The Reality Distortion Field

The cab arrived late. Yesterday, there was so much traffic, it took us 75 minutes to cover that distance, today the road is empty. I am at the check-in right on time, in 30 minutes.

I do not have the paper copy of the Singapore e-visa. As per airline rules, I can't be allowed to board the flight from Bali. The supervisor looks at me and then at my passport and says, it's alright, let him go.

It's weird - airport tax in Bali is collected at immigration on exit. I made sure I finished my IDR before check-in. There are 15 minutes to the departure and the ATM is 10 minutes away, roundtrip. I turn around to run and the russian lady behind me says - "Here are 200K IDR (20 USD), I know you are in a rush".

The signs are wrong, I am in the wrong line, I am in the right plane. I have extra legroom I never paid for - and the two seats next to me are empty in a full plane... I am so sleepy.

There are no miracles. There are low probability events that the mind deems impossible. The joint probability of independent low probability events is the product of the probabilities of the events themselves i.e. it gets smaller and smaller.

I have been meditating for a week in Guruji's presence. Weirdly enough, people at the airport are no longer stressed, suspicious, harsh, hurtful, competitive, aggressive... they are suddenly kind, loving, caring, generous and co-operative. What just happened here? It's like the matrix!

Suddenly I suspect it's the G field.

Wasn't there some guy who had gone to India on a year long spiritual trip that nearly killed him, and that guy meditated since he was 17? Apparently he distorted reality - made it so much better.

Onion Factory Ayurveda

I have been in tears all week.

I met Guruji in 1997. I was sitting in a corner and he looked fresh as a lotus - sitting in the centre of the stage of the old meditation hall. The floor was not laid and the pebble stones sometimes poked into your pelvis, deepening the meditation, so to say.

Art of living was not very big in those days. Not many people knew about Guruji. 10 people would come to the intro courses and about 30-40 to the advanced course if things went well.

On the first day of my first course, after the first meditation, he looked straight into my eyes and as uncontrollable tears welled up inside me, he silently gestured with a smile, "How have you been?".

In 1999, I moved to the US. In he came to the Rutgers University and I got in a long line to see him. He looked straight into my eyes, and as tears welled up uncontrollably in my eyes, he said with a smile, "Haan, Ajit! How have you been"?

Afterwards, I forgot all about him, he was a bit like background music in a restaurant. I would go to sleep with a vague idea of a gentle presence. I would wake up with the same gentle presence but the rest was all normal life.

In 2001, I landed in montreal for a meditation course, I was sitting right in the middle and he looked straight into my eyes, and as tears welled up uncontrollably in my eyes, he gestured with a smile, "How have you been"?

Since then, once in a while, I have had tears suddenly well up in the middle of singing, eating, studying, talking - they are a sign that all is well - that's why they just "well up". They are a sign of health. If they don't come for a while, that means I am becoming normal - harsh in speech, suspicious, accumulating, somewhat insensitive... dry; my singing no longer feels that good, holding a guitar feels not that useful, taking the kids to the park feels tiring. When they come, everything runs on autopilot - work, music, relationships with office colleagues, investing, programming, managing people, working with senior managers and clients, food, mathematics - there is no struggle - life moves like water through rocks. These tears are THE sign of health.

In 2012, I landed in Malaysia, just like that. In Kuala Lumpur, with a loving smile, he gestured, "How are you"?

I wept like any other full grown man would.

The self is not experienced, the self is the experiencer

Guruji is taking a power nap and his body is in such deep sleep, you can hear it. He has asked me to read a brilliant translation of the Yoga Vasishta in Hindi as his body rests.

The Yoga Vasishtha is one of the most profound of the greatest Indian philosophical texts, which gently reveals upon its reader, through hundreds of parables and allegories and stories, the many dimensions of reality. If you read it like a story, without regularly meditating first, it reads like a bit like Matrix combined with Inception to the millionth power and then rounded off. If you read it after having experienced regular and deep meditation in the presence of an enlightened master, it transcends the intellect, goes straight to heart and feels like the clearest view after view after view of reality as it is.

As is the nature of being with an enlightened master, somehow, the page I start with turns out to be of immediate relevance to my non-dual, spiritual and material life. The pages talk about the spiritual lives of those in a married life, seeking material possessions, experiencing indefatigable desire, being a good father and being a king (manager) with a stressful job and weaving all that into a deeply spiritual life. Those that came before have been there, done that and a compassionate sage has so generously told the story - thank you sage.

My guru is such deep sleep and he is still teaching!

I read a line about how the senses can not be self because the senses are inert without prana. How the mind can not be self because the mind is always changing and there is that which can experience this change. How the self can be experienced...

Without breaking his breath of sleep, my guru in evidently deep sleep says, "Atma ka Anubhav naheen hota, Atma Anubhokta hai" - "the self is not experienced, the self is the experiencer".

A whole different dimension of mindfulness has opened in front of me. Nitya pragya - unbroken awareness, the body rests indeed; the self is eternally aware.

