining by writing or through talks or just through Shakti/Gyan-Power. They are not trying to boast about themselves or pull others down, they are simply trying to explain it using the vocabulary that they have got, and the people around them have got. Enlightenment/Self-Realization "cannot" be explained in any language, through verbal or written communication. Forget about Enlightenment, even "deep love, unconditional love" can't be explained. In fact, anything that Transforms you can't be explained in "words". But still, because the people around want to know, and most of them only understand language/words, hence Enlightened Masters have to explain it using the words/language, cultural/era/time/societal references. So the Sacred Spiritual Scriptures have a different language, tone, cultural references, examples in them. For example, a MOON is called as Chand, Chandrama, Lune, Mond, Mane and so on in different languages and even in one language the poetic reference to Moon will be different than Scientific reference and there could be many subtle meanings of the same words. If anyone reads the Poetry on Moon in different languages I am sure one will "wonder" if all Poets were talking about the "same moon" that he/she is "knows" about? Or every poets' country/place have a different moon? :-) Isn't it? Nowadays we have Google Earth to show us the Sky in real-time but when the world was not so advance and there is no way to communicate with the people of other countries, then one may have thought that the moon visible to him/her is the "special", "private" one and if one ever sees this in the Sky it surely always should be called as Moon only and nothing else.

So you see, all the Enlightened Masters were and are Pointing to the "same moon". All Sacred Spiritual Scriptures are pointing to the "same Truth". But since the Masters were and are in different places and have a different audience around them hence the explanation seems different. So there are thousands of fingers, and all are different from each other, but all are pointing to the "same moon".

Now, the problem comes when you try to find the Ultimate Truth in those Spiritual Scriptures, when you try to find the Moon in the Finger. And then you feel disappointed and create beliefs/non-beliefs/opinions about. But Ultimate Truth, Moon is not there! You will never find it there! All those Scriptures are trying to explain you hundreds of ways you can reach that Moon, hundreds of paths you can follow to reach that moon. There is not one way only to reach there, there are many. Everyone is born with unique karma & sanskaras (Impressions) and hence will walk his/her own path, his/her own way. One needs to find one's own way. These scriptures are giving you a surety that so many others have reached the Moon, so you can too.

When you read these scriptures you try to understand everything using your Mind which is very limited and cannot understand the Infinite, Ultimate Truth and hence everything seems highly contradictory and as if opposing each other. While it is not so. Once you are Enlightened you realize the Truth in every word that is ever written or said about Ascending/Enlightenment/Self-Realization and you realize that they all are same, because "now you have seen the moon" so you can recognize it in every way, everywhere. Until you have "not seen the moon" all fingers seem different and it seems like all are pointing to different moons and because those fingers are talking about the moon then it must be inside those fingers. Until then you feel Truth is not One. Because you don't know the Truth, how can you ever recognize it, understand it? It's not for your mental understanding at all. It is for direct experience! Chanting water, water, water will not quench your thirst. You can't even understand the word "water" just by reading about it and you won't find it's wetness, it's subtle flow and power to satisfy your thirst just by reading about it.

So instead of performing intellectual postmortem of those Scriptures and doing mental gymnastic about them, start focusing on YOU! It's about "You", and not those Enlightened Masters or Scriptures! If you really want to succeed then go within and see if you need to dissolve some blocks or if you need to heal yourself to move forward. See what all you are still attached to? What all you still fear? No Guru, No Master, No Scripture, No Grace, No Magic, No Mantra, nothing can help you Ascend if you are clinging to your fake self in any way. It's your choice, your journey to walk your own hell and come out of it. There are absolutely no shortcuts and no clever buying of tickets to heaven.

Have a head-on collision with all that you call I, Me, Mine!

The one who looks within Awakens! Awakens not on day 1 or day 2 or month 1 or month 2 or year 1 or year 2.... It takes times to get rid of yourself, your fake self, your Jeeva.

~ Adiguru

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Ocean of Consciousness! Dance of Life!

Ocean of Consciousness >> Read More

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I am Shiva, that which is not!

Being Nothing, No-Self, No-Mind!

