Breathing is life, but how little we know about it! For example, do you know that you use only one nostril at a time for breathing? At any point in time, either the right or the left nostril will be working. Test it out now. Place a finger half an inch below your left nostril for a few seconds and then under your right. You will now which one is working at that moment. Amazing, isn’t it?
And now read on and learn more. Do you know the active nostril changes at regular intervals (approximately every one and a half hours) during the day? And for a short time, both nostrils come into play together, for a period which is called the sandhi kaal, and this remains for ten to twelve breaths. Have you ever wondered why we have two nostrils instead of one? Breath can easily pass through one passage but we have two! The reasons are much deeper then of basic design alone.

As per the ancient scripture of Swar Yoga, there are three psychic channels in the human body, namely ida, pingala and sushumna. The right nostril is the channel of solar energy and the nadi that flows through it is called pingala, whereas the left is the channel for lunar energy and is called as ida. When both the nostrils have an equal flow, then for a very short time the central channel which is called sushumna awakens. Influencing the channels or nadis is the key technique of Swar Yoga. Swar Yoga teaches that the dominance of each nostril during breathing changes regularly. By inhaling strongly through the nose, one can find out which nostril is dominant at a particular time, as one will feel the cooling effect of the airflow inside that nostril. The nadis ida and pingala terminate in the left and right nostril respectively, and are activated when the corresponding nostril is dominant. The central sushumna is activated when both nostrils operate simultaneously, which usually happens only for a short while when the transition from one nostril to the other takes place and also at dawn and dusk. The periodic alternation of the nostrils balances the entire system. Ensuring that this balance is not disturbed is the basic objective of Swar Yoga. The dominance of the nostrils is strongly affected by the movements of the planets and especially by that of the moon.
Each nostril, when it operates independently, influences the body chemistry in a different way. When both nostrils operate simultaneously, the body chemistry also alters so as to make meditation rather than worldly activity appropriate to engage in. According to Swar Yoga, the right nostril, being solar or heating in character, increases acidic secretions, whereas the left nostril, being lunar or cooling, increases alkaline secretions. Both right and left nostrils are connected with the opposite sides of the cerebral hemispheres and the olfactory lobe. The nose is in direct contact with the hypothalamus by its link with the olfactory lobe of the brain. The hypothalamus is a part of the limbic system, associated with emotions and motivation.
The nostrils, by means of the process of respiration, are connected with the neuromotor responses, and thus with the autonomic nervous system. These neuromotor responses influence the hemispheres of the brain and the primary activity of the brain, which is chemical. Neurotransmitters are the brain’s chemical messengers. They influence all body functions. Through a network of sensory nerves in the nose, the nostrils are connected to subtle nerves. An EEG was done by Dr Khalsa in San Antonio USA, where the brain was wired with electrodes, and an ultra sound was also done to see if any changes occur when the flows are different. It was observed that when the flow is in the left nostril, the right side of the brain lights up, and when in the right, then the left part of the brain is more active.
One of the techniques of Swar Yoga is to check whether the nostril dominance is in accord with the planetary cycles, and if necessary to correct it accordingly. This would prevent psychological and physical problems. It is especially important to do this every day at sunrise, so that one starts the day in harmony with the planetary energy of that day. Another important aspect of Swar Yoga is to adapt special activities to nostril dominance or vice versa. Breathing through the left nostril influences the cortical activity on the right side of the brain more than the left and vice versa. The twin hemispheres of the brain have highly specialized functions. The right hemisphere, stimulated by left nostril dominance, is connected to feminine, lunar, emotional, visual and more peaceful activities. The left hemisphere, stimulated by right nostril dominance, is connected to masculine, solar, rational, verbal and more energetic activities.
The ancient yogis of India knew all this and much more. They knew the intimate connection between breath and mind. For example, when your mind is angry watch your breathing – it will be disturbed. And similarly, if you hold your breath for long, your mind will get agitated. The yogis were trying to get some degree of control over the mind and body. Swar Yoga advises changing the dominant nostril at the first sign of any physical or mental disturbance. Thus the active side of the body is changed and glandular secretions re-establish balance.
For example, in fever one should plug the operating nostril with a cotton ball and keep it plugged until body temperature becomes normal again. Chronic indigestion can be cured by cultivating the habit of eating only when the right nostril is dominant. The same goes for eating and defecating in case of constipation. Stress created by hard work and physical labor can be cured by lying on the right side, and breathing through the left nostril for 25 to 30 minutes. If you want to alter an unwanted emotional state, just breathe through the congested nostril for a while. Swar Yoga techniques can also be used for healing others, for creating favorable conditions in life, to foretell death, and in determining the gender of an unborn child. The techniques of Swar Yoga have been tested and tried by yogis and their lineages for a very long time. If only you would be aware of the goodness and beneficiary changes that can be brought to your life, you could maneuver your life as per your needs and requirements.
The most powerful application of Swar Yoga lies in meditation and control over the mind. Since the mind is very subtle and near impossible to grasp, the yogis figured out how to use this connection between the breath and the mind. By controlling the breath, they were indirectly able to influence the mind. Swar Yoga can be practiced by one and all, but before you go deeper into it, you have to know the basics of Pranayama.
There is a lovely fable of a minister who was punished by the king with imprisonment in a tower. He called his faithful wife to help him escape, telling her to get a beetle, two drops of honey, a ball of slender and fine thread, a long twine and then a long rope. When the bewildered wife arrived with these things, he told her to moisten the antennae of the beetle with the honey, tie the fine thread to its body and to leave it at the bottom of the tower wall. Smelling the honey ahead, the beetle slowly crept up the wall until it reached the minister. He then got hold of the end of the thread and asked his wife to tie the twine to the other end. He then pulled up the twine and then the rope using which he escaped. The idea is to understand how to manage the links between the gross (rope, body), the subtle body (thread, breath), and the very subtle body (scent of honey, mind).
Understanding one’s breath opens up so many channels of growth and evolvement. When you need to work hard, teach, discipline, eat or defecate, check if the solar energy (pingala) is flowing. If yes, then the actions done will bear results. If you have to do brain work, then it your lunar energy (ida) that should be flowing – this will help you in all studious jobs, meditation, creative arts, music, dance, paintings, studying etc. The change from ida to pingala is very subtle, so if you can keep a check on your breathing, you will be able to observe it.
There are ways and means to change the breath by will, and this art can be learnt from a guru who is proficient in this art.

