Jivana Nadi (The River of Life)

Four important things i learnt from my guru during my pilgrimage trip to Tiruvannamalai (see here to know why the place is so great for Hindus), can be summarized as :-

* Practicing Affectionate Detachment.
* Clearing the Subconscious Basement.
* Being like the River water.
* What does it mean when people say "Nobody Understands me".

Practicing Affectionate Detachment

Affectionate detachment is stronger than any attachment could possibly be, because attachment is created through unfulfilled desire, salted and peppered with fear. Fear of loss, fear of the unexpected, fear that life may not have much more to offer than what has already been offered, fear of old age, fear of harm, fear of accident -- these are the fears which salt and pepper the unfulfilled desires. This is attachment.

To be affectionately detached -- that is a power. That is a wisdom. That is a love greater than any emotional love, a love born of understanding, a love that merges you into the river of life and allows actinic force to flow within you so that you realize God.

There is a great wisdom in cultivated affectionate detachment. Let go of the past. Let go of the future. Be a being right now. Being detached does not mean running away from life or being insensitive. It makes us extremely sensitive. When we have the ability to let go, we are warmer, more friendly, more wholesome, more human and closer to our family and friends.



Subconscious Basement

I liken the subconscious mind to a basement. Those of you who have lived in the same house for a number of years have observed the following: as life progresses in the home, old things make way for the new, and the old things invariably are put into the basement. The basement is likened to the subconscious mind; the main floor, to the conscious mind. If one is putting too many things too fast into the basement and is too busy enjoying the new things passing through the conscious mind into the subconscious basement, there is no time to keep the basement in order.

You can plainly see that we have to go into the subconscious basement and straighten it out, if need be, by letting go and becoming free. That's easy to say. It's a little more difficult to do. Why? Because the basement took time to fill, and it takes time to clean. If we were to straighten out the subconscious basement too fast, that would not be good. It would be going against a natural law. It would be like pouring hot water on plants, as they do commercially, to make them bloom quickly. We must not force natural laws, so we take time in our spiritual unfoldment. The more time you are willing to take, the less pressure you have on yourself and the faster you will attain a permanent enlightenment.

"Nobody Understands Me"

In practicing affectionate detachment, we are learning to live in the here and now, right in the moment. We are awakening the power of direct cognition, the power that enables us to understand what happens, when it happens and why it happens.We are tuning into the river of life, the great actinic flow. This river flows directly from the essence of being through the subconscious basement and the conscious-mind main floor, creating life's experiences. Along the way, our cognition of these experiences completes the cycle of its continual flow. That is what we have to learn to tune into. All of our higher teachings give us that wisdom. It is a great step to learn it intellectually and to be able to talk about it, but once that step has been taken, it is not a great step anymore.

This wisdom must first be applied at home, then at work. Then it has to be applied among all of your acquaintances and friends. Everyone should understand you and about you, and if you feel there is someone close to you who does not understand you, that signifies that the part of yourself that this person represents does not understand what you think they do not understand. If someone who is close to you does not understand your inner nature, you do not understand your inner subconscious yourself. Why? Because you have only intellectually grasped certain things; you have not fully realized these concepts. He, the friend, as a reflection of yourself, therefore, will not quite grasp your studies or your concepts. As soon as you understand yourself, by having purified yourself, you can explain your realization to your friends in a way they will understand.

Those who say "Well, nobody understands me. I feel all alone on the path" are going through a period in which they have memorized everything but understand very little and therefore cannot explain or convince their fellow man of these great truths due to the fact that their subconscious basement is still full. When we only learn intellectually and have not put dharma into practice, our subconscious is still cluttered by uncognized memories.



Being like the River Water

Let's look again at the river of life as it flows into the sea, and again relate that to ourselves and see ourselves letting go of the river banks, merging ourselves into this river, flowing with it and realizing ourselves as the essence of life. Let us not worry about the past ever again. Do not even think about the past. Face everything that comes up in the light of the present, not in the darkness of the past.



Be like the river water. Water flows freely anywhere, easily finding its way around rocks and trees. Be pliable in your life, moving in rhythm with life. Let go of everything that blocks the river of life's energy. Watch your thinking and be careful of your thoughts. Judge every action that you make, judge every word you speak, with this law: "Is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful? Is it necessary?" Become your own kind judge and make each second a day of judgment, for each second is really a day if you live life fully. If you live completely each second, you will experience many days inside each twenty-four hours.

Be free from life's attachments and don't allow any more negative attachments to occur in your life. Loosen yourself -- be free. Attachments bring all sorts of complications. Freedom brings no complications at all. So, that is what we have to do, recreate our lives each second. Become affectionately detached and manifest a greater love through action. Selfless service to mankind makes you free in the world of mortals. Measure yourself objectively with the river of life and merge with it into the sea of life. Let your service to mankind begin at home and radiate out to the world. Begin at home, with those closest to you, before venturing out among friends and strangers. Let your example be your first teaching. Be free from the past; abide in the present; detach yourself from the future; and live in the eternal now.

