11. Sri Ravi Prasad

Respected Brothers and Sisters,

Pranams.

I feel honored to present the paper on the subject of the seminar “Happiest man is he who is happy under all circumstances” in your august presence.

Before joining the system, everything in life seemed to me as can be tackled with mere logic & intellect and the necessity of bringing in God to live in the above condition was not understood/ felt. Intellect plays….and the approach then was to train the mind not to excessively worry about things. The problem then was, there was no charm in life and the question about the purpose of life keep popping up again and again and I used to feel there was no liveliness in life and again this problem is hidden under the carpet. Though I used to go to temples, and self-stamped me as traditional, I was questioning the existence of God (myself) as everything in life just seems only logical. Though I used to feel I was happy(for the only reason: there apparently seems to be no reason for me to be unhappy) deep in the heart I used to feel frustrated and used to question what happiness and life really mean. I did not have clarity on what happiness was and never attempted to evaluate how much happy I really was and, to make things worse, I used to think having a good idea about it is enough to apparently claim to be in that state. I think if the evaluations are not critical and not honest, we can easily fool ourselves that we are already in the above condition.

Before joining the system to attain happiness, sometimes, I used to go to some natural places like parks/gardens/rivers/ponds. But even when I go to those places mentioned above, the mind always used to think/attached to/worry about something that it got used to, and happiness even in those explicit and external attempts to be happy, was for very few moments or practically negligible. My network of thoughts used to persist and haunt me even during those moments and used to make me feel restless. The happiness was also felt when some incidents in life that happened in favor of me which appeared to be either under my control or otherwise and even when I eat something I like, or indulge in something that pleases my senses, but those are for a very small/negligible portions of time.

With the practice of this system my understanding has been becoming better. Now, I understand my problem above, was 1) the source from which the happiness was derived was temporary and hence the happiness was also temporary and the condition then was mostly being unhappy or being in a confused-happiness (neither happy nor unhappy with an underlying disgust) and occasionally attempting to be happy. So, if our happiness has to be permanent / continuous the source from which we derive the happiness should also be permanent. 2) Happiness being a state of mind, instead of regulating the mind, the attempt above was to change the external circumstances which did not have lasting positive influence as the problem existed with me (unbalanced mind) and not in the surroundings / circumstances. I think Happiness is impossible with an unbalanced mind even with a hypothetical/imaginary condition of best favoring circumstances. And the fact of life is circumstances are not under our control. So the first mandatory step to become happy is to have a regulated and balanced mind. Balance and Happiness are interlinked.

I understood now that Happiness can not be had by a mere intellectual knowledge about it or by a full conviction of its importance. Being happy should be natural and from within. To live naturally in a happy state should be part of our consciousness and unless our consciousness is purified, we can not live in that state all through. I think the consciousness of a person can be known by the principles/values he is living in. So, for us to be happy we should “live in” the permanent values and not succumb to temporary values or to put in other words to know how happy we are we can see how naturally we are living in higher values.

Happiness is possible only when we have no conflict with ourselves (If there is a conflict between our higher self and lower self, even then, the happiness is not feasible i.e. Unless our life is in tune with the way Divine wants us to live, happiness is not feasible). So the principles that we live-in should be in tune with the way Divine wants us to live. Happiness will be natural when the purpose of our life and the Goal of our life are in tune with each other.

Happiness is possible only when we have no conflicts with others as our happiness is also affected by others happiness / unhappiness. So to be happy we should live in the values of interdependence. Unless we understand this interdependency, being happy under all circumstances is not feasible. Unless we live in the values of service, sacrifice and cooperation we will not be able to live happy and along with others. So the principles we chose to live in should also be in tune with giving happiness to everyone. I think, that is why the seminar topic is found under the heading, “Love Universal”. When we love God, we love everybody and the undue attachments due to our individual network get faded and hence we can live happy.

I think, being Happy or peaceful or moving towards Divine or growing spiritually or living in Higher values or getting more Just & Balanced or expressing the Divinity or becoming Natural or transformation of / growth of our consciousness are all interlinked from a practical point of view.

Before practicing this system, I used to practice meditation(on my own) and it used to be forceful/ frustrating and mostly living in those haunting thoughts not knowing how to escape from them and some times trying to suppress the thoughts leading to headache or feeling tiresome. I felt regulating the mind is not that easy a job by myself.

I would like to mention how practicing PAM, is making me happier and helping me to move towards the condition mentioned as the topic of the seminar.

