Tag: Brahman

“Don’t give me this bliss s**t”

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment, Happiness, Health, meditation, Moksha, Nature, self-development, spirituality, Transcendental Meditation, Vedic Technology, yoga

A good friend recently said,”do not give me this bliss s**t”. It is all a mind game, he said. Another good friend said, “you say you live in bliss, but I don’t see you so.” Both of these people are longtime friends from India, intellectuals with PhD degrees, who are comfortably settled in the US.

To the first friend, I said that there are over 700 scientific published studies that show the benefits of meditation, and that one can enjoy good health, happiness and bliss. That did not convince him. So, I spoke from personal experience, and how my moksha experience led me to write my book ‘Moksha’. That did not convince him. Come to our town and if you do not feel peace in your heart, I will pay you a substantial sum of money. That got him going. In essence, he said that Moksha is a very big thing, and it cannot be achieved by a simple process. He said he had been meditating off and on, and he did not get any benefit. His mom meditated all life and did not reach anywhere near there. I said it also depends upon the strength of desire, and one cannot will the desire. He said that desire alone cannot produce anything. So, I felt best to let go of the argument, and let him take his own time to be ready.

To the second friend, I said that bliss is an intensely subjective experience, and there is no way another person can experience it. One just have to believe it or feel it. Also, that bliss experience can come and go, depending upon continued practice of meditation. I also said that I was given the Maharishi award recently for bringing bliss to the community. I could see that he did not believe my story on Moksha and therefore had not bothered to read my book even though he had it.

Moksha book cover

I feel that most people are completely conditioned to no-pain-no-gain theory. If bliss is that good, it must take a lot of time and expertise and effort, they argue. However, bliss is an effortless accomplishment. Bliss is our true nature. One does not need a complicated process to achieve it. However, one does need a strong desire for it, which would overshadow other worldly desires. I feel that not everyone has the desire to escape the stresses of modern life, and reach out for  their god-given gift of bliss. The book is an attempt to inspire that desire in others.

 

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Clash and convergence of paradigms

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Music and Poetry, Nature, self-development, spirituality, Technology, Transcendental Meditation, Vedic Technology, yoga

There are multiple paradigms of knowledge of reality. How can everyone be right?

The answer is that there is a dilemma in the waking state of consciousness. One can continue discussing from different points of view and be correct in some vital way, without being able to refute the other points of view. Only when one transcends the waking state that some unified realities become available and acceptable. From the transcendent level of consciousness one can experience the connectedness of the entire universe. Eventually one can potentially experience the Vedantic non-dual reality of ‘tat tvam asi’, or ‘Aham Brahmasmi’. From the waking state of consciousness these look like absurd words. Even reading the Vedas from a waking state of consciousness is meaningless, and brings no power. Vedas have to be experienced from a state of transcendental consciousness. After all the Vedas were cognized by the seers from that state of consciousness.

Another question often asked if body is hardware, and mind is software, what is soul?

The answer is: the soul would be like the natural laws of electromagnetism and computation and information theory. There are three fundamental gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Shiva represents form, or space, and thus the body. Lord Vishnu represents energy, or function, and thus the mind. Lord Brahma represents logic, the knowledge that binds form and function in the service of a purpose. This trinity together make up the entire universe. Consciousness is that which is aware of itself. Thus it is the knower, the known, and the process of knowing (the subject, object, and the verb, all in one). Thus the soul is the knower, the mind would be the process of knowing, and the body will be the known.

 

Moksha: Download my new book

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment, Happiness, Health, Leadership, meditation, Moksha, MUM, Music and Poetry, Nature, self-development, Sustainability, Technology, Transcendental Meditation, Vedic Technology, yoga

My new book, ‘Moksha: Liberation through Transcendence‘ was published on April 13th, my birthday.

For your benefit, here is the url and description of the book from its Amazon site:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E88QUB2/

Moksha is total liberation, from everything. This short experiential book flows from my own journey towards moksha, and is meant for seekers everywhere. A person in Moksha experiences total bliss. The experience is so special that we cannot miss the experience. Moksha is achieved by a deep desire, and the right way to transcend the world of mind and body. Moksha cannot be achieved by using the intellect alone. Vedic Technologies like Meditation, Sidddhis, and Yagyas can help transcend the sensory surface reality and realize our unbounded invincible creative Self, and progress on the path to Moksha.

Transcendental Meditation™ technique from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a Vedic mantra-based meditation technique. Hundreds of published research studies show that regular practice of TM, and advanced techniques, helps with the reduction in stress and anxiety, increase in brain integration and creativity, improvement in cardiac health, and reduction in negativity in society.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Moksha and Enlightenment
Chapter 2: Vedas and Vedic Technologies
Chapter 3: Personal Development through Transcendence

Enjoy!

