## Highlights - The guru is here to throw light on dimensions beyond your sensory perceptions and your psychological drama, dimensions that you are currently unable to perceive. The guru is here, fundamentally, to throw light on the very nature of your existence. ([Location 67](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=67)) - “Be in the moment” is one of them. The assumption is that you could be somewhere else, if you wanted. How is that even possible? The present is the only place that you can be. If you live, you live in this moment. If you die, you die in this moment. This moment is eternity. How are you going to escape it, even if you try? ([Location 69](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=69)) - It has always seemed to me odd that the world does not realize the immensity of a state of “I do not know.” ([Location 208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=208)) - When I look back now, I realize that I never thought about what I wanted to become in life. I only thought about how I wanted to live my life. ([Location 270](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=270)) - This condition of ecstatic well-being that has been mine since that afternoon on Chamundi Hill is neither a distant possibility nor a pipe dream. It is a living reality for those who are willing. It is the birthright of every human being. ([Location 359](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=359)) - Everything you have done in your life so far has been in pursuit of a single thing. Whether you sought a career, started a business, made money, or built a family, it was always because you wanted just one simple thing: joy. ([Location 364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=364)) - Let us start with a single question: what do we consider to be a state of well-being? Very simply, well-being is just a deep sense of pleasantness within. If your body feels pleasant, we call this health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If they become very pleasant, we call this compassion. If your life energies become pleasant, we call this bliss. If they become very pleasant, we call this ecstasy. ([Location 382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=382)) - When you are in a pleasant inner state, you are naturally pleasant to everyone and everything around you. No scripture or philosophy is needed to instruct you to be good to others. It is a natural outcome when you are feeling good within yourself. Inner pleasantness is a surefire insurance for the making of a peaceful society and a joyful world. ([Location 397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=397)) - The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. ([Location 412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=412)) - Whatever you feel deprived of looks like the highest aspiration. ([Location 482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=482)) - The foundations of peace and bliss are not about attending to the external realities of your life, but in accessing and organizing the inner nature of your being. ([Location 503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=503)) - Enlightenment is not an attainment or an achievement. It is a homecoming. Your senses give you the impression that you are experiencing the outside, but you have never experienced the outside. When you realize that all that you experience is within, that absolute homecoming is enlightenment. ([Location 509](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=509)) - The quality of our lives is determined by our ability to respond to the varied complex situations that we encounter. If the ability to respond with intelligence, competence, and sensitivity is compromised by a compulsive or reactive approach, we are enslaved by the situation. It means we have allowed the nature of our life experience to be determined by our circumstances, not by us. Being fully responsible is to be fully conscious. What you consider to be your body is what you have gathered through ingestion. What you consider to be your mind is what you have gathered through the five senses. What is beyond that—which you did not gather—is who you are. ([Location 678](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=678)) - Taking responsibility is not accepting blame instead of assigning it. It simply means consciously responding to the situation. Once you take responsibility, you will invariably start exploring ways to address the situation. You will look for solutions. If ([Location 711](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=711)) - “It doesn’t matter who I meet, I will never speak to them in a manner that I regret later, because this meeting could be my last.” ([Location 775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=775)) - If a loved one travels to another country, would you still be able to love them? You would. If a loved one passed away, would you still be able to love them? You would. Even if a loved one is not physically with you anymore, you are still capable of being loving. So, what is love then? It is just your own quality. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you. ([Location 879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=879)) - “My ability to respond is limitless, but my ability to act is limited. I am one hundred percent responsible for everything I am and everything I am not, for my capacities and my incapacities, for my joys and my miseries. I am the one who determines the nature of my experience in this life and beyond. I am the maker of my life.” ([Location 892](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=892)) - The science of yoga is, quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute harmony, in complete sync with existence. The many fluctuations of the outside world have their impact on each one of us. But yoga is the science of creating inner situations exactly the way you want them. When you fine-tune yourself to such a point where everything functions beautifully within you, naturally the best of your abilities will flow out of you. ([Location 975](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=975)) - Yoga does not ask you to work with anything other than what you know. It simply tells you that if the physical, mental, and energy bodies are perfectly aligned, you will find access to the bliss body. But your work, as we said before, is only with the first three bodies. ([Location 1052](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1052)) - Yoga is not about being superhuman; it is about realizing that being human is super. ([Location 1113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1113)) - You may have noticed this about yourself: when you are feeling pleasant, you want to expand; when you are fearful, you want to contract. Try this. Sit for a few minutes in front of a plant or tree. Remind yourself that you are inhaling what the tree is exhaling, and exhaling what the tree is inhaling. Even if you are not yet experientially aware of it, establish a psychological connection with the plant. You could repeat this several times a day. After a few days, you will start connecting with everything around you differently. You won’t limit yourself to a tree. ([Location 1196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1196)) - Additionally, the senses perceive everything only in relation to something else. If I touch a metal object and it feels cool to my fingers, it is simply because my body temperature is warmer. Suppose I lower my temperature and touch it, it