This is a special message from Thiruvannamalai.
It's about Enlightenment.
What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment is enlightened living -- living with awareness.
We don't now live with awareness.
And that is the cause for all of our suffering.
We all, at one level, experience enlightenment.
Everybody, whether educated or uneducated, When we live enlightenment -- when we are
asleep.
When we are sleeping, we are in Bliss.
So what happens during this sleep?
During this sleep, our senses are at rest.
Our mind is at rest.
And that is the reason for our Bliss that we experience during sleep.
And the Bliss is lost when we wake up.
Then the mind comes up.
Then the senses come up.
And then we are miserable.
And then we do damage to our consciousness.
We do damage to our bodily cells.
So waking state is the villain.
But here we have to understand the two different states — the waking state of consciousness
and the sleep state of consciousness.
In the waking state of consciousness, no doubt we have the mind which is up and the senses
which are up.
And they give us the guidance.
But then, at the expense of what?
At the expense of Silence, at the expense of the Bliss that we experience during sleep.
If we are able to maintain the Silence, maintain the controlled presence of the mind and the
controlled presence of the senses, or in other words, to put it very simply, if we are able
to live the waking state, without the mind, without the senses, yet we are in the waking
state, then that is called Enlightenment.
Technically, what is happening is — there is abundant Prana during the sleep state
and during the sleep state.
And that Prana is what repairs our body. In the waking state,
We don't have that much Prana because when the mind comes in, when the senses become
active, the Prana leaves the body.
And that is what is happening.
And this teaching is as old as the Bhagavad Gita.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna advises Arjuna, “Hey, go and kill your enemies, and that
is your duty.”
“But even while you are killing, you should never lose your Silence.”
You should not lose your peace.
“Yogasthah Kuru Karmani”, which means “Stay in Yoga and perform activities.”
And the best commentary for this has been given by Amarakavi, an unknown Brahma Rishi
who lived in recent times.
And he said that during sleep, the Prana comes into your body; and when you wake up, it gets
out of the body.
Why?
Prana is inimical to the mind and the senses which are ignorant levels of existence.
So, if we are able to live that, then we are enlightened.
And that's the message for now. God Bless.