Check out my other bestselling book  Data Analytics Made Accessible

Moksha (Liberation) and Beyond

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Creative Writing, Enlightenment, Happiness, Health, Leadership, meditation, Moksha, MUM, self-development, Sustainability, Technology, Transcendental Meditation, Travelogues, Vedic Technology, yoga

I had the good fortune of visiting the Brahmistan of India a few weeks ago. It is located at the geographical center of the country of India, a two hour drive from the city of Jabalpur. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s movement owns a large tract of land, where a beautiful and blissful residential and Transcendental Meditation facility has been established. A large number of Vedic Pandits meditate together at this location to spread peace around India, and indeed the world. The Pandits also do Vedic chanting here. In particular, everyday they do a Rudra Abhishekam, homage to Lord Shiva every day.  The chanting in this particular location is special, with 1331 (being 11 x 11 x 11) highly trained Maharishi Vedic pandits chanting together. Thus it is called Ati Rudra Abhishekam, (Ati means Extremely Large). It was Maharishi’s dream project, and it got fulfilled a few years after he passed on.

Brahmistan 2016 group

My daughter and I went to the Brahmistan knowing that Ati Rudra Abhishekam is a highly transformative event. Just listening to and witnessing this live chanting can have a powerful and liberating effect on oneself. We were taken to the huge meditation hall and we were seated comfortably on sofas. All the pandits, young and old, sat  on the floor, while a few pandits sat on stage doing the actions of bathing the shivlingas with milk.(see picture)

AtiRudraAbhishek

The chanting began with an hour-long obligatory oblations to many gods as well as donors. Then began the real Rudra Abhishekam chanting by the almost 1500 pandits present in the room. It was a very deeply resonant experience for me. In just a couple of minutes, my head grew heavy and woozy-doozy, and my eyes naturally closed. I was neither awake nor sleepy, and began to have amazing perceptual experiences. I ‘saw’ a giant crane, like the ones used in constructing tall buildings, pick me up by my head from the well of a tall building, and place me on the side of the building.  I felt liberated from the confines of my physical body. This is the state or the feeling of ‘moksha’.

I had never had such a vision before. Such visions are rare but powerful indicators of a quantum leap into higher wisdom, say my learned friends with whom I have shared this experience. Where do we go from here though? How do we use our liberation and higher states of consciousness for the maximum good? Do we evaporate into air like camphor, and spread like a fragrance that is always there everywhere? Do we become like a sun and emit powerful light in all directions at all times?

This leads into my Billion Buddha Project … to ensure that at least a billion people wake up to their true divine infinite powerful creative nature and live a naturally and effortlessly happy life. Enlightening others to this reality is the theme of the rest of my life.

 

On Unconditional Love

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment, Happiness, Health, Leadership, self-development

On Unconditional Love  … by Anil Maheshwari

Dr. Eben Alexander is a Harvard-based neurosurgeon who went through a Near-Death Experience and wrote a very insightful book, called “Proof of Heaven”, about the experience. From a materialistic paradigm, his brain got infected with E.Coli bacteria. His brain’s cortical surface tissue was completely shut down as a result of the bacterial attack. He was brought back to normal brain functioning in a few days through antibiotics. During these few days of non-normal brain functioning, he saw things that could materialistically only be described as hallucination. Without new inputs coming into his brain, he was perhaps experiencing self-reflective memories from the still functioning middle part of the brain, the thalamus and the brainstem.

He describes himself at one point as just a point-like primordial awareness without access to language or emotion. Then he vividly saw creepy-crawly earthworm-like creatures and grotesque animal faces moving around him, kinda representative of hell. Then he saw ‘a beautiful, incredible, dream world’ … filed with angel-like golden-haired pretty women floating around him along with butterflies and beautiful sounds. He specifically remembers messages of feeling loved, safe, and free from mistakes. He then felt a sense of place, as a fetus in a protective womb of Om the primordial sound. He says he received so much knowledge, effortlessly and for good, which will take more than a lifetime to unpack. He concludes that ‘unconditional love is the greatest scientific truth’.

From a spiritual perspective, Eben was able to experience the mystical totality that each one of us is. He was reporting what might be called super-normal experience in spiritual parlance. With sensory inputs cut off just like in meditation, he was perhaps able to transcend to a higher state of consciousness, where he saw a complete oneness of the universe, which he felt was better than 1000 times the best scenario he could ever describe in English language. This resembles the infinite creative unmanifest potential value of transcendental consciousness. With the body not functioning, he could be realizing his atman (soul), the ‘dweller in his body’.