would feel warm to me. ([Location 1212](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1212)) - Start by paying attention to everything you think of as yourself just before you fall asleep: your thoughts, your emotions, your hair, your skin, your clothes, your makeup. Know that none of this is you. There is no need to make any conclusion about what “you” are or what “truth” is. Truth is not a conclusion. If you keep the false conclusions at bay, truth will dawn. It is like your experience of the night: the sun has not gone; it is just that the planet is looking the other way. You’re thinking, reading, talking about the self, because you’re too busy looking the other way! You haven’t paid enough attention to know what the self really is. What is needed is not a conclusion, but a turnaround. If you manage to enter sleep with this awareness, it will be significant. Since there is no external interference in sleep, this will grow into a powerful experience. Over time, you will enter a dimension beyond all accumulations. ([Location 1244](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1244)) - To put it in the simplest way, just by observing the way some people sit, you can almost know what is happening with them, if you have known them long enough. If you have observed yourself, when you are angry, you sit one way; if you are happy, you sit another way; if you are depressed, you sit another way. For every different level of consciousness, or psychological state, your body naturally tends to assume certain postures. The converse of this is the science of asanas. If you consciously get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness. ([Location 1264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1264)) - Hatha yoga does not mean standing on your head or holding your breath. It is the way that it is done that makes all the difference. ([Location 1293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1293)) - Until recently in India, after every storm, you had to go up to your roof and adjust your TV antenna. Only if it was angled in a certain way did the world pour into your living room. Or else, as you were watching your favorite soap opera or football match, a blizzard would suddenly appear on your screen. The body is like that antenna: if you hold it in the right position, it becomes receptive to all there is in existence. If you hold it another way, you will remain absolutely ignorant of everything beyond the five senses. ([Location 1313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1313)) - For the Russian ballet dancer Nijinsky, his entire life was dance. There were moments when he would leap to heights that seemed humanly impossible. Even if one’s muscles are at peak performance, there is still a limit to how high one can jump. But in some moments he would seem to transcend even that limit. People often asked him, “How do you manage this?” He said, “There is no way I can ever do it. When Nijinsky is not there, only then it happens.” ([Location 1350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1350)) - When someone is constantly giving a hundred percent, a point comes when one surpasses all limits and reaches total effortlessness. Effortlessness does not mean becoming a couch potato. It means transcending the need for physical action. ([Location 1354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1354)) - If you are compulsive, you will see that situations, experiences, thoughts, and emotions in your life will be in cycles. They keep coming back to you once every six or eighteen months, three years, or six years, depending on your degree of compulsiveness. If you just look back on your life, you will notice this. If they come once every twelve years, that means your system is in a high state of receptivity and balance. ([Location 1471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1471)) - The simplest thing that you can do to change the health and fundamental structure of your body is to treat the five elements with devotion and respect. Just try this. Every time you are consciously in touch with any of the elements (which you are every moment of your life), just make a conscious attempt to refer to it in terms of whatever you consider to be the ultimate or the loftiest ideal in your life, whether it is Shiva, Rama, Krishna, God, Allah (or even Marx!). You are a psychological being right now, and your mind is full of hierarchy. This process will settle the hierarchy. After some time, the word can fall away. But you instantly see the change as the number of truly conscious moments in your life increases. The air that you breathe, the food that you eat, the water that you drink, the land that you walk upon, and the very space that holds you—every one of them offers you a divine possibility. ([Location 1546](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1546)) - If you eat raw meat, it takes between seventy to seventy-two hours to pass through your system; cooked meat takes fifty to fifty-two hours; cooked vegetables twenty-four to thirty hours; uncooked vegetables twelve to fifteen hours; fruits one and a half to three hours. ([Location 1681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1681)) - There is much emphasis laid nowadays on eating protein. It is important to understand that only three percent of our body is composed of protein and excess protein consumption can cause cancer. Meat runs high in protein. A very small portion of the meat that one consumes can fulfill the human protein requirement. The remaining portion, which travels very slowly through the alimentary canal, leads to a variety of problems such as excessive bacterial activity, enhanced sleep quota, increased inertia levels in the body, and decreased cellular regeneration. All of this, in turn, manifests as a drop in one’s sensitivity of perception. It is in this context that meat has been regarded as spiritually unsupportive, because the spiritual process is essentially about enhancing one’s perception beyond the limitations of the physical. ([Location 1699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1699)) - It is important not to turn into a food freak. Food should never become an all-consuming affair. Every creature on the planet knows what to eat and what not to. What is the human problem then? The human problem is not enough attention, but too much information. ([Location 1717](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1717)) - If you observe the natural cycle of the body, you will find that there is something called a mandala. A mandala is a cycle of forty to forty-eight days that the human system goes through. In every cycle, there will be three days on which your body does not need food. ([Location 1752](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1752)) - Stress is not because of work—this is important to remember. Everybody thinks their job is stressful. No job is stressful. There are many jobs that could present challenging situations. There could be nasty bosses, insecure colleagues, emergency rooms, impossible deadlines—or you might even find yourself in the middle of a war zone! But these are not inherently stressful. It is our compulsive reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress. Stress is a certain level of internal friction. One can easily lubricate the inner mechanism with some amount of inner work and awareness. So, it is your inability to handle your own system that is stressing you out. On some level, you do not know how to handle your body, mind, and emotions; that is the problem. ([Location 