"Peak-experiences and insights of two brothers"

Taken from the Japanese site www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~kalki

Experience of Ravi Krishnamurthy during and after Retreats in 1999

1) I saw a tree: In Satyaloka, on the 7th day of the retreat, we had been speaking of Awareness and about seeing without the interference of the Mind. We had done a few intense meditations and I was filled with Energy and could not sleep. As I was walking, I suddenly looked at a tree and for the first time in my life I SAW it. This is at the same time simple and profound. I realized I had never seen anything in my life (barring a few rare moments perhaps); always the mind is interfering and there is a constant commentary going on. This time, there was simply the tree as it is. This was such a simple joy to see this; there was no thunder and lightning; just a simple joy and peace and stillness that defies description.

2) As I looked further, I soon saw that what I labeled a "tree" was a constantly evolving process. There was nothing permanent and absolute about it. It is simply a process that keeps evolving and growing and living and eventually dying giving way to another process that we may label as a plant or an ant or a flower. If we really see, there is nothing there, it is empty. I looked at a hut and it was empty I looked at the sky and it was empty. Wherever I looked there was this empty, nothing that could be pinned down, nothing to hold on to, nothing whatsoever. The entire Universe contains NOTHING!

3) After coming to the US, I was meditating on the banks of a canal and as I watched the water I could see that the water was not outside of me and the flowing was a part of me and we were all in one Dance, one Flow, which we can call Life. And there was no inside/outside-just One Universe and how it was constantly evolving. And thoughts, feelings, emotions are processes just like a tree and none of them are permanent or absolute. It was so obvious that I was dependent on the entire Universe, the sun the moon the stars, the trees, the grass, the people around me, their thoughts and emotions, their passions. So many factors influence every event in the Universe, and how erroneous it is to attribute something to one absolute cause. And, we keep looking for meaning and control over the universe and constantly fail and suffer, because the whole Universe influences us. And how simple it really is, since everything is just a perception and a viewpoint and how suffering is nothing but a viewpoint and is never present in the fact or in the creation itself. And how attached we get to our views and get righteous and positional and suffer as a consequence! As I saw all this there was only a Oneness with everything there was no two, I could not find anything separate from anything else. So wonderful and so beautiful-there is no craving for anything, no suffering because you don't have something or someone; after all I am already one with them or that! And life is just one endless blissful dance with the Universe and the Collective Conscious Mind, sometimes one leading, sometimes the other but always intertwined and always dependent!

4) After this I was driving along and I saw a bird struck by a car. I suddenly felt a twitch in my leg and as I looked the bird's leg was twitching. I realized that I was the bird! Every experience of the bird as it lay dying was mine. I felt the road underneath, and a cold and a darkness approaching, and a quiet acceptance and waiting. I felt a great gratitude for this bird, for this dying bird has taken me into a higher state of consciousness. I felt a similar experience again with another dead animal on the road (a raccoon). Later I looked at a signboard advertising pizza and I was seeing the thoughts that went into it (people must come into this store). I saw how everything was a manifestation of thoughts right there. I was looking at a green signal while driving and suddenly, I felt green! And I could see cars going by under me, an endless stream of cars, with different models and people in them, and they were just blurry gray shapes whizzing by!

5) I was walking on a blade of grass and I saw suddenly how this was a part of me and of how I (and Man) emerged from this Earth and we were completely intertwined with it. No wonder plants can heal us, they are healing themselves. And we have emerged from the Earth and hence are a higher emergent consciousness much greater than the sum of the parts. No wonder when we plunder and rob the Earth and when we are cruel to animals, we are being cruel to ourselves! They are a part of us and we are dependent on them as much as they are on us. And I was struck by the immensity of the Collective Conscious Mind that has arisen from Man and many great beings from the various planes of creation. How great must be its Seeing, its Awareness, its Knowledge, its Love. The mind just boggles!