When you drink ALL tea from your Tea Cup, is it EMPTY? It is ONLY EMPTY of TEA. It's still NOT Empty. It has AIR in it now. Empty and Full needs something to attach/identify to it, right? I may say, today my house is FULL, but what it is full of? It is full of people, it is full of furniture, it is full of something. Now if I say my house is EMPTY today, then it may be EMPTY of people, of furniture, of plants, of something and if I take away Everything out of it, will it be Empty, no? It will still have AIR in it. Emptiness and Fullness needs classification/objects/identity/something with it. So that means Emptiness and Fullness are NOT COMPLETE words as they seem to be. It also means they are INTERCHANGEABLE, means if Tea Cup was Empty of Tea, then it was FULL of Air. Empty of something means Full of something else. Empty of EVERYTHING means FULL of NOTHING. This also means that both of these words are USELESS and are NOT TRUE. 

Now let's see what is Tea Cup? Tea Cup is Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space and some person must have created it, so it's everything. The person who created the Tea Cup must be eating, living, breathing with the help of everything on this planet Earth. If we take out "everything" from the Tea Cup, then will there be any Tea Cup? No! Tea Cup is everything, this whole Universe, and so are we. If this Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, whole Universe is taken out from us, what will we be? Nothing! We are Nothing, No-Self. And that's who we are. We have No-Individual Self, no Personal Self, no Identity and that is the ONLY IDENTITY we have. No-Self means not being defined, confined by ALL THAT what makes us? What makes us is NOT us. And what is that makes us up? THIS WHOLE UNIVERSE. WE ARE THE UNIVERSE. That means WE are FULL of UNIVERSE, FULL of EVERYTHING, that means WE ARE EMPTY OF NOTHING. That means we are NOTHING. If WHOLE UNIVERSE is taken out of the Equation, or from us, what will still EXIST? That which is NOT. What will still exist? Nothingness. No Self, Emptiness, Shiva. So, in other words, our TRUE IDENTITY is NO-IDENTITY, our TRUE SELF is NO-SELF. That is who we are. If we take out all MANIFESTED part of the UNIVERSE or ENERGY, then what will still be there, UN-MANIFEST part of the Energy, or Pure Consciousness. If we take out BOTH, Manifest, and Un-Manifest, what is there that will still exist, NOTHING. NOTHINGNESS, VOID, SHOONYA, SHIVA, EMPTINESS, NO-SELF. 

After Enlightenment comes the Self Realization. What do we realize at that point? We Realize that We are Pure Consciousness and that we do not exist as ANYTHING else (body, mind, emotion, ego, identities, person, personalities etc). It's the Realization of Death of what? The death of ALL that which we were NOT. Like when we removed Earth, Water, fire, Air, ether from Tea Cup, we Realized that Cup was NOT all these, so all the wrong Identities of the Cup died. So the acceptance of Death while Self Realization is the Death of all that was NOT ME. Then that means I AM THAT WHICH IS NOT. What is that which is not? That is NOTHING, NOTHINGNESS, EMPTINESS, VOID, SHOONYA, SHIVA. Where does this Pure Consciousness comes from? Which takes the form of ALL God, Goddesses, Avatars, Gurus, Avadhootas, Adishakti, all manifest and unmanifest or Primordial from which the FIRST manifestation starts with. Where does it come from? It comes from VOID, it comes from NOTHINGNESS/SHIVA. Science, Quantum Physics said the same thing, whole Existence, Universe came into being, came into existence from the VOID, from Nothing, from Emptiness.

So ultimately I am THAT which is NOT. In other words, I am NOT. Here in the term "No-Self", Self Refers to Soul, Soul means Consciousness, it came from Pure Consciousness. So when I say No-Self, I am saying I am NOT all that. I am saying I AM NOT. This is what "we truly are". When I say I am Nothingness, then it means When NOTHING will EXISTS, NOTHING means I will EXIST. So now what is it that will exist TRULY INFINITE INFINITELY? "ME", "ME as Nothingness", Me as Nothing was ALWAYS there, and will ALWAYS be there. If you take out Nothing from Nothing, then Nothing will still be there. Zero minus Zero is Zero. Everything minus Everything equals Nothing. So I was, I am and I always will be there. This is who truly I am. This is a permanent existence. Existence as No-Personal Identity, that is our True, Permanent Identity.

