Ragha Sudha Hall, Mylapore, Chennai, India, 3 March 2013

Prostrations at the Lotus Feet of my beloved Master, Shivabalayogi, I greet you all this evening with my love and blessings.

Whether it is a sanyasin or a householder anybody can achieve this Self Realization provided they are able to adopt the right technical methods through which the mind can give up all its habits of analyzation and judgements which would have happened through the application of an intelligence and based on its own imaginations. Thus in my opinion these judgements and analyzations have just happened based on the imagination of the mind and hence cannot be the Truth as it is.

Sadhana must be 
performed by everyone

In Vivekachoodamani Adi Shankara observed thus: the truth of experience is when your consciousness comes face to face with the Truth. And also when that consciousness is not into any type of imagination, no. That is the Truth of Existence. Now this thing anybody can achieve. There is no such criteria that only a sanyasin can achieve or householders cannot. Just like anybody can become President of India provided you can adopt such technologies and such needs. There is no such criteria that only a monk can become President and a householder cannot. Any examination also anyone of us can pass, so becoming a householder or a monk is only adopting a way of life. That which you dedicate to a particular way of life and you try to live in such a way, that’s all. Sadhana must be performed by everyone.

Like my Master used to tell, either way first day would be very glamorous and very enjoyable having a lot of dreams. When you become a monk in the society people would be addressing, “Maharaj, Maharaj,” and everybody is offering flower garlands and it would appear such a glamorous thing but as you start walking on the path, when you come across hurdles, when you need to be determined and remain to the celibacy and hold on to the mind and control the emotions, all such things, then you understand it’s not an easy job as you would have dreamt. In the same way, jokingly, the day you get married it would be so glamorous and you would have so much of dreams of a beautiful, enjoyable life, but as you start walking you understand that the life is a mixture of good and bad, happiness and unhappiness. Things do not happen so easily.

Everybody is knowingly
or unknowingly looking
for peace and happiness

Whenever there is a problem, whenever there is a puzzle, whenever it is agonizing then these things happen. Naturally one would like to find an answer, sort out the problem and overcome such agonizing effects because everybody is knowingly or unknowingly looking for peace and happiness. When, at what stage that it happens it depends on the attitude and temperament of the person. Problems occur to everybody’s life. We all come across agonizing moments, fearful moments, anxiousness, so many things but very often in the society we just need a tranquilizer, a temporary solution and then we forget about it, until it occurs again we try to avoid thinking about it even.

But there are exceptional cases in this world we have seen, a few, when they have come across these type of things they have become very determined to find a solution, to know the actual Truth, to go to the root cause of all such things.

Everybody starts understanding in the society that aging process happens to the body, we all become old, we become ill, we can die, but one Prince for quite a long time he was kept ignorant of these facts so that he doesn’t run away, but remains in the kingdom. But one day it happened that he came across a dead body, he came across an ill person, an old person, all these things and he became restless, he became determined, he wanted to find a solution. For that he was ready to go to any extent and do anything. For that puzzle he wanted to find a solution and he became a Buddha. He gave such an impact to this world, even today the world remembers Him, His teachings of Truth.

Like this people became Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a young boy became Ramana Maharshi. They all came across this type of problems, agonizing moments, anxiousness or some puzzle, death and overcoming. It was the Divine’s Grace even at a very young age a fear about death caused us to go towards spirituality and know the Truth with determination, nothing else was interesting for us in the life.

If you simply adopt certain
technologies then also you
will be able to achieve that

So what I am trying to tell is that it is a matter of interest that needs to be generated. Not that physically you have to sacrifice or run away to know the answers, simply the priority in your mind that you are able to set. That is the uniqueness of our spiritual teachings since ancient times of Rig Vedic era that our Indian sub-continent has received and passed on to this entire world. As was said earlier of different yogas – dhyana yoga, bhakti yoga – the  idea is in your day to day life, in whichever way of life that you will have adopted, by being active in that life also, if you simply adopt certain technologies then also you will be able to achieve that.

Like my Master said, “You have 24 hours, in that just if you can take out one hour to sit down, close your eyes and practice meditation is good enough you can go a long way.” And the rest of the hours it would be possible for you to keep the mind receded, quiet, not become a victim of its own imaginations and thus one day you will be able to find that yoga – that Self Realization.