In the vedic traditions of India, relationships between men and women, within the limits of righteousness and dharma (duty), are considered to be a virtue and not a vice. Actually, they call it ‘yagna’. Yagna is the burning of a sacred fire and the offering of your humble oblations to that fire. They light the fire in a special small pit and put a lot of fragrant offerings and aromatic materials into it. In the same way, the sexual relationship within the framework of dharma is known as yagna. In the vedic religion, sexual life is not considered to be a sin. This is how the concept of brahmacharya in vedic religions differs from that of the Christian religions, where the very concept of contact is considered to be an eternal sin, even between husband and wife. Therefore the concept of continence as practised by the monks in Christian monasteries is completely different from the yogic concept of brahmacharya.

In the practices of yoga and tantra, brahmacharya means perfection in retaining the bindu. The tantric yogi does not lose his bindu at any cost because he knows how to hold and sublimate it. Therefore the concept of brahmacharya is mainly to be understood as maintaining a positive state where the higher energy is not allowed to fall and to be ejected. It is not merely a concept of sexual abstention; it is a concept of higher energy. The physical benefits of brahmacharya give the practitioner strength and power, and create heat in the system, vitality, resistance, splendour and endurance.

Many books have been written about brahmacharya and if I tell you about it fully, it will take days. The whole concept is so peculiar. After all, Lord Krishna had many consorts, yet he was known as the eternal brahmacharya. How was that possible? On the other hand, in the Ramayana, Hanuman, who was absolutely devoted to the service of Sri Rama, was one hundred percent brahmacharya, having no contact with any women. Now then, what should be the definition of brahmacharya? If Krishna exemplified brahmacharya then all of you are brahmacharies and if Hanuman exemplified brahmacharya then perhaps there is no one who qualifies as brahmachari.

You see, the vedic concept does not merely depend on external performances. For example, I live the life of a sannyasin and it’s a very good life. But if there is something else in my mind, then socially I’m a swami but spiritually I’m not. In the same way, externally you may be married, but internally you may be aware. Then you are brahmachari, and even though you may have five children, it does not matter. This is the beautiful aspect which is very dangerous to teach, but I will just throw in a hint.

At the same time, indulgence in sexual life cannot be called brahmacharya. Brahmacharya cannot be interpreted in terms of physical action as it is a much deeper and finer state of human consciousness.