1803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1803)) - If you sleep without a pillow or with a very low pillow, which doesn’t allow the spine to get pinched, the neuronal regeneration of the brain and the cellular regeneration of the neurological system will be much better. If you sleep without a pillow, it is best to lie on your back in a supine position, rather than on your side. Lying in this position is referred to in yoga as shavasana: it enhances the purification and rejuvenation of the body, promotes the free flow of movement in the energy system, bringing relaxation and vitality. But there is no reason to get dogmatic about this. (At least in your sleep, don’t take a position!) ([Location 1837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1837)) - Existence is a dance between the unmanifest and the manifest. The moment there is a manifestation, there is duality: light and darkness, male and female, birth and death, and so on. Though unity is the basic fabric of creation, duality brings texture, design, and color to life. All the various manifestations that you see as life today are fundamentally rooted in duality. Because there are two, there are many. If there were only one, there would be no existence. Once there are two, the game of life begins. ([Location 1843](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1843)) - The system of yoga is a technology to create a distinction between you and your mind. There is a space between you and what you have gathered in terms of body and mind. Becoming conscious of this space is your first and only step to freedom. It is the accumulated physiological and psychological content that causes the cyclical patterns in your life and even beyond. If you can be constantly conscious of this space between you and the body-mind, you have opened up a dimension of limitless possibility. There are only two forms of suffering in this world: physical and mental. Once this distance becomes a constant factor in your experience, you have reached the end of suffering. ([Location 2001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2001)) - It is only because you exist that you can generate a thought. But your thought process has become so compulsive that your focus has shifted from the existential to the psychological. This has happened to such an extent that you have begun to believe that you exist because you think! ([Location 2059](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2059)) - if you cut mangoes or apples after cutting an onion, everything tastes like onion! Such a knife becomes more of a hindrance than a help. In other words, once your intellect gets identified with something, it gets chained to the identifications, and leaves you with a completely distorted experience of the world. ([Location 2142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2142)) - When you are consciously in touch with your awareness, you gain access to the subtlest dimension of physicality, or akash. As we have seen before, the universe is just a play of five elements—water, fire, earth, air, and ether. Creation is just a frolic of these five. It is ether that we refer to as “akash” in yogic terminology, and each human being has a certain dimension of this fifth element around him or her. While the other elements are within the body, the akashic, or etheric, dimension envelops the physical body—usually up to a distance of eighteen to twenty-one inches. Because this element is still physical, it carries information. Anything that happens at a certain level of intensity or profundity in your life is written into this field of akash around you. ([Location 2283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2283)) - Once you are in touch with your awareness, you don’t have to try to accomplish anything. You don’t even have to wish or dream, because the best possible thing that can happen to you will happen. In the yogic lore, it is said that when you learn to access this dimension, you have enslaved the divine! God works for you from now on. What exactly does this mean? This means that once you distance yourself from the compulsiveness of your own genetic and karmic information, life becomes unburdened, flexible, incredibly effortless. This is a dimension beyond intellect, beyond identification, beyond memory, beyond judgment, beyond karma, beyond divisions of every kind. This is the intelligence of existence itself, in which life always happens exactly the way it should, with absolute and unfaltering ease. ([Location 2293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2293)) - Just work at removing from the mind the idea that thought is intelligence. The whole process of creation, from a single atom to the cosmos, is a fantastic expression of intelligence. Right now within your own body, there is a throbbing intelligence that is the very source of creation. With the overrated intellect that you own, can you even understand the activity of a single cell in your body in its entirety? The first step toward moving from the trap of the intellect to the lap of a larger intelligence is to recognize that every aspect of life—from a grain of sand to a mountain, a drop to an ocean, from the atomic to the cosmic—is a manifestation of a far greater intelligence than your minuscule intellect. If you take this one step, life will start speaking to you like never before. ([Location 2342](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2342)) - The spiritual process is always a quest. There is a significant difference between believing and seeking. Believing means you have assumed something that you do not know; seeking means you have realized that you do not know. ([Location 2392](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2392)) - Your mind can be in five different states. It could be inert—meaning, it is not activated at all; it is in a rudimentary state. If you energize it, it becomes active but scattered. If you energize it further, it is no longer scattered, but starts oscillating. If you energize it further, it becomes one-pointed. If you energize it still further, it will become conscious. And if your mind is conscious, it is magic; it is a miracle; it is a bridge to the beyond. ([Location 2406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2406)) - Eventually, once your thoughts, emotions, body, and energy are channeled in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is incredible. ([Location 2430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2430)) - Today modern science is proving that this whole existence is just a reverberation of energy, an endless vibration. Thoughts too are a reverberation. If you generate a powerful thought and let it out, it will always manifest itself. For this to happen, it is important that you do not impede and weaken your thought by creating negative and self-defeating thought patterns. ([Location 2432](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2432)) - The way you think is the way you feel, but thought and feeling seem to be different in your experience. Why is this so? Because thought has a certain clarity, a certain agility about it. Emotion is slower. Today, you think this is a very wonderful person and you have warm feelings about him. Suddenly, he does something that you don’t like, and you think he is horrible. Your thought tells you he is horrible, but your emotion cannot change immediately. It struggles. If it is sweet now, it cannot turn bitter at the very next moment. It takes time to turn around. It has a wider turning arc. Depending on the