These states come and go. But more and more, my mind is sharper and I am clearer. And even in the midst of confusion there is a spark of clarity that reasserts itself pretty soon. It is so amazing the things that are happening to me. And they seem to be more and more frequent as time goes on.
I feel so grateful to Bhagavan and Amma and Acharyaji and Lenaji and Madhuji and Ricardoji, all the Dasajis in Satyaloka, all the Acharyajis, monks and devotees of Bhagavan and really everyone who are helping me, each in their own way. Gratitude towards all the seekers of Enlightenment who are a part of me as I am of them. All the great souls of the past and present who have worked so hard for the upliftment of Man, who have tilled the world with their Quest, their insights and their learnings. Gratitude for my mother and father and brother and family for I am so dependent on them, and they on me. Gratitude keeps welling up in me for this. And this gratitude itself is a gift, a great gift from Bhagavan, for I was feeling this lack of gratitude in my life this morning and saying to myself, how empty it feels, how I am taking people around me for granted. Thank you Bhagavan for this gift.
It is unbelievable that this can be happening to me. You see many times I take this for granted, but I am so blessed to be a part of this wonderful family, the group in NY/NJ, the group in North America, the group in India and ultimately the whole world. Everyone has been so helpful during my struggles. Words are failing me, so let me just say THANK YOU!
We are all so blessed to be living in these momentous times and to have contact with our beloved Bhagavan
Blessed am I.
In gratitude to Amma and Bhagavan
Ravi Krishnamurthy

Experience of Vijay Krishnamurthy before and during 2000 Intensive Retreat

Namasthe to everone!

I had a most wonderful and beautiful experience yesterday evening. It was a very powerful moment and left me with such a wonderful and complete feeling that I have never experienced before... I really thank everyone of you wonderful beings and the Divine Light of which we are all a part of, for this amazing experience...

On Sunday evening, I went for a walk in the town where I live. Being new in this area, I just decided to walk around randomly letting my heart do the guiding for me. I naturally gravitated towards the quieter and more peaceful areas in the town. While I was walking, I came to a tiny, little park. It is an amazing place in the middle of a residential locality.

It is a very beautiful place, with a few trees, a bunch of flowering plants and a couple of benches.
Something instantly attracted me to this oasis of peace in the middle of the town. I sat down on one of the benches to do some meditation and contemplation. I first did some breath awareness followed by pranayama and pranakriya. I then remained sitting on the bench and was contemplating on a few thoughts that had been bothering me. Earlier, during the walk I had been thinking about mystical experiences. I have always wanted to know what a mystical experience is. I have asked people about this and the answer has always been that I would know when I had one. In my need to understand a mystical experience, I was very dissatisfied with this answer and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a mystical experience. You know what, in a way this is true!
Today, while I was sitting and pondering upon this issue, I had this most beautiful insight that every experience is mystical!! It cannot be otherwise, and since every experience is mystical, there remains only the Experience. There is no need to qualify an experience as mystical. In that sense there is no such thing as a mystical experience. With this insight, came such an emotional catharsis, that tears (of joy) kept welling up in my eyes the entire evening. I felt the release of tremendous amounts of energy in me, that even now, as I write this, I feel like a locomotive running at such a high-speed that it will not be able to stop at all.

Following through with the experience, I had the realization that since every moment is an Experience, every moment has to be mystical. Every moment is so sacred, that it has to be treasured, cherished, and experienced to the fullest. Every moment is filled with so complete a happiness that our minds cannot even imagine in its wildest dreams. The funny thing is that, we are always seeking for this Experience, Happiness, Insight, or whatever else it is everywhere else except in the present. We are always striving for these things as if they are separate from us. The fact is that, they have always been, and always will be here and now. We need to stop looking elsewhere and see this. This brings one to the conclusion that you are the experience. It is not as if there is a "you", there is an "experience" and this "you" experiences this "experience". All there is, is the Experience. In experience, we lose the sense of separation and truly merge into the one cosmic reality. This is the understanding behind the experience that leads us on to wisdom.

As I experienced, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to all the people who have helped me reach this state of experience. I began thanking them one by one, when it suddenly dawned on me in a flash, that everybody, including myself are part of the same Divine Experience. I then had a vision, where everybody who I was trying to thank as separate entities, begin to merge into a brilliant, dazzling Flame. I finally saw myself become a part of this imperishable Light and found myself feeling gratitude to this Divine Experience. It was as if I was thanking myself, and yet it was not. The "I" as a separate entity did not exist in the experience. There was only the Experience, which is the Divine Light. The sense of duality was lost, and this is the reason why every experience and every moment is mystical and sacred and a part of the self-same Experience.