~ Adiguru

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Seeker's Ego!

Oh Really? Do I have Spiritual Ego now? Ego's Spiritual Transformation! 

Most of the people who are walking the Spiritual Path, the seekers, have an AGENDA in mind. That I want to be a Guru, I want to be a Teacher, I want to be a Magical/Mystical Person, I want to be a Future teller, I want to run Ashram or Spiritual Organization, I want to lead Religious Community, I want to write books, I want to be Divine, I want to be Free from Pain and Suffering, I want to get rid of my Fears, Anxiety, Depression etc. But in other words, aren't these people TRYING TO SEE THEIR REFLECTION in this WORLD as some BEING?. Normal worldly people who are NOT walking the Spiritual Path, and are just corporate, business people or mother, or astrologers, scientists or husbands or father or something else. What are they trying to do? They are trying to be JUST that, they LIKE/LOVE/WANT/DESIRE to see their REFLECTION in this world by BEING all that right? But then what is the difference between those worldly people and spiritual journey takers? Worldly people's EGO (False sense of Self) is CLINGING to their Worldly Identities, Spiritual People's EGO is CLINGING to their Spiritual Identities. Isn't it? Both have EGO's CLINGING to their Reflection, to some form of Being-ness. Both of have Egos dressed/wrapped in different clothes, but both are having it. EGO is that Fake/False/Character/Costume that we keep on wearing, building and decorating. In order to get rid of this Ego, you have to kill the "Seeker personality", "Seeker Identity" within. "The Seeker is The Sought". 

~ Adiguru

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Unconditional Love!

Aah! The most painful, yet most important lesson to learn. How?

The Soul is WHOLE and is never divided. The longing that a feminine feel towards any masculine, or vice-versa is the “urge” to balance within. When we love someone, we behold that state of "longing" in ourselves and it takes us closer to Divine if we learn the lesson of Unconditional Love. But the way to learn it is through someone other than us. Why? The mind needs to have a Subject-Object relationship in order to feel or understand anything. The mind doesn’t understand that the “Seer, seen and Seeing” are not three but one. The mind doesn’t understand that the “Experience, Experiencer, Experiencing” are one and not three different things/aspects. So in mind, they have to be divided. That’s where this whole logic of Twin Flames, Soul Mates comes into creation. For mental gymnastics, it is a good thing to play around. But on Spiritual Path some day we have to abandon mind, then what is the point of feeding such concepts/explanations to mind?

As a Human, you came into this world to bring the balance back through love. In order to understand it, feel it, you got attached to a Male or Female in a really strong way. So he or she can Reflect what you have inside, and you can improve. The lesson is only one through such pursuits, "Balancing the Masculine and Feminine Within" and that balance comes through “Learning to love Unconditionally”, NOT to someone else, but to yourself. If regardless of all odd conditions, you end up loving him or her very much, then you are holding your own Feminine or Masculine Energy, within, you are realizing it. It’s just that sometimes the BALANCE is LOST. When the feminine in you starts craving, missing him so much that means the Feminine energy in you has gone low, you go out of touch from your own femininity and you need ANOTHER person as an Object to feel intensely feminine again. And he becomes the one who makes you feel like a woman and who brings you closer to yourself. You see the Reflection of your own femininity in him. So that longing actually is NOT for him, that longing is for staying in CONSTANT touch with your own Femininity. Same is the case with men & Masculine within. 

Learning to love Unconditionally means ACCEPTANCE. Accepting the way things are, the way he or she is, without trying to change him or her, forcing to change his/her life, understanding that it's NOT about the other anyways, it's about YOU. You are FREE the moment you accept the flow of life, the way another person is, and stop trying to change him/her endlessly, trying to fit into his/her world, or trying to fit them into your world. When you free yourself, that means you LOVE yourself. You care enough for yourself, to not cause any useless suffering, drama, and pangs of endless bullshit of mind, which sees that Other Personas some Separated Being. We all are ONE. There is no separation. Acceptance means you love yourself Unconditionally, regardless of all odd conditions around you in life. You are not causing any Self-Violence through self-talks full of hatred and denial. 