strength of your emotion, maybe it will take three days or three months or three years, but after some time, it will turn around. ([Location 2459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2459)) - It is not useful to create this conflict between head and heart. Emotion is just the juicier part of thought. ([Location 2465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2465)) - It is best not to create polarities within yourself. That makes for civil war and schizophrenia. Thought and feeling are not different. One is dry. Another is juicy. Enjoy both. ([Location 2473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2473)) - Because once yoga or ultimate union has happened, there is no longer a distinction between ultimate reality and the one who has experienced it. ([Location 2482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2482)) - Confidence and stupidity are a very dangerous combination, but they generally go together. If you start looking at the world around you, you would clearly understand that what you know is so minuscule that there is no way to act with confidence. A belief system takes away this problem; it gives you enormous confidence, but it does not cure your stupidity. ([Location 2575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2575)) - It is only a juvenile intelligence that analyzes things and arrives at a conclusion. If your intelligence is sufficiently evolved and mature, you realize that the more you analyze, the further away you are from any conclusion. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2624)) - The sole aim of every individual’s life energies is to touch the infinite—the very core of our making. They know no other aim. Your mind may be thinking of money or a new house, your body may be longing for food or sleep, but your life energies are always longing to break the boundaries set by your physical and mental structures. ([Location 2682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2682)) - What exactly is karma? “Karma” literally means “action.” Action is of three kinds. It could be in terms of the body, mind, or energy. Whatever you do with your body, mind, or energy, leaves a certain residue. This residue forms a pattern of its own, and these resultant patterns stay with you. When you gather a huge volume of impressions, slowly these shape themselves into tendencies, and you become like an automatic toy, a slave to your patterns, a puppet of your past. ([Location 2739](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2739)) - When you realize that all your material achievements are of value only in comparison with those who don’t have them, this is joy that springs from another’s deprivation. Can you really call this joy? Isn’t it actually a kind of sickness? It is time everyone addressed this. If you were alone on this planet, what would you want for yourself? Ask yourself this question and see where it takes you. Try this. Sit alone for five minutes and see what your life would be like if you were absolutely alone in this world. If there were nobody or nothing to compare yourself with, what would you truly long for? What would really matter to you if there were no external appreciation or critique? If you do this every day, you will become aligned with the longings of the life that you are, rather than the accumulated karmic mess that you believe you are. ([Location 2820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2820)) - How do you access the non-physical aspect of your life energy? The yogic practices, which involve postures, breath, attitudes of the mind, and energy activation, are all essentially oriented toward aligning the first three layers of the body: the physical, the mental, and the energetic body. It is only in aligning them that you find access to dimensions beyond the physical—to the fundamental life energy itself. ([Location 2838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2838)) - If you take the path of kriya, a certain fundamental discipline has to be brought into all physical, psychological, and emotional processes. If you want to hit the peak of your consciousness, this discipline is essential. You cannot be partying till early morning and attempt to scale Mount Everest tomorrow! The same logic holds true here. ([Location 2852](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2852)) - The very way the karmic structure works in every human being is essentially cyclical. If you observe very closely, within a day the same cycles are happening many times over. If you are very observant, you will see that every forty minutes you are going through a physiological cycle. Once you see that, then with the necessary attention and awareness you can ride the cycle and move toward transcendence from the limitations that these cycles set. So, every forty minutes, life presents you with an opportunity—the opportunity to become conscious. Every forty to forty-eight minutes, there is also a shift of dominance in the way the breath is moving through the right and left nostrils. It is dominant in the right nostril for a length of time, and then in the left. Become aware of this so you know at least something about you is changing. This awareness can be further enhanced into awareness of the solar and lunar influences upon the body. If you bring your physical system in sync with the lunar and solar cycles, your physical and psychological health is guaranteed. ([Location 2887](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2887)) - If you learn how to use the five elements in a certain simple geometric formation, you can create a highly beneficial energy space for yourself. Here’s a simple exercise you can try. Draw a figure like the one below with rice flour or some kind of grain. Place a small ghee, or clarified butter, lamp in a plate full of water at the center. Place a flower in the water. You have now created a geometric form, using water, fire, and air. The flower in the water represents the earth. Akash, or ether, is, of course, always present. Try this simple process every evening. You will find the energy of your room altered in a subtle but powerful way. In this manner, you can uniquely empower your home or office on a daily basis. ([Location 3123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=3123)) - What is this self-realization? you might wonder. After all, all that most people are looking for is health, well-being, wealth, love, and success. Do you really need self-realization? Let us look at this in the simplest possible way. Isn’t it true that the more you know about your computer, the better you can use it? Isn’t it true that your ability to use a device or instrument is directly proportional to your knowledge about it? Isn’t it true that someone with a high level of dexterity and expertise can use even a simple instrument in a seemingly magical way? Have you seen some people riding on a piece of plastic they call a surfboard, doing incredible things? Just a piece of plastic, and what amazing feats of agility and grace they can perform! Similarly, the more profound your understanding of the human mechanism is, the more magical your life will be. In every culture, there have been a few people who performed certain actions that made others believe in miracles. All these actions that are known as miracles are just born of a more profound access to life that some have enjoyed. That access, as I have said time and again, is available to everyone who cares to look deeper. ([Location 3226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=3226))  ## Highlights - The guru is here to throw light on dimensions beyond your sensory perceptions and your psychological drama, dimensions that you are currently unable to perceive. The guru is here, fundamentally, to throw light on the very nature of your existence. ([Location 67](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=67)) - “Be in the moment” is one of them. The assumption is that you could be somewhere else, if you wanted. How is that even possible? The present is the only place that you can be. If you live, you live in this moment. If you die, you die in this moment. This moment is eternity. How are you going to escape it, even if you try? ([Location 69](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=69)) - It has always seemed to me odd that the world does not realize the immensity of a state of “I do not know.” ([Location 208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=208)) - When I look back now, I realize that I never thought about what I wanted to become in life. I only thought about how I wanted to live my life. ([Location 270](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=270)) - This condition of ecstatic well-being that has been mine since that afternoon on Chamundi Hill is neither a distant possibility nor a pipe dream. It is a living reality for those who are willing. It is the birthright of every human being. ([Location 359](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=359)) - Everything you have done in your life so far has been in pursuit of a single thing. Whether you sought a career, started a business, made money, or built a family, it was always because you wanted just one simple thing: joy. ([Location 364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=364)) - Let us start with a single question: what do we consider to be a state of well-being? Very simply, well-being is just a deep sense of pleasantness within. If your body feels pleasant, we call this health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If they become very pleasant, we call this compassion. If your life energies become pleasant, we call this bliss. If they become very pleasant, we call this ecstasy. ([Location 382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=382)) - When you are in a pleasant inner state, you are naturally pleasant to everyone and everything around you. No scripture or philosophy is needed to instruct you to be good to others. It is a natural outcome when you are feeling good within yourself. Inner pleasantness is a surefire insurance for the making of a peaceful society and a joyful world. ([Location 397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=397)) - The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. ([Location 412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=412)) - Whatever you feel deprived of looks like the highest aspiration. ([Location 482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=482)) - The foundations of peace and bliss are not about attending to the external realities of your life, but in accessing and organizing the inner nature of your being. ([Location 503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=503)) - Enlightenment is not an attainment or an achievement. It is a homecoming. Your senses give you the impression that you are experiencing the outside, but you have never experienced the outside. When you realize that all that you experience is within, that absolute homecoming is enlightenment. ([Location 509](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=509)) - The quality of our lives is determined by our ability to respond to the varied complex situations that we encounter. If the ability to respond with intelligence, competence, and sensitivity is compromised by a compulsive or reactive approach, we are enslaved by the situation. It means we have allowed the nature of our life experience to be determined by our circumstances, not by us. Being fully responsible is to be fully conscious. What you consider to be your body is what you have gathered through ingestion. What you consider to be your mind is what you have gathered through the five senses. What is beyond that—which you did not gather—is who you are. ([Location 678](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=678)) - Taking responsibility is not accepting blame instead of assigning it. It simply means consciously responding to the situation. Once you take responsibility, you will invariably start exploring ways to address the situation. You will look for solutions. If ([Location 711](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=711)) - “It doesn’t matter who I meet, I will never speak to them in a manner that I regret later, because this meeting could be my last.” ([Location 775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=775)) - If a loved one travels to another country, would you still be able to love them? You would. If a loved one passed away, would you still be able to love them? You would. Even if a loved one is not physically with you anymore, you are still capable of being loving. So, what is love then? It is just your own quality. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you. ([Location 879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=879)) - “My ability to respond is limitless, but my ability to act is limited. I am one hundred percent responsible for everything I am and everything I am not, for my capacities and my incapacities, for my joys and my miseries. I am the one who determines the nature of my experience in this life and beyond. I am the maker of my life.” ([Location 892](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=892)) - The science of yoga is, quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute harmony, in complete sync with existence. The many fluctuations of the outside world have their impact on each one of us. But yoga is the science of creating inner situations exactly the way you want them. When you fine-tune yourself to such a point where everything functions beautifully within you, naturally the best of your abilities will flow out of you. ([Location 975](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=975)) - Yoga does not ask you to work with anything other than what you know. It simply tells you that if the physical, mental, and energy bodies are perfectly aligned, you will find access to the bliss body. But your work, as we said before, is only with the first three bodies. ([Location 1052](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1052)) - Yoga is not about being superhuman; it is about realizing that being human is super. ([Location 1113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1113)) - You may have noticed this about yourself: when you are feeling pleasant, you want to expand; when you are fearful, you want to contract. Try this. Sit for a few minutes in front of a plant or tree. Remind yourself that you are inhaling what the tree is exhaling, and exhaling what the tree is inhaling. Even if you are not yet experientially aware of it, establish a psychological connection with the plant. You could repeat this several times a day. After a few days, you will start connecting with everything around you differently. You won’t limit yourself to a tree. ([Location 1196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1196)) - Additionally, the senses perceive everything only in relation to something else. If I touch a metal object and it feels cool to my fingers, it is simply because my body temperature is warmer. Suppose I lower my temperature and touch it, it would feel