I feel that Eben is in a unique position to speak from both paradigms, materialistic as well as transcendental. His statement that ‘unconditional love is the greatest scientific truth’, resonates aligns with all spiritual traditions especially Vedic and Buddhism. However, from a physio-causal perspective, it is not clear how he can remember all these fantastical multi-dimensional experiences so vividly, so much after the actual accident happened. I would still not doubt the veracity of his self-reported experiences, as Vedic Science values on the subjective experiences of the observer, under proper circumstances.

Love is all that is. Love conquers all. Unconditional love conquers unconditionally. There is  usually no unconditional love except from a mother. King Solomon’s story is an allegorical proof of this wisdom. Be like a nurturing mother to all around you. Like the Buddha, help everyone and refuse no one. Giving them love will bring you more love. We are all one. Recognize that, see all as part of us, and deal with all as kindly and lovingly as one can.

Trip to Pushkar – the king of pilgrimage sites – India

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment, self-development, Travelogues

Trip to Pushkar – India

It was fascinating to visit and earn about an ancient and famous place, the holy town of Pushkar, from the eyes of a family members who grew up there in a prominent social position. I had gone there a few times earlier too, but never quite had gotten a feel for the place.

Pushkar is often called ‘Tirath Raj’ or the king of pilgrimage sites. It is also one of the oldest living cities of India. (For more visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushkar.) Pushkar has the unique distinction of having the only temple in the world dedicated to Lord Brahma, the creator of the world according to Vedas. I visited Pushkar in December for just a few hours with my wife Neerja and my mother-in-law. I knew that my mother-in-law was born and had grown up in Pushkar. I requested her to come along with me and show us the town as she lived it. Once we reached there, she became quite animated when showing us where when the important things and important activities were, during her childhood days. Very understated by temperament, she let slip that her extended family (the Maloo family) owned half of Pushkar! I knew about her coming from a rich family in Pushkar, but this seemed really big. As an instance she said that when her father and his brothers separated, each one got many mansions in inheritance. She also stated that they used to own bricks of gold. Those bricks were mortared into walls to keep them safe from robbers. No one trusted the banks, they all trusted gold.

PushkarRaj BrahmaTemple

We visited Pushkar Raj (pic on left), the holy lake in which everyone likes to take a holy dip. It has 52 ghats, or sides from which one can access the lake. We also the Brahmaji temple (pic on right). We visited the other famous temple in Pushkar, the Ranji temple, … the old Ranji template and the the new one. We then visited one of my mother-in-law’s family mansions, which is currently rented out. We bought loads of ‘Maal Puvey’, the rich creamy pancake-shaped dessert for which Pushkar is famous.

I now had a feel for this ancient city.

Vedas for Ultra-modern Living

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment

Vedas for Ultra-modern Living   … notes by Dr. Anil Maheshwari

Maharishi University of Management (MUM) hosted the 11th conference of WAVES (World Association for Vedic Studies) over the first weekend of August 2014. Over a hundred papers and presentations were made by speakers from around the world. Many scholars came from India, while many others were from the US including many professors from MUM itself. The range of topics covered was vast: covering entire Vedas, to specific topics like Ayurveda and Sanskrit, to specific concepts like maha-vakyas. The presentations were theoretical as well as empirical, intellectual as well as experiential. The event provided an extraordinary international Vedic experience.

Here are a few key observations.

  1. MUM is a unique and powerful laboratory for ultra-modern Veda-based healthy living style. Speaking with several visiting scholars, I discovered that there seems to be no other place like this in the world. The visitors enjoyed being at MUM even if for a few days. They enjoyed the good sattvic vegetarian food, chanting by Vedic pundits, Gandharva veda music, and the overall high quality arrangements. There are indeed many villages in India where people still do Vedic practices like Rudra-abhishekham on a daily basis. However, they seem to do it because that is as an ancient family ritual, and not as a part of conscious Vedic living. WAVES-2 WAVES-1
  2. The founder of MUM, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is considered up there among the Vedic greats such as Sankara, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, Gandhi, and the like. One after the other, the speakers extolled the greatness of Maharishi from the Vedic knowledge and practice perspective. It was a dream come true for many of the speakers to come to Maharishi’s place.
  3. Not surprisingly, most of the Vedic scholars worldwide seem to be of Indian origin. The Vedic researchers at MUM are also Indians at heart, whom I affectionately call ‘white desis’. A lot of the Vedic scholars in India seem to be located in the Sanskrit departments in major Indian universities, and some in philosophy departments.
  4. Many of the papers presented by visiting scholars were theoretical in nature, analyzing and synthesizing the Vedic texts. On the other hand, many of the presentations from MUM speakers were around experimentally validated applications of Vedic knowledge and experiential technologies (such as Transcendental Meditation® ) to human welfare … such as to physiology, psychology, neurology, sociology, business, and the like.
  5. There were many engaging presentations, and some of them completely wowed everyone. One Indian scholar synthesized all the Vedas to present a guide to daily living. Another Indian scholar showed how the mahavakyas, esp ‘Tat Tvam Asi’, could be applied in the social context to promote cooperation. A visiting scholar from the US presented on how Ayurveda can be used for kaya kalpa. Another visiting scholar from the US enthralled the audience with many thought experiments at the intersection of Vedic legacies and new technologies. A powerful presentation from MUM showed a Unified-field based framework integrating the physical world and the world of Atman or Consciousness. Another MUM presentation showed how Transcendence is the effective path to human development after adulthood.