What is it then that prevents us from experiencing this feeling every moment of our lives? It is our mind, which keeps interfering with the experience. It is always commenting, even as we try to experience every moment. I could clearly see this as I was contemplating today. The mind was introducing feelings of doubt, feelings of fear in me. Yes, strange it may sound, I felt fear at the exact moment, when I had the insight. The experience was so powerful and extraordinary, that I felt like laughing. I started laughing aloud in the middle of the park. But then the mind kicked in telling me that I had gone crazy and that I should not laugh in the middle of the park.

Constantly, questions like "What would people think of you, if they found you laughing crazily?" kept arising in my mind. I could hear the minds commentary clearly, "this is like this", "this is like that" and so on. It is our minds, which have created the concept of separation. The "I" as separate from everything else exists only as a construct of our minds. An experience, as I mentioned earlier destroys this feeling of separation. Naturally the mind rebels against this by creating feelings of doubt, fear, anger, etc. in order to override the experience. It does not want to lose control over ourselves. The mind controls us by creating the perception of an "I" as a separate entity. When we experience every moment, this sense of separation is lost and the mind loses the reins of control. This then brought me to what is the meaning of the Sutra that "You are not suffering. You are the Suffering." It is amazing and wonderful that so much is contained in this seemingly little insight. There is so much power and energy contained in every experience. The interference of the mind can be seen in almost every aspect of our practical lives.

For instance, why do sadhanas have to be sadhanas? Why should it be so hard to do these exercises and meditations, which help us in the Experience. It is again the mind playing tricks on us telling us that "we are sleepy", "we are tired", "enlightenment is beyond the reach of mortal man...so why struggle for it", so on and so forth. It is always preventing the experience of every moment per se. We are always seeking, searching for freedom from this and other concepts. Interestingly this reminds me of another beautiful experience I had during a workshop in New York.

Raviji, who was conducting this workshop, posed a question to all of us. He wanted to know what we thought the Foundation for World Awakening was? He wanted to know what it is that we expected to learn from it? Everybody was sharing their views and what it is that they were seeking. A common theme in almost everybody's answer (including that of myself) was that we were seeking freedom from suffering, and the need to have an enlightenment experience. In a blinding flash, it suddenly struck me that there is no freedom in seeking for freedom. It is "Freedom from Freedom" that we are all seeking. What I mean is that, we want to be free of the concept of being free. This puts us in a "Catch 22" type of situation. We want to be free, but in this wanting there is no freedom. What do we do then? Do you stop seeking? The answer is that we need to See this Fact, we need to Experience this Feeling to the fullest. When we do this, the sense of separation will be lost, we will understand that every experience is an enlightening experience. We will experience the futility in seeking to be free and totally surrender to the grace of the Divine Light, invoking its help in our Experience. In fact this experience is enlightenment and paradoxically will set us free.

Experiences and insights release tremendous amounts of energy in us. After I came back from the park, I was agog with so much energy. I did a Chakra meditation. Normally, this is quite a struggle for me, especially physically because I have trouble sitting cross-legged on the floor. Today, however, with the tremendous surge I was feeling, the Dhyana was so easy. This in turn released more energy creating an incredible positive feedback effect. Experiences, contrary to what our minds tell us, will make us function more efficiently in the real world. By making you so energetic, it will make us achieve so much more in the same period of time. This same energy also alters our psyche in subtle ways. I had the illustration of this in a beautiful manner the following morning. I was walking along a narrow path from my home to the railway station to catch my shuttle to work. Occupying the path, were two beautiful doves enjoying themselves. Before, I would have walked straight into them making them get out of my way as if I am the lord and owner of this earth.
But today, I found myself stepping aside and walked around them without causing any disturbance. Every object, animate or otherwise invokes a feeling of sacredness. By disturbing them, all we are doing is disturbing ourselves.

In conclusion, every moment in our lives should be cherished and experienced to the fullest. Every experience is mystical. Every experience is sacred.

There is no sense of separation, there is only the Experience.
Experience is the Enlightenment.
Experiences fill us with incredible happiness and tremendous amounts of energy. Experience is what Life is all about. We do not need to go anywhere to Experience. It is right Here at this very Moment! We are a part of this tremendous Glory of the Divine.

With deep gratitude to our beloved Bhagavan.
Vijay Krishnamurthy