Vedic Phases of Life

Sexual abstention has been taught in the vedic religion in order to create a healthy discipline and a healthy social structure. It may or may not help a person to have the higher experience, but it will definitely help him achieve amicability, unity, conformity and purity in his social and personal life.

According to the Vedas, one should not touch a man or a woman before the age of twenty five because until then the individual does not yet possess the necessary maturity of the various physical, psychological and emotional functions and aspects of life. For this reason, man was asked to wait until his maturity was established and he could successfully understand and integrate the sexual experience into his life.

Therefore, from the age of eight to twenty five, each individual was totally dedicated to his studies. That was known as brahmacharya life. Then he married and lived a householder life in a scientific manner. If he had sexual interactions with his partner only, that was also considered as brahmacharya. Then at age fifty, the individual was asked to conclude this phase of life so as to enter into another realm of experience. At fifty, it was ‘Hari Om Tat Sat’, no more sexual activity. After that time, husband and wife had no more physical contact and lived like brother and sister, guru and disciple, friend and friend.

What is the purpose of Sexual Life?

In tantra, it is said that sexual interaction has three different purposes. The first purpose is progeny, the second is pleasure and the third is super-consciousness. Those who consider super-consciousness to be the purpose are yogis, those who consider pleasure to be the purpose are human beings, and those who consider progeny to be the purpose are animals.

All religious people, whether Hindus, Muslims or Christians, believe that the main purpose of sexual life is to procreate. It also says in the Bible that the main purpose is to create more adherents, so that the religion becomes powerful and influential. That however, was not the purpose of Christ. Christ was a swami but his disciples were leaders, not swamis. They made a socio-political order out of the spiritual life of Christ.

The Tantric Definition

The best definition is the tantric and yogic definition: having a passionless mind with an attitude of worship for all women. Give your respect and devotion to every woman, whoever she is. Whatever physical relations you have with her, they are immaterial. Relationships with the opposite sex can be based on many ideas. You can be a total friend to your wife, your mother, daughter or sister, and you can give her immense and total love. Sex is not the only way of interaction. In my personal opinion there can be no greater definition of brahmacharya than this. All the other definitions have some sort of unscientific basis. Many create conflicts and contradictions, but in tantra there is no suppression, contradiction or licentiousness.

The concept of brahmacharya is not very clear in western society and that is why a lot of problems have developed. Some people have tried to become brahmachari but the conditions of western society were not suited to absolute abstention. Naturally those people were not able to manage it correctly and then-behaviour reflected this. You see, sexual abstention definitely affects the quality and structure of awareness. It is a fact. But many people suppress themselves and then think they are doing a very beneficial thing. Then if they create a breach of trust in themselves they become very disappointed and feel guilty about it.

The total concept

So the whole act and the whole subject has to be reviewed and everybody should re-think about brahmacharya and its real meaning for himself or herself. Understand the total concept of brahmacharya from both physiological and psychological points of view. Your sexual behaviour is influenced by various hormones produced by the glands of your body. You have to discover how the hormones are released into your bloodstream and pass through your body to influence the gonads, the testes in the male body or the ovaries in the female body. You have to realise these matters for yourself. The hormones are released from the pituitary gland in the brain in response to what stimuli? Do they stimulate the testes and if so how do the testes create seminal fluid? How does seminal ejection create an experience and how does this experience come to an end? How does one fall into emotional states, nervousness and erratic changes in, blood pressure? What is the effect of all these events on the state of your mind? All these things will have to be taken into account as you re-evaluate the meaning of brahmacharya for yourself.

Recently I met up with a person whom I had known about thirty five years ago. He had never married because he wanted to be a brahmachari, but he said twenty four hours a day he only thought of that. He was constantly fighting with himself. So one must live the life of a householder correctly; that is the first way to brahmacharya.

Finally, brahmacharya has to become part of the human consciousness. The best way to be established in brahmacharya and to be divine is to have the tantric attitude of passionless-ness, reverence and worshipfulness. In an act without passion there must be mastery over the yogic kriyas, kumbhaka, uddiyana, vajroli, etc. Without this, brahmacharya is self-deception.

HE ALONE KNOWS

to whom He will reveal Himself

under which form.

By what path and in what manner

He attracts any particular man to Himself

with great force is incomprehensible

to the human intellect.

The path differs indeed for different pilgrims.