The conference created new possibilities for sharing of authentic Vedic knowledge around the world. It also gave the world a taste of how Vedic knowledge and practices could be adapted for living the ultra-modern life!

Brahm Vidya

by Dr. Anil K Maheshwari, posted in Enlightenment

Brahm Vidya … by Dr. Anil Maheshwari

Total enlightenment is akin to becoming Brahm, the ultimate non-dual reality that is the source of all creation. Brahma is referred to in Vedanta as Aham Brahm-asmi, as the ultimate divine reality of every person. Brahm is unmanifest reality, that includes within itself silence and dynamism, and knowledge and action. Brahm includes within it all the states of consciousness including those represented by the five senses, as well as five basic elements of earth, water, fire, sky, and air.

The Brahm state can be experienced through constantly transcending the surface reality in a consistent and deep manner. Brahm can manifest itself in any number of ways. The descriptions of attaining Brahm state are diverse and infinite. They are described in many kinds of transcendental or sometime fantastic imagery that one see when one is floating in that state. The way to transcend is to ‘paschya’ or see; thus a seer is one that relentlessly tries to ‘see’ the ever-deeper reality, till one directly perceives the transcendent reality. The ancient seers were able to ‘see’ the totality of the universe in their own physiology, and they represented the sounds they saw in abstract but highly structured verses that formed the sacred scriptures.

Brahm is described in the Vedas, which are a structured representation of primordial sounds. The first sound of the first Veda, Rig Veda, is ‘Aa’. This sound contains within itself the totality of Brahm. Thus Brahm is as if coiled into a single primordial sound, like DNA and proteins are. The Aa sound is then elaborated into the first verse of Rig Veda, which is expanded into the mandala, and then into the other Vedas. Thus Vedas could be considered to be written in some sort of a recursive manner.

The literal representation of each sound is scientifically representative of the shape of the mouth when uttering that sound. Thus the vedic alphabet (Sanskrit) is highly phonetic, i.e. every sound is written just as it is spoken. Thus ‘Aa’ is spoken with the mouth wide open, and is represented as such.

There are primordial sounds in every language. The sound ‘Aa’ is found in every language. It is the easiest and the most natural sound. The first sounds coming out of a baby’s mouth as ‘aa’. It is the easiest and the most effortless sound to produce. When one is struck by wonder, the sound that comes out from the mouth is also the primordial sound ‘aah’. Other common primordial sounds are ‘ee’ and ‘oo’, and ‘um’. There are a few other such sounds like Ri and Lri also, but they are composites of these basic sounds: aa, ee, oo, um. Some of these sounds show up as vowels in languages.

The most sacred Vedic sound is ‘Om’. It is a composite of Aa, Oo, and Um. The sound ‘aa’ represents infinity value of reality, and the ‘um’ sounds represents a point value. Thus in chanting the sound of Aum in the right sacred manner, one begins with invoking the infinite unmanifest universe and ends with the collapse of the unmanifest universe to a point value. This point coincides with the beginning of the manifest universe and is represented by the letter ‘Ka’, the first consonant. The consonants are non-primordial sounds that take more effort and a more elaborate physiological arrangement to produce. Every language has vowels and consonants.

It takes wisdom to re-acquire one’s innocence after entanglement in the illusion of the maya-ic concept of external world as real. The most innocent of people, and babies, see wonder in many things, and are thus in divine or Brahm state. With constant practice of transcendence, and living a sattvic healthy life, one can begin to get glimpses of it. The Brahm state is all bliss all the time, and thus worthy of seeking with one’s full heart and mind.