Once you start accepting the reality, the energies within you are balanced and you will feel fully feminine or masculine all by yourself from within, the need for an external person/soul, a mental object will be GONE!  This is the ArdhNarishwar state of Shiva. It's the balance of Masculine and Feminine Energy within us, so we are not driven by "longing" based inclination towards male, or female, so our hormones do not drive us and our emotions, mind do not manipulate us. We become ONE WHOLE person and stay in the perfect balance of Masculine and Feminine within and do not need other person/object to get us in touch with our own self.

~ Adiguru

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Emotional Wounds!

Most mental imbalances are Emotional Wounds? Did you learn to bandage that? 

Most mental problems/situations/imbalances are “emotional wounds”. We all were taught how to dress a wound, treat a burn or anything with our physical body. We were NEVER taught, how to heal or even address an emotional wound. We focus only on making sure kids are eating healthy and exercising enough, our upbringing focuses only on the Physical Body & Mind of our kids. How many parents are teaching their kids, How to respond to “difficult emotions”? How to release them in a “safe way”? How to “safeguard” themselves from painful emotions and not create Suffering? How to be “emotionally strong”? When these kids grow up if they face any trauma in life, will they be able to come out of it safely, without harming themselves in one way or the other? Anything physical is visible and easy to treat, emotions are not visible/tangible until they come out as “reactionary behavior”. Now due to the lack of understanding of all this, and due to the lack of COMPASSION in people’s heart, it becomes EXTREMELY challenging for an Emotional Sufferer to heal themselves, they find NO support around them whatsoever, not even their own family members, everyone ends up judging them, labeling them. 

Whenever someone is on Spiritual Path, and trying to raise their Energy, Heal themselves, or do their Spiritual Postmortem, Spirit/Soul will BRING OUT ALL the deep hidden issues that need to be addressed, FELT complete, UNDERSTOOD and put aside. EVERYTHING WILL SURFACE UP, that too at a crazy speed. So it’s NOT BAD AT ALL. In life, we DO NOT allow ourselves to grieve enough. We do not allow ourselves to CRY ENOUGH. People around us keep telling us do not cry, do not cry, not because they are helping us, only because they cannot handle their own emotional reaction to crying. They don’t want to see it. They are NOT helping; they are causing MAJOR DAMAGE. NEVER ask a child or anyone to NOT cry. Learn to handle the display of difficult emotions in the form of crying/tears. Crying is a Natural way of Healing. Let people cry if it comes to that. Once a person faces ALL their deep buried emotional issues, cries enough, feels the pain enough, and ACCEPTS Life, then he/she is healed. This is what Spiritual HEALING is all about. It is the opposite of Allopathy/Modern Medicine healing which is “suppressive” in nature, while spiritual healing is “expressive” in nature. So no need to sideline this process. When a person is going through such an "expressive", Spiritual Healing process, it does feel awful and fearful, but we need to learn to TRUST the ways of NATURE to HEAL us. One might have IGNORED or SUPPRESSED their painful emotions but there comes a time when one couldn’t suppress emotional wounds anymore. Which is good. No soul can progress without HEALING deep scars/issues that all lifetimes have left on us. It’s a normal and natural healing process. We see it as abnormal because our own definition of normal has been screwed up while growing up. Our perception of NORMAL is DISTORTED. Emotional wounds are teaching us lessons when we accept the lesson, we are healed. 

~ Adiguru

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Kill the Buddha!

Kill the spiritual seeker within you, right now! Why?