• During the initial pranahuti sessions, I used to feel Peace and calm and a BIG relief from the haunting thoughts, at least, temporarily. It used to become a repetitive experience during these sessions and slowly this Peace and calmness has come into my regular meditations also and now into my daily life too making me more peaceful, at least during some part of the day, and hence happier. The happiness felt now is natural

• During the Pranahuti sessions, I get a feeling as if the tensions are getting dissolved in purity and a sense of relief is observed.

• During these sessions, I feel myself more than the body which makes me understand that I am not just this body. There are feelings of the expansion of the self. Consciousness is not an intellectual idea any more. This motivates me not to give undue and excessive importance to body

• During these Pranahuti sessions there is a feeling of Progressive levels of lightness. This feeling, I think, is similar to how we watch the persons in Satellite / Spaceships, where there is no gravitational pull of the attachments the person is carrying. Though the attachments exist, their effect is not there and we feel completely balanced with no weighty effect.

• Happiness generated out of the peace and calmness during these sessions is felt to be much more superior to the happiness ever gained through any other earlier means or I could have ever thought of earlier, as this happiness has no weighty effect on me (as it is happiness generated along with peace, balance and lightness at the same time). This motivates me to get rid of my heaviness / superfluities there by purify my consciousness.

• During these pranahuti sessions there is a feeling that my subtler self is merged into a vast sheet/space of nothingness and all of my clutches are disengaged temporarily and there is a pleasant sense of happiness and balance without any weighty effect of it. During this state, there are Breezes of awareness of the self and that of the Divinity and me being part of that unlimited consciousness. There is a changeless state on one side and a changeable state on the other. Even if the awareness, of our connection with the unlimited, is maintained for some time, the awareness starts in to acknowledgement and then into thinking about it and then into liking it and the self kicks in and the connection with that changeless disappears. There is a subtle internal feeling that goes along with this feeling: this is the place where I belong to and should get back to. I get a feeling as if the fish is put back in to the pond. God / Divinity is no more a logical conclusion or an intellectual extrapolation but is a simple awareness / experience (imperience, if I can call it so) during these sessions. Thanks to our Master and to my trainers who help me to have its taste.

• During the Pranahuti sessions there are feelings of aspiration and thoughts pertaining to service and sacrifice and thoughts about divinity and goal of life. There is a conceptual clarity that emerges during these meditations about the purpose of life which is no more a question for me (It is to lead the life He wants us to live, that is to be Happy under all circumstances)

• So with the help of Pranahuti regulation of mind becomes very easy.

Pujya Babuji Maharaj states in this article that “It is a hidden dictum of Nature that every soul must live a happy and restful life” He also states that “Life is a state of being which should remain permanently, as long as we live, thoroughly in contact with the Being, smelling at each step the fragrance of the Being”. The commandments of the Master along wit the conditions felt during the Pranahuti sessions help us live in the way Divine wants us to live, as by following these we will be able to live in Higher values and also be in touch with Divinity all through and move towards the Divine. Following the commandments of the Master makes us live happier under all circumstances as we understand the purpose of our life and the reason for the circumstances and how these circumstances help us in achieving the Goal of life and hence enable us to live happy. Happiness as a condition is a state which may aptly be taken as that next to the Divine. When we are made to move towards the Divine with the help of Pranahuti and are gradually enabled to live in these commandments we feel our happiness to be natural and automatic. Unless we do our sadhana, we will not be able to live in the conditions Bestowed to us during the Pranahuti sessions. So as practicants, we should gird up our loins by not yielding to our stinking habits and determine to do our sadhana properly, so that we can live happy under all circumstances.

Those who have earlier knowledge of spiritual terms and conditions might like to evaluate their conditions against their imaginary (unrealistic) yardstick and feel unhappy and hence ungrateful and those who do not have the earlier knowledge of spiritual conditions might underestimate the benefits accrued to them and hence can become ungrateful. Thanks to the institute for making the people understand where they are by bringing in the literature and self evaluation tools to help us gird up our loins to overcome our shortcomings and also be grateful to the Master for the benefits accrued. When the System is Great, honest self evaluations make us embrace the system more and give us guts to face ourselves and help us move towards the Goal.

According to my understanding, another important point that I noticed as a difference from the earlier practice is

Earlier the practice is to follow some moral principles mechanically and rigidly (with a fear of not to break them) not knowing why and assume to be in a happy state without any evaluation.

In this system growth of consciousness comes first (we are given a dip in to Higher consciousness) and we would naturally tend to live in Higher values (with a motivation to stick to them) with an evaluation to see if we really are there and how much.

I am thankful to the Master for showing me the Path and to my trainers for helping me move towards happiness naturally and for Imperience for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts.

Pranams.