I should be resting but you are fast asleep

Last night Guruji got 2.5 hours of sleep. That's a full 30% less than his usual 3.5 hours. Those who have traveled with Guruji know that they want him to get some rest. Now giving such care and compassion to 57,000 emails and thousands of people ranging from subjects as wide as, "I want to get married" to "I spoke to president Assad", there isn't that much time for HIS body to get the rest I want him to take.

So Guruji literally creates this hour to take a power nap and right after we are finished with emails, for now, he is resting on his simple, pristine, thin, white mattress on the floor. He turns around briefly and gives me a big hug - as if I am a two year old. A giant Antarctic iceberg has just instantaneously melted inside me.

I say - Guruji, Shubhra has said - "please send me exactly the same Ajit that is with your right now", and as soon as I say that I feel so sleepy. I am resting as deeply in that hug as I ever have since I was in a womb.

After a minute of silence I hear him, in a lilting, gentle, soothing, loving voice with no hint of anything but limitless love and compassion - "Mujhe sona chahiye, aur too so raha hai" i.e. "I should be resting and you are fast asleep".

I can predict the ones that are bound by time

For 31 years now, Gurudev has been working 19 hour days, traveling through 128 cities and 40 countries every year, meeting millions of people, sharing unbounded love, receiving an equally untiring wave of love, tears and gratitude and continuously healing with infinite compassion. Those who have vaguely read about the Buddha would have a sense of wonder about the mind blowing beauty of this phenomenon.

As it often happens, a famous Buddhist monk from Indonesia came to see Gurudev on Tuesday. After some very warm, loving glances and a brief hello, they talked a little and sat in complete silence. I have no idea what they talked about.

Afterwards, without any questions from anyone the otherwise very silent monk gushed - The bodhisatva has come and he is going to purify and calm the world and free millions.

So now Ram asked - Can you tell us about Guruji's future? What is he going to do?

The monk said - "I can predict those who are bound by space and time. How can I predict that who is beyond time itself"?

The moon might have an imperfection

A lovely lady from New Zealand brought two cosmetic serums for Gurudev - the first one was L-Ascorbic Acid  serum and the second one was L-Hyaluronic acid serum. She said - Gurudev, you have pigmentation, this will clear it up.

Guruji gets hundreds of emails every day from all corners of the world. Some are from heads of state and well known leaders from all walks of life and others are from 17 year old students asking him to bless their maths exam or heal their lovely pet. Guruji goes through all the emails with a lot of focus, compassion and care, and responds wherever a response is required.

So last evening, there were three of us, sorting emails and reading the emails out to him, taking his responses down and sending email responses verbatim. And he asks for this serum, takes a drop, applies on his face and with a naughty smile, he says - "Do I have Pigmentation"?

So in different ways, all of us essentially say, not at all.

After another half an hour of reading emails and looking at him, I say - "Guruji, I have been looking for pigmentation for the last half an hour, I can't find anything".

Guruji says with a gentle smile - "Chaand mein daag hoga, mujh mein naheen" i.e. "the moon might have an imperfection, not me".

Indeed.

Depression and rechargeable batteries

The electrostatics of depression:

Imagine fast charging and discharging a battery every hour - in a maximum of two weeks, the battery dies.

Our nerve centers or chakras are like rechargeable batteries wiring an endless web of nerve endings to our senses. The more charged the batteries are, the more pleasure is experienced by the brain.

When the 'spinal' battery is discharged due to overuse, fatigue, exhaustion or abuse, NO pleasure can be experienced. That is depression.

Depression arises when the batteries just don't charge much anymore. They have been depleted too frequently. There are two primary ways to deplete your rechargeable batteries completely - craving and aversion. Through craving and aversion, the batteries are discharged when they are not in use at all - i.e. even when the organs of actions are not doing anything all, the mind and senses are depleting the batteries anyway.

Craving, a permanent feature of the mind trained for instant gratification is THE primary cause of depression in the middle and upper classes. Instant gratification of food, shopping, sex or talking deprives the nervous system of the capacity to contain the pleasure in the body and trains it for endless craving for objects. Aversion follows immediately after you've bought that new toy, had yet another ice cream and so on - and on, it's just the tail of craving.

Aversion, a feature of the mind trained for abstinence and repression causes depression too as Buddha probably realized in the jungle and many religious people have learnt since. Similar to craving, aversion is nothing but desire gone wild and it discharges the nervous system just as quickly and just as often by making it impossible for the mind to rest.

For those in, or on the way to depression, Tapa is the answer - the literal meaning of Tapa is heating or cooking. Cooking or the system in the SLOW fire of desire - eating when one is truly hungry, sleeping when one is truly sleepy, not too much, and not too little, burning the body through moderate physical work, observing, rather than indulging the mind - that is TAPA.

This practice increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the very in built JOY that is nothing but reflected by the external objects of consumption and increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the charge.