Close your eyes and visualize a river flowing into the sea, and see yourself holding on to the bank of the river, and the river flowing on past you. Now let go of the bank of the river and flow down with the river and merge into the sea of life. Feel yourself, right at this instant, living in the here and now. Holding on to the river bank, we hold the consciousness of time and space. Holding on to the banks of the river of life is to recreate within you fear, worry, doubt, anxiety and nervousness. Detach yourself from the banks of the river and again be free. Love the banks as you pass, with a love born of understanding, and if you have no understanding of the bank, study your attachments until you do.


Learn to concentrate the mind so that you can study not from books, but from observation, which is the first awakening of the soul. Learn to study by practice. Learn to study by application. Become a student of life and live life fully, and as you merge into the sea of actinic life, you will realize that you are not your mind, your body or your emotions. You will realize that you are the complete master of your mind, your body and your emotions.

Jivanasya Prayojanam (The purpose of life )

Once you have realized that Self realization is the the ultimate goal of your life, go on living your normal life, putting attention and concentration in every single work that you do, doing a little more than you think you can, finish each project that you start, finish it well beyond your expectations, this process of channelizing every desire towards the final goal is called "transmuting". Transmute every desire towards the final goal. Once the tremendous force of desire is transmuted. The perspective is changed. We see ourself as an immortal being, and we work consistently with our lifestyle, day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year. Each decision that we make is an easier decision to make, and each reaction that we face, we face it joyfully. Each meditation that we hold is more profound than the last, and the spiritual being, the soul body, begins to merge with the physical body, as the elements of the instinct and the elements of the intellect that have been supreme life after life after life begin to give up and transmute their energies into the immortal body of the soul. This way the willpower gets awakened.

Remember, the lifestyle that we now have was programmed for us by mothers, fathers, religious leaders, teachers, people that we had just met along the way, and good friends. It's not a particularly good lifestyle in which to hold the perspective that we're an immortal being. It's a great lifestyle to hold the perspective that we're a temporal being, and we're only here a few years and then we die.

To develop a whole new lifestyle takes thought. Our desire has to be transmuted into doing that. In the ordinary lifestyle of human consciousness, our desires generally are for 'things', for emotional experiences, for intellectual knowing. And that's all good, but they're not organized. We have to organize the tremendous power of desire so that it's transmuted, and we desire the realization of the Self more than anything else. Then you'll have enough desire left over to get things, to get happiness and to get all the getting that humans want.

(See awareness as a lotus flower. We'll look at the mud as being the instinct, we'll look at the water as being the intellect and we'll look at the air as superconsciousness - Gurudeva)

Handling each experience

"Balance comes from understanding the effect of the emotional body upon the physical, and the physical body upon the emotional." - Gurudeva

The more experiences we can have during a lifetime and approach those experiences in a positive way, the more we begin to crush out the instinctive elements, the more we begin to mold the intellect so it is like the superconscious mind rather than being like the instinctive area of the mind, the more we can begin to mold the physical atoms so that they become closer attuned to the spiritual forces emanating from the soul body. The more experiences we can have and face those experiences positively, the faster we evolve. The fewer experiences we have, the slower we evolve. The knowing of how to handle each experience that comes to us in our lifetime comes from the soul. It's our superconscious self.

The instinctive mind will want to run after certain experiences and be repelled by other experiences. It is the area of duality, of likes and dislikes. The instinctive mind will react and resent experiences of a certain nature. The intellectual mind will rationalize other types of experiences that happen to us during a lifetime, argue them out and try to find out reasons why. The superconscious mind of the soul will know the reason why. It will come in an intuitive flash. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter anyway.

The spiritual body of you, which is permanent, has always remained constant. It has always been constant because it's directly in tune with the constant central source of all energy of the universe. This one source of energy feeds through your spiritual body and out through the intellectual sheath, the astral or emotional sheath, and the physical body. So, identify yourself as the inner being. Never see yourself as an outer being. Then experience won't be reacted to. It will be understood from a mountaintop consciousness. Then experience won't be sought for for the enjoyment of the experience. The Self will be sought for, and the experience will be part of the path to you.

Waiting for intuitive flashes

Now, when the mystic wants to understand his series of experiences, he does not analyze himself. He doesn't go through the emotion of "Why did this happen to me?" "What did I do to deserve that?" "What did this experience come to me for? I want to know the reason, and only when I know the reason can I go on." This binds him to the intellectual area of the mind. He lives his experiences in the consciousness of the eternity of the moment, and if an intuitive flash, a mountaintop consciousness, comes to him where he can see how he fit into the experiential pattern, he accepts it and he knows it's right, because it permeates him so dramatically, from the top of his head right through his entire body.

The mystic waits for these intuitive flashes, and he links one up with another. But he doesn't flow his awareness through the intellectual mind and spend time in that area to try to analyze each happening or each reaction to try to justify it, to excuse it or to find out why it has happened. He doesn't do that. Why? Because the soul, the superconscious mind, doesn't work that way.

***** The journey of life *****

The black-footed Garuda bird flies across the sky; a black-hued serpent dies in a deep well, all unseen. So, stop bragging of your greatness, O heart! Be like the river that merges into the wavy ocean.