warm to me. ([Location 1212](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1212)) - Start by paying attention to everything you think of as yourself just before you fall asleep: your thoughts, your emotions, your hair, your skin, your clothes, your makeup. Know that none of this is you. There is no need to make any conclusion about what “you” are or what “truth” is. Truth is not a conclusion. If you keep the false conclusions at bay, truth will dawn. It is like your experience of the night: the sun has not gone; it is just that the planet is looking the other way. You’re thinking, reading, talking about the self, because you’re too busy looking the other way! You haven’t paid enough attention to know what the self really is. What is needed is not a conclusion, but a turnaround. If you manage to enter sleep with this awareness, it will be significant. Since there is no external interference in sleep, this will grow into a powerful experience. Over time, you will enter a dimension beyond all accumulations. ([Location 1244](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1244)) - To put it in the simplest way, just by observing the way some people sit, you can almost know what is happening with them, if you have known them long enough. If you have observed yourself, when you are angry, you sit one way; if you are happy, you sit another way; if you are depressed, you sit another way. For every different level of consciousness, or psychological state, your body naturally tends to assume certain postures. The converse of this is the science of asanas. If you consciously get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness. ([Location 1264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1264)) - Hatha yoga does not mean standing on your head or holding your breath. It is the way that it is done that makes all the difference. ([Location 1293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1293)) - Until recently in India, after every storm, you had to go up to your roof and adjust your TV antenna. Only if it was angled in a certain way did the world pour into your living room. Or else, as you were watching your favorite soap opera or football match, a blizzard would suddenly appear on your screen. The body is like that antenna: if you hold it in the right position, it becomes receptive to all there is in existence. If you hold it another way, you will remain absolutely ignorant of everything beyond the five senses. ([Location 1313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1313)) - For the Russian ballet dancer Nijinsky, his entire life was dance. There were moments when he would leap to heights that seemed humanly impossible. Even if one’s muscles are at peak performance, there is still a limit to how high one can jump. But in some moments he would seem to transcend even that limit. People often asked him, “How do you manage this?” He said, “There is no way I can ever do it. When Nijinsky is not there, only then it happens.” ([Location 1350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1350)) - When someone is constantly giving a hundred percent, a point comes when one surpasses all limits and reaches total effortlessness. Effortlessness does not mean becoming a couch potato. It means transcending the need for physical action. ([Location 1354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1354)) - If you are compulsive, you will see that situations, experiences, thoughts, and emotions in your life will be in cycles. They keep coming back to you once every six or eighteen months, three years, or six years, depending on your degree of compulsiveness. If you just look back on your life, you will notice this. If they come once every twelve years, that means your system is in a high state of receptivity and balance. ([Location 1471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1471)) - The simplest thing that you can do to change the health and fundamental structure of your body is to treat the five elements with devotion and respect. Just try this. Every time you are consciously in touch with any of the elements (which you are every moment of your life), just make a conscious attempt to refer to it in terms of whatever you consider to be the ultimate or the loftiest ideal in your life, whether it is Shiva, Rama, Krishna, God, Allah (or even Marx!). You are a psychological being right now, and your mind is full of hierarchy. This process will settle the hierarchy. After some time, the word can fall away. But you instantly see the change as the number of truly conscious moments in your life increases. The air that you breathe, the food that you eat, the water that you drink, the land that you walk upon, and the very space that holds you—every one of them offers you a divine possibility. ([Location 1546](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1546)) - If you eat raw meat, it takes between seventy to seventy-two hours to pass through your system; cooked meat takes fifty to fifty-two hours; cooked vegetables twenty-four to thirty hours; uncooked vegetables twelve to fifteen hours; fruits one and a half to three hours. ([Location 1681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1681)) - There is much emphasis laid nowadays on eating protein. It is important to understand that only three percent of our body is composed of protein and excess protein consumption can cause cancer. Meat runs high in protein. A very small portion of the meat that one consumes can fulfill the human protein requirement. The remaining portion, which travels very slowly through the alimentary canal, leads to a variety of problems such as excessive bacterial activity, enhanced sleep quota, increased inertia levels in the body, and decreased cellular regeneration. All of this, in turn, manifests as a drop in one’s sensitivity of perception. It is in this context that meat has been regarded as spiritually unsupportive, because the spiritual process is essentially about enhancing one’s perception beyond the limitations of the physical. ([Location 1699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1699)) - It is important not to turn into a food freak. Food should never become an all-consuming affair. Every creature on the planet knows what to eat and what not to. What is the human problem then? The human problem is not enough attention, but too much information. ([Location 1717](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1717)) - If you observe the natural cycle of the body, you will find that there is something called a mandala. A mandala is a cycle of forty to forty-eight days that the human system goes through. In every cycle, there will be three days on which your body does not need food. ([Location 1752](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1752)) - Stress is not because of work—this is important to remember. Everybody thinks their job is stressful. No job is stressful. There are many jobs that could present challenging situations. There could be nasty bosses, insecure colleagues, emergency rooms, impossible deadlines—or you might even find yourself in the middle of a war zone! But these are not inherently stressful. It is our compulsive reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress. Stress is a certain level of internal friction. One can easily lubricate the inner mechanism with some amount of inner work and awareness. So, it is your inability to handle your own system that is stressing you out. On some level, you do not know how to handle your body, mind, and emotions; that is the problem. ([Location 