India is a country which is fortunate to have witnessed her daughters rise to be great mystics. A person strives to learn the intricacies of religion, practices it diligently and then after many years may reach the zenith of spirituality. But there are some individuals who are born with all the prerequisites, a great mind and a high level of consciousness.

Anandamayi Ma was one such evolved woman. Anandamayi Ma was born in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in 1896. Her father, Bipin Behari Bhattacarya sang Vaishnava songs, often appearing intoxicated. He would rise early in the morning and sing songs; he was given to wandering around for long periods. His wife would have to go looking for him to bring him back home. Once during a storm the roof of his house blew off but he continued to sing in the rain, oblivious of what had happened!
Anandamayi’s mother Moksada Sundari Devi was known for her states of bhava or religious emotion. As she performed her household duties, she was visited by avatars and deities who shone with light. While pregnant with Nirmala – Anandamayi’s given name – she would see visions of sages and deities which would appear and then suddenly disappear. Later on she took her vows and became a ascetic.
The sound of religious chanting would make Nirmala ecstatic. In temples she would see deities emerging from their idols and then re-entering them. She was often distracted and would gaze into space – her eyes not focused on any worldly object. Her education was limited and her writing skills minimal.
At the age of thirteen she was married to Ramani Mohan Cakravarti or Bholanath as he was more popularly known. She spent a few years living in her brother-in-law’s house – most of them in a trance. She was a hard worker but sometimes had difficulty concentrating on housework. Her relatives assumed that the trances were due to overwork. When her brother-in-law died she went to live with her husband. At that time she was eighteen years old. Here she met a young man who was impressed by her quiet and gentle ways and he started calling her ‘mother’ (Ma in Bengali). This young man predicted that one day the entire world would address her in the same manner.

She was lost in a great void… The Maha Shunya

Hers was an unconsummated marriage, though not by her husband’s choice. When thoughts of sexuality occurred to Bholanath, Anandamayi’s body would take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint. He had to chant mantras to bring her back to consciousness. Sometimes in such situations her body would become contorted or it would stiffen. She would later say that she gave her husband spontaneous electric shocks when he touched her in a wrongful way. Bholanath thought the situation was temporary but it proved to be permanent. His relatives said he should remarry but he did not follow their advice. Later Bholanath was initiated by her and he accepted Anandamayi as his guru.
While living in Dacca, people came to recognize her spiritual qualities. At the sound of religious chanting she would become stiff and even fall to the ground in a faint. Sometimes her body became contorted during these episodes. At times she would stretch her body and at times shrink it; sometimes her limbs would go into seemingly impossible positions – as if her skeletal structure had changed shape under her skin. She would hold difficult yogic postures (asanas) for long periods of time and spontaneously form complex tantric hand positions (mudras).
Her husband thought she was possessed and took her to exorcists. One physician said that she was not mad in the conventional sense but may have a kind of god intoxication – a divine madness for which there was no known cure.

In 1916 she became ill and moved back to her parent’s home in Vadyakuta. In 1918 she and her husband moved to Bajitpur where she began Shaivite and Vaisnavite spiritual practices. Inner voices would tell her what actions to perform and which images to visualize. Her yogic practices (kriyas) were spontaneous and she described them as occurring automatically – much like a factory where the various machines worked together in perfect coordination to produce a product.
Anandamayi would weep profusely, laugh for hours, and talk at tremendous speed in a Sanskrit-like language. Other unusual actions included rolling in the dust and dancing for long periods whirling like a leaf in the wind. She would also fast for long periods and at other times consume enough food for eight or nine people.
In Indian devotional tradition, changes in body structure and state are considered spontaneous expressions of religious emotion. Anandamayi’s changes were more extreme than the common sattvika bhavas. Some respected Indian saints of the past are said to have had similar bodily changes.
Anandamayi went on various pilgrimages traveling throughout India, staying in ashrams and attending religious festivals. In Dacca her disciples built a temple to her but she left the day it was completed. She traveled to Dehradun where she lived in an abandoned Shiva temple for almost a year, with no money and often in freezing temperatures without blankets.

Anandamayi Ma was known for her siddhis or yogic powers wherein
she could read her devotee’s thoughts and emotions from a distance,

make her body shrink and expand and cure the sick.