I read a line somewhere, "Kill the Buddha if you meet him at the next stop", something like that. It did not explain the meaning, but I am giving my explanation here. The idea is that when we start moving towards spiritual goals in life, our Ego creates a "Seeker" personality within. So we become the Seeker or a Chaser of our own Spiritual Goals. Now suppose you are chasing a car, what all do you as a chaser need to always keep in mind? One is Car DETAILS like Red Car, Number, Make Model etc and another is the DISTANCE between you and the other car. So this seeker/chaser while on this path is ALWAYS busy with these two things. Seeker/Chaser gathers ALL information about Enlightenment, Self-Realization, Liberation, Samadhi and ALL about Spiritual Experiences. Means he/she has DETAILS now. And then Seeker/Chaser keeps on evaluating the DISTANCE by JUDGING within himself based on the details to find out how FAR or CLOSE one is to their goals. The moment any Spiritual Experience happens, Seeker/Chaser analyzes all details and comes with a Name/Theory/Concept for it and based on gathered knowledge from books or elsewhere, it DECLARES that you are this much close or that much far. That gives him/her an ILLUSION of TIME. This is what creates the Illusion of Time and Space. Now because you created this Seeker/Chaser kind of Ego/Personality it's job is just to keep seeking, keep chasing, it will make sure it has job security and the chasing/seeking NEVER ends. Seeking/Chasing means you are AFTER something, means there is SPACE between you and your goal, and Time and Space are interchangeable. The sooner you kill this Seeker Identity/Personality within, the better it will be. Hence next time the moment you get a judgmental thought about the stage/state of your spiritual progress/path, or thoughts of a Seeker who is looking for some validation, some sort of Spiritual Certification, then KILL those thoughts. Stop thinking that way, stop deluding yourself. Understand that, Seeker is the Sought.

~ Adiguru

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Guru

Who and what is a Guru? How Guru plays a role? How does Guru help?  

Many books and people recommend that having a living Spiritual Guru in one's life is an absolute must and no one can progress without one. My direct experience of Guru is very different, though. I have/had no living Guru in this life, like many other Self Realized ones. I understand and agree with the fact that living Guru can save us from a lot of downfalls and can uplift us when needed. But first we need to understand that Guru is NOT a Physical Body. Guru is THAT, Guru is the All-Pervading Self. Guru is Everywhere and so Guru is in Everyone. It can't be otherwise. Whenever I needed guidance or direction in life, some book, sometimes even just a sentence from here or there, took my whole attention and showed me what direction I should take. One after the other books that I purchased, if now I look at the sequence in which I read them, it all seems very well planned, it all seems perfectly arranged. Every person that I met was giving me a message, was showing me something within me, and it all worked the way a real living Guru would have. When I was going through my Self Realization and was struggling, my friend Rob Sacks, just appeared from nowhere and pushed me into it, so the process can be completed sooner. My two other friends, Carol Hopkins, and Arathi Kurahatti kept pushing me to write or record what I am going through and kept me in this body. When I went into long Self-Absorption sessions, kids & my family kept on demanding my attention one way or the other to bring back my body consciousness. My friend was driving me around so I do not have to drive for few days. Guru is Self, and Guru is Everywhere and Guru is in Everyone. So Guru played through my friends, my family, kids around me, as and when I needed. The whole Universe became my Guru, and I had so many around me all the time, to make my journey successful. I can never say enough Thanks to all of them, whose presence helped me walk the path of Liberation.  

तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमः

~ Adiguru

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Awareness of Being Alive

What does it mean to be true, eternally alive? Fear of losing the awareness of being alive, Fear of Death, Fear of No-Self. Why is it OK to have this fear?

Let's see what the deepest, darkest rooted FEAR or IGNORANCE in humans is? 

It's the FEAR of NO-SELF. It's the FEAR of "EMPTINESS/VOID/NOTHINGNESS/SHOONYA/SHIVA". It's the FEAR of losing the AWARENESS of BEING ALIVE. 