1803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1803)) - If you sleep without a pillow or with a very low pillow, which doesn’t allow the spine to get pinched, the neuronal regeneration of the brain and the cellular regeneration of the neurological system will be much better. If you sleep without a pillow, it is best to lie on your back in a supine position, rather than on your side. Lying in this position is referred to in yoga as shavasana: it enhances the purification and rejuvenation of the body, promotes the free flow of movement in the energy system, bringing relaxation and vitality. But there is no reason to get dogmatic about this. (At least in your sleep, don’t take a position!) ([Location 1837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1837)) - Existence is a dance between the unmanifest and the manifest. The moment there is a manifestation, there is duality: light and darkness, male and female, birth and death, and so on. Though unity is the basic fabric of creation, duality brings texture, design, and color to life. All the various manifestations that you see as life today are fundamentally rooted in duality. Because there are two, there are many. If there were only one, there would be no existence. Once there are two, the game of life begins. ([Location 1843](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=1843)) - The system of yoga is a technology to create a distinction between you and your mind. There is a space between you and what you have gathered in terms of body and mind. Becoming conscious of this space is your first and only step to freedom. It is the accumulated physiological and psychological content that causes the cyclical patterns in your life and even beyond. If you can be constantly conscious of this space between you and the body-mind, you have opened up a dimension of limitless possibility. There are only two forms of suffering in this world: physical and mental. Once this distance becomes a constant factor in your experience, you have reached the end of suffering. ([Location 2001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2001)) - It is only because you exist that you can generate a thought. But your thought process has become so compulsive that your focus has shifted from the existential to the psychological. This has happened to such an extent that you have begun to believe that you exist because you think! ([Location 2059](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2059)) - if you cut mangoes or apples after cutting an onion, everything tastes like onion! Such a knife becomes more of a hindrance than a help. In other words, once your intellect gets identified with something, it gets chained to the identifications, and leaves you with a completely distorted experience of the world. ([Location 2142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2142)) - When you are consciously in touch with your awareness, you gain access to the subtlest dimension of physicality, or akash. As we have seen before, the universe is just a play of five elements—water, fire, earth, air, and ether. Creation is just a frolic of these five. It is ether that we refer to as “akash” in yogic terminology, and each human being has a certain dimension of this fifth element around him or her. While the other elements are within the body, the akashic, or etheric, dimension envelops the physical body—usually up to a distance of eighteen to twenty-one inches. Because this element is still physical, it carries information. Anything that happens at a certain level of intensity or profundity in your life is written into this field of akash around you. ([Location 2283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2283)) - Once you are in touch with your awareness, you don’t have to try to accomplish anything. You don’t even have to wish or dream, because the best possible thing that can happen to you will happen. In the yogic lore, it is said that when you learn to access this dimension, you have enslaved the divine! God works for you from now on. What exactly does this mean? This means that once you distance yourself from the compulsiveness of your own genetic and karmic information, life becomes unburdened, flexible, incredibly effortless. This is a dimension beyond intellect, beyond identification, beyond memory, beyond judgment, beyond karma, beyond divisions of every kind. This is the intelligence of existence itself, in which life always happens exactly the way it should, with absolute and unfaltering ease. ([Location 2293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2293)) - Just work at removing from the mind the idea that thought is intelligence. The whole process of creation, from a single atom to the cosmos, is a fantastic expression of intelligence. Right now within your own body, there is a throbbing intelligence that is the very source of creation. With the overrated intellect that you own, can you even understand the activity of a single cell in your body in its entirety? The first step toward moving from the trap of the intellect to the lap of a larger intelligence is to recognize that every aspect of life—from a grain of sand to a mountain, a drop to an ocean, from the atomic to the cosmic—is a manifestation of a far greater intelligence than your minuscule intellect. If you take this one step, life will start speaking to you like never before. ([Location 2342](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2342)) - The spiritual process is always a quest. There is a significant difference between believing and seeking. Believing means you have assumed something that you do not know; seeking means you have realized that you do not know. ([Location 2392](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2392)) - Your mind can be in five different states. It could be inert—meaning, it is not activated at all; it is in a rudimentary state. If you energize it, it becomes active but scattered. If you energize it further, it is no longer scattered, but starts oscillating. If you energize it further, it becomes one-pointed. If you energize it still further, it will become conscious. And if your mind is conscious, it is magic; it is a miracle; it is a bridge to the beyond. ([Location 2406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2406)) - Eventually, once your thoughts, emotions, body, and energy are channeled in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is incredible. ([Location 2430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2430)) - Today modern science is proving that this whole existence is just a reverberation of energy, an endless vibration. Thoughts too are a reverberation. If you generate a powerful thought and let it out, it will always manifest itself. For this to happen, it is important that you do not impede and weaken your thought by creating negative and self-defeating thought patterns. ([Location 2432](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2432)) - The way you think is the way you feel, but thought and feeling seem to be different in your experience. Why is this so? Because thought has a certain clarity, a certain agility about it. Emotion is slower. Today, you think this is a very wonderful person and you have warm feelings about him. Suddenly, he does something that you don’t like, and you think he is horrible. Your thought tells you he is horrible, but your emotion cannot change immediately. It struggles. If it is sweet now, it cannot turn bitter at the very next moment. It takes time to turn around. It has a wider turning arc. Depending on the strength