Tirumantiram 2513

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I Encounter Loneliness - Goal being distant

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I Encounter Beauty, Joy, re-union

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Hours and hours of lonely travelling

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Not knowing whats happening

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Meeting partners/ companions

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Only to be parted

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Full of bumps, ups and downs

making me learn .... as i struggle .....

And the journey still goes on and on ....

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The importance of Sleep

Upon passing into a state of sleep, the body's five positive currents are systematically depolarized; this allows the Ego to pass from the physical plane into the sub-superconscious regions. When the body is fully recuperated, the currents are again polarized, thus pulling the Ego back into the physical body, hence the conscious plane.

When in a physical body, the conscious mind/plane is always the home base - the headquarters. The five currents hold individual awareness or Ego in the conscious mind. Therefore, individual awareness can soar into the sub-superconscious regions and entertain great input, knowledge, direction for one's future, understanding of the karmas that have been gone through, as well as creativity that can later be manifest on the conscious plane. But as the aphorism says, once the body is fully recuperated from a state of sleep, individual awareness is now again aware of the conscious plane, which is the external world. All of the sub-superconscious input from the various regions is not forgotten, but is not remembered, and will slowly infiltrate from the sub-superconscious to the subconscious mind and manifest in the conscious mind intelligence at a much later time.

The aphorism states that "the body's five positive currents are systematically depolarized." This implies that they can be depolarized in an unsystematic way. To have them systematically depolarized, pranayama, hatha yoga and japa should precede the state of sleep. It also implies that the state of sleep is a state of deep meditation for the unfolded person. This does not happen for everyone. This happens for the one who prepares himself to go into that kind of deep sleep, who is in a state in which the five currents can be systematically depolarized. The five currents are the five winds of the body.

Depolarized means that they all rest. It's like nikashum. When you are doing nikashum, you are withdrawing all the five winds into simshumbisi, the center of your being. Depolarizing means bringing together that which is naturally apart. In the Shum language this is called nikashum. The energy of these five functions would be drawn into the sushumna current and enliven kundalini activity somewhat, just enough for individual awareness to flow into subsuperconscious inner worlds of creative intelligence, absorbing all the knowledge which they at that time could contain. This then is held as a deposit, along with other intelligence experienced within the subsuperconscious mind, slowly infiltrating through the subconscious to the conscious mind.


When the Ego "wakes up" from sleep, the physical body should be immediately put into action. To go back into the state of sleep immediately after naturally becoming conscious causes the five positive currents to be unconventionally depolarized -- the Ego passes into the subsubconscious regions.

The mystical edict has always been, "Wake up, get up." Any time during the night the mystic wakens, he sits up, stands up immediately, bringing himself totally into the conscious mind, turns on the light, moves the body, divorces individual awareness, his Ego, from whatever had been experienced during sleep. Then, as a conscious being, fully aware of head, arms, legs and the functions of the physical body, he puts the body to sleep again, to systematically depolarize and go back into the inner state he was drawn away from for one reason or another. The aphorism explains the penalties for neglecting this personal discipline, and, I might add, they double in effects once the discipline is known, because you know you should do something and you don't do it; that amount of extra energy will add in unconventionally depolarizing the currents. This means that some of the five currents give way half way and others will give way fully, and -- as they merge together during this time into individual awareness -- will conjure up the sub of the subconscious mind, give it strength and power to manifest at a later time. The sub of the subconscious mind should not be conjured up in this way, lest the manifestations not be welcome in the experiential pattern of the individual's life. There are other sadhanas to handle the sub of the subconscious mind.

It should be embarrassing to any devout Saivite, especially one who has been initiated, to not wake up with "Aum Namah Sivaya" in the mind. Traditional practices of basic japa are to fall asleep chanting "Aum Namah Sivaya" and wake up starting off on the same syllable one left off on when going to sleep. Therefore, to quickly heal the embarrassment, the devotee should, upon awakening, mentally or verbally say, "Aum Namah Sivaya," or "Sivaya Namah Aum," bringing the mind back to normal consciousness.

In a state of sleep, one must know that he himself behaves as he would in an awakened, conscious state. The mystic knows there is no state of unconsciousness, and that the same laws apply, the yamas, niyamas and pancha nitya karmas, whether one is awake or asleep. Whatever one does, even in a dream -- lying, cheating or stealing, deceiving, coercing or mutilating -- is a cause of karmas or forces to be re-experienced, re-enacted at a later time. Right thought, right speech, right action must hold through daily life and dream life. Those who do not have proper dreams, or who have violent dreams, should never be taught meditation, outside of group meditation, lest the power of meditation itself manifest their hidden unruly nature.

The guru, having all-pervasive consciousness, which is superconsciousness, is simultaneously within the subsuperconscious of all shishyas at every given moment or every space of time -- in their waking states, in their dream states, guiding, loving and protecting.


Ruchy from California sent the below link which talks about the problems caused due to lack of sleep in night shift workers and by people in general who sleep late nights.
http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/night_shift_cancer.html
Thank you Ruchy for this link !