We all understand intellectually that "Enlightenment" is DEATH. Self Realization is the ACCEPTANCE of DEATH and SURRENDER of WILL. Liberation is Net Resultant of Self Realization. Falling into or Living in Emptiness/Void/Nothingness is like LIVING THE DEATH. Yes, it seems like a Paradox, but it is not. When one seeks Enlightenment, one intellectually knows that one is asking for death, but ONLY the death of Mind, Emotions, EGO etc. No one is asking for the Death of the Body. No one is asking for the DEATH of LIFE in them. And LIFE here means, living as an Enlightened Being, living as a Spiritual Teacher, or a Guru, or a Saint, or a Mystic, or something else on those lines or a Mother or Bread Earner of the family and something on worldly lines. THEY ARE NOT ASKING FOR ALL THIS. Right? Rarely anyone would seek Enlightenment if it brings death to the body if it brings the death of the living being itself. WHY? Because of the FEAR. What Fear? Fear that one may become physically challenged and may not have anyone by their side to take care of them. Fear of not being able to earn a decent living for himself/herself. Fear of not being able to operate their body in a proper way. Fear of being NOBODY, Fear of being UNKNOWN to the world forever. Fear of not being able to LIVE the Bliss of being an Enlightened person. Fear of NOT being able to lecture/teach people. Fear of not being able to write any books, Fear of not being able to DISPLAY their knowledge/path/wisdom to anyone. Fear of not being able to show or tell anyone what mystical powers they have got. Why? Because all these FEARS are tied to ONLY one thing, Fear of not having a BODY and if one is able to OVERCOME that, there still lies a FEAR OF DEATH OF LIFE, FEAR OF LOSING ALIVENESS WITHIN. It is VERY DIFFICULT, ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to sense, understand this Fear, or see the FACE of this Underlying Fear. Everyone wants to FEEL ALIVE, have an AWARENESS or SENSE of being ALIVE. Nobody wants to LOSE that. The whole effort of doing ANYTHING in life is trying to FEEL ALIVE at one or many levels, through one or many aspects, many ways. The whole pursuit of life is just this, isn't it? People are FEARFUL of getting into deep, dark depression or psychosis or any other mental imbalance. Why? BECAUSE they fear LOSING that ALIVENESS, they fear to lose the AWARENESS that SENSE of BEING ALIVE.

Now let's understand this "Sense/Awareness of Aliveness" little more. Why do you think people drink alcohol or drugs or do adventure sports, or sex, build relationships, or go speed racing, or anything like that? To STRENGTHEN their Awareness of being Alive. Isn't it? In simple words, we say "we feel alive" by doing so. Even HELPING others, Financially, Emotionally, Physically, Professionally, Mentally, Intellectually, Spiritually or whichever way, makes us FEEL ALIVE. What are OTHER WORDS that we wrap this ALIVENESS into? We say we feel meaningful, purposeful, useful, thrilled, excited, blissful, happy, elevated, successful etc in life. But all these words are DIFFERENT ways of Wrapping the Sense/Awareness of ALIVENESS WITHIN. When we are sick, even with Fever, or A migraine, or Viral or anything, why do we want to get up from the bed as soon as possible? Why do we want to come out of it as soon as possible? Because IT TOOK AWAY our Sense/Awareness of BEING ALIVE. It takes away our ALIVENESS, physically, mentally or whichever way you want to look at it. Why do we fear Depression, Psychosis or any other physical or mental disability because it takes away our sense/awareness of being alive, right? Why do you think some Spiritual Enthusiasts are so much into and after Kundalini and Energy experiences, why do you think people want to have Mystical Experiences? Why do you think people even want to feel Divine Energy (wrapped as DIVINE LOVE), or a Divine Person's Energy? It makes them FEEL HIGHLY ALIVE. They wrap this "HIGHLY ALIVE FEELING" into other words, like Divine Love, Worthy of being Divine, Deserving Enlightenment or Liberation and all that, there could be MANY MANY wrappings and NICE WORDS for all this. But regardless of all words and wrappings, at the core, at the root, it is nothing but AWARENESS OF BEING ALIVE. So AT ALL COST we want to KEEP THAT, MAINTAIN THAT, sense of being alive. At NO COST we are EVER ready to GIVE IT UP. Who is this who doesn't want to give it up? Who is it in us who are clinging to it? EGO! Not the REAL YOU.

Why? EGO can NEVER understand what it means to be truly ALIVE. Ego doesn't know that who we are is ETERNAL ALIVENESS. Ego wants to have Aliveness Felt, Retained, Defined in its own way of understanding. Ego is part of MIND, it will NEVER understand that it's not something for the EGO to understand EVER. Ego fears, What if after being Enlightened/Self-Realized, NO REFLECTION comes out? What if there is NO LIVING BEING left to EVEN KNOW whether there is/was someone Enlightened, or became Pure Consciousness or Divine? All this is NOT for an understanding of EGO. So it FEARS, it RUNS AWAY from all this and clings to its own meanings and definitions of being alive.