of your emotion, maybe it will take three days or three months or three years, but after some time, it will turn around. ([Location 2459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2459)) - It is not useful to create this conflict between head and heart. Emotion is just the juicier part of thought. ([Location 2465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2465)) - It is best not to create polarities within yourself. That makes for civil war and schizophrenia. Thought and feeling are not different. One is dry. Another is juicy. Enjoy both. ([Location 2473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2473)) - Because once yoga or ultimate union has happened, there is no longer a distinction between ultimate reality and the one who has experienced it. ([Location 2482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2482)) - Confidence and stupidity are a very dangerous combination, but they generally go together. If you start looking at the world around you, you would clearly understand that what you know is so minuscule that there is no way to act with confidence. A belief system takes away this problem; it gives you enormous confidence, but it does not cure your stupidity. ([Location 2575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2575)) - It is only a juvenile intelligence that analyzes things and arrives at a conclusion. If your intelligence is sufficiently evolved and mature, you realize that the more you analyze, the further away you are from any conclusion. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2624)) - The sole aim of every individual’s life energies is to touch the infinite—the very core of our making. They know no other aim. Your mind may be thinking of money or a new house, your body may be longing for food or sleep, but your life energies are always longing to break the boundaries set by your physical and mental structures. ([Location 2682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2682)) - What exactly is karma? “Karma” literally means “action.” Action is of three kinds. It could be in terms of the body, mind, or energy. Whatever you do with your body, mind, or energy, leaves a certain residue. This residue forms a pattern of its own, and these resultant patterns stay with you. When you gather a huge volume of impressions, slowly these shape themselves into tendencies, and you become like an automatic toy, a slave to your patterns, a puppet of your past. ([Location 2739](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2739)) - When you realize that all your material achievements are of value only in comparison with those who don’t have them, this is joy that springs from another’s deprivation. Can you really call this joy? Isn’t it actually a kind of sickness? It is time everyone addressed this. If you were alone on this planet, what would you want for yourself? Ask yourself this question and see where it takes you. Try this. Sit alone for five minutes and see what your life would be like if you were absolutely alone in this world. If there were nobody or nothing to compare yourself with, what would you truly long for? What would really matter to you if there were no external appreciation or critique? If you do this every day, you will become aligned with the longings of the life that you are, rather than the accumulated karmic mess that you believe you are. ([Location 2820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2820)) - How do you access the non-physical aspect of your life energy? The yogic practices, which involve postures, breath, attitudes of the mind, and energy activation, are all essentially oriented toward aligning the first three layers of the body: the physical, the mental, and the energetic body. It is only in aligning them that you find access to dimensions beyond the physical—to the fundamental life energy itself. ([Location 2838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2838)) - If you take the path of kriya, a certain fundamental discipline has to be brought into all physical, psychological, and emotional processes. If you want to hit the peak of your consciousness, this discipline is essential. You cannot be partying till early morning and attempt to scale Mount Everest tomorrow! The same logic holds true here. ([Location 2852](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2852)) - The very way the karmic structure works in every human being is essentially cyclical. If you observe very closely, within a day the same cycles are happening many times over. If you are very observant, you will see that every forty minutes you are going through a physiological cycle. Once you see that, then with the necessary attention and awareness you can ride the cycle and move toward transcendence from the limitations that these cycles set. So, every forty minutes, life presents you with an opportunity—the opportunity to become conscious. Every forty to forty-eight minutes, there is also a shift of dominance in the way the breath is moving through the right and left nostrils. It is dominant in the right nostril for a length of time, and then in the left. Become aware of this so you know at least something about you is changing. This awareness can be further enhanced into awareness of the solar and lunar influences upon the body. If you bring your physical system in sync with the lunar and solar cycles, your physical and psychological health is guaranteed. ([Location 2887](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=2887)) - If you learn how to use the five elements in a certain simple geometric formation, you can create a highly beneficial energy space for yourself. Here’s a simple exercise you can try. Draw a figure like the one below with rice flour or some kind of grain. Place a small ghee, or clarified butter, lamp in a plate full of water at the center. Place a flower in the water. You have now created a geometric form, using water, fire, and air. The flower in the water represents the earth. Akash, or ether, is, of course, always present. Try this simple process every evening. You will find the energy of your room altered in a subtle but powerful way. In this manner, you can uniquely empower your home or office on a daily basis. ([Location 3123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=3123)) - What is this self-realization? you might wonder. After all, all that most people are looking for is health, well-being, wealth, love, and success. Do you really need self-realization? Let us look at this in the simplest possible way. Isn’t it true that the more you know about your computer, the better you can use it? Isn’t it true that your ability to use a device or instrument is directly proportional to your knowledge about it? Isn’t it true that someone with a high level of dexterity and expertise can use even a simple instrument in a seemingly magical way? Have you seen some people riding on a piece of plastic they call a surfboard, doing incredible things? Just a piece of plastic, and what amazing feats of agility and grace they can perform! Similarly, the more profound your understanding of the human mechanism is, the more magical your life will be. In every culture, there have been a few people who performed certain actions that made others believe in miracles. All these actions that are known as miracles are just born of a more profound access to life that some have enjoyed. That access, as I have said time and again, is available to everyone who cares to look deeper. ([Location 3226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01B0K98D8&location=3226))