It is NOT WRONG to have this FEAR, it is NOT WRONG to FEEL this way, it is NOT WRONG to Acknowledge that it's a HARD thing to live with. The first STEP is to ACCEPT and ACKNOWLEDGE that you have this Fear, instead of running away, or hiding somewhere or putting up a face that says no no I am fine. Once you ACCEPT and YOU KNOW that you have ACCEPTED, then we can do something about it. If you do not accept that there is a hair or dust in your eye and you keep on endlessly blinking and thinking oh I see fine, then HOW CAN YOU DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT? You are DENYING its PRESENCE. So first thing is to accept that "it's OK to have this fear", "it's OK to be this way", ACCEPT the PRESENCE of this FEAR.

Why is it OK to feel this way? Why is it OK to have this Fear? Why is it OK to have an ATTACHMENT to this FEAR? The answer is simple!

Didn't we all SIGN-UP to be packaged as HUMANS who will have Ego, Fears, Anxieties, Emotions and all that? Did we not sign-up to be ABLE TO FUNCTION IN DUALITY/IGNORANCE/MAYA/DREAM WORLD/ILLUSIONARY WORLD? Now how can we FUNCTION in DUALITY without having FEARS? Doesn't fear GUARDS us in one way or the other all through our life? Doesn't Fear HELPS US STAY ALIVE by not taking useless risks? Doesn't it warn us on time? Isn't ANXIETY that gut feeling which tells us sometimes that there is something wrong and we take necessary actions timely? Isn't EGO actually the BIGGEST PROTECTOR of our Body and MIND? Isn't it the Ego who is always busy in "Self Preservation" in one way or the other, and so we can stay ALIVE to this date, to this age? Aren't our Attachments responsible for SHAPING our life to a greater extent? Did not Attachments defined and made us who we are today? Did not attachments MADE US, SHOWED US that we are Loving, Caring, Passionate Human Beings. So then WHO SAYS ALL THIS NEEDS TO BE DISCARDED OR DELETED OR NEGLECTED OR REMOVED? Why do we need to do that? No way! We do not need to kill or discard or give away all these. We need to SEE THEM AS THEY ARE. We need to SEE THEIR TRUE PURPOSE that they are there for. These are TOOLS for us to LIVE and should be understood that way and left as is. No need to FIGHT them or try to Kill them. It won't work. Enlightened people have FEARS too, they show up as stomach growling or sudden change in energy and they immediately take action to SAVE their body, their energy. Do they NOT HAVE RIGHT to save their body? Do they not have right to exist in Body? Do they have no right to save their energy? Do they have no right to be human? Do they have no right to exist and play roles in Maya, Dream World? YES, THEY DO HAVE ALL THESE RIGHTS STILL! Being Enlightened doesn't mean feeling so IMMORTAL that you start driving your car in opposite direction in the wrong lane. It doesn't mean keep talking, lecturing, spending energy on others endlessly. It doesn't mean not eating or drinking or fulfilling other bodily needs as they arise. It doesn't mean STOP LIVING in any way. It doesn't mean Not Feeling ALIVE in any way. But TRULY ALIVE, not the Ego's understanding of Being Alive. So how can any Enlightened, Self-realized or No-Self person LIVE in their BODY and LIVE on this Planet Earth without WEARING THEIR GARB/Clothes/Costume OF EGO AGAIN? Once Ego is understood for its TRUE purpose and meaning, ALL Enlightened/Self Realized people WEAR it again, like a Costume, to play, to live in this world. They not only wear their Ego back, they wear Anger and Emotions too. You think I will NOT get Angry if someone punches me, God swears I will punch them back. You think I will not push people away from me if I think they are not there yet for me to do something about them? Yes, I will, this is Ego in function. Do you think I do not pat or hug or show love to my son or kids/people around me? I do, those are Emotions put to right use. So After being Enlightened/Self-Realized, we again start with ALL that we had before, it's like completing the 360 degrees circle journey. You are back again on the same starting point and you start in the RIGHT PERSPECTIVE now. You use the tools (fears, ego, emotions etc) for their right purpose, for living here and living in the body. So there is NOTHING wrong with Fears, Emotions, and Ego, ALL you need to do is UNDERSTAND THEM IN RIGHT PERSPECTIVE. 

~ Adiguru

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