She was known for her siddhis or yogic powers wherein she could read her devotee’s thoughts and emotions from a distance, make her body shrink and expand and cure the sick. One disciple claimed that she was saved from death in a car accident when Anandamayi grasped her ‘life substance’ and brought it back to her dead body.
Anandamayi was sensitive to environmental influences. Once as she passed by a Muslim tomb, she began reciting portions of the Quran and performing the Namaz (Muslim prayers). This and other similar acts showed that Anandamayi was always in a trance -moving through a variety of psychic and religious states, each one expressing itself through her. She often objectified her body by describing her actions with phrases like ‘this body did this’ or ‘this body went there’. She believed her chaotic actions were expressions of the divine will.

“My consciousness has never associated itself
with this temporary body.

Before I came to this earth, ‘I’ was the same.

As a little girl, ‘I’ was the same.

I grew to womanhood but still ‘I’ was the same.

When the family I was born to arranged this body’s marriage,

‘I’ was the same.

Even afterwards, though the dance of creation changes around

me in the hall of eternity, ‘I’ shall be the same.”

- Anandamayi Ma

Sometimes she ascribed her actions to a personal though unnamed god:

“I have no sense of pleasure or pain, I stay as I have always been. Sometimes He draws me outside and sometimes He takes me inside and I am completely withdrawn. I am nobody, all of my actions are done by him and not by me.”
At times she described herself as completely empty with no sense of the ‘I’ remaining. She was lost in a great void – the mahashunya – which was responsible for her actions. The actions that emanated from this void were often chaotic and incoherent. Her view was that a universal state of chaos arises due to spontaneous expressions of the divine will which arises out of this nothingness. But she also talked in theological terms stating that her bhavas or expressions were the play of the Lord acting through her body.
Anandamayi considered individual identity to be a kind of spiritual disease. She called it bhava roga or the disease in which a person sees himself as a separate individual. When some of her disciples complained about the large crowds of people that would follow her she would say, “As you do not feel the weight of your head, of your hands and feet … so do I feel that these people are organic members of ‘this body’; so I don’t feel any pressure nor find their worries weighing on me. Their joys and sorrows, problems and solutions, I feel to be vitally mine … I have no ego sense nor concept of separateness.”
Though she was never formally initiated by a guru, one evening she spontaneously performed her own initiation visualizing both the ritual scene and the movements. Spontaneously she heard the chanting of initiatory sacred mantras within herself.
She explained that there were four stages in her spiritual evolution. In the first the mind was ‘dried’ of desire and passion so it could ignite the fire of spiritual knowledge easily. Next the body became still and the mind was drawn inwards as religious emotions flowed in her heart like a stream. Thirdly her personal identity was absorbed by an individual deity, but some distinction between form and formlessness still remained. Lastly there was a melting away of all duality. Here the mind was completely free of all movement of thought. There was full consciousness even in what is normally characterized as the dream state.
When speaking of spiritual evolution she also maintained that her spiritual identity had not changed since early childhood. She claimed that all the outer changes in her life were for the benefit of her disciples.
When Paramahansa Yogananda met Anandamayi Ma and asked her about her life, she answered: “Father, there is little to tell.” She spread her hands gracefully in a deprecatory gesture, “My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came to this earth Father, ‘I’ was the same. As a little girl, ‘I’ was the same. I grew to womanhood but still ‘I’ was the same. When the family I was born to arranged this body’s marriage, ‘I’ was the same. And Father, in front of you now, ‘I’ am the same. Even afterwards, though the dance of creation changes around me in the hall of eternity, ‘I’ shall be the same.”
Anandamayi Ma would sometimes assay a variety of roles and later explain that this was a performance staged to teach someone present a lesson. However such acts were not a function of her will and occurred without planning or intent.
Anandamayi was a holy woman – without formal religious training or initiation – whose status was entirely due to her ecstatic trances. She did not have a worldly guru though she did hear voices that told her what religious and meditative practices to perform. She emphasized the importance of religious devotion and of detachment from the world. She also encouraged her devotees to serve others. She traveled and wandered a great deal, at times refusing to stay in the ashrams her devotees arranged for. While her parents worshiped Krishna, she could not be placed in any definite tradition.
An ecstatic child of ecstatic parents, she became a famous saint who like many other female Indian saints stood on the edge of several religious traditions yet in the midst of none. Throughout her long life till she died in 1981, she influenced the spirituality of thousands of people who came to see her. She never initiated people or considered herself a guru to anyone, yet there were throngs of seekers who learned a lot from her and their spiritual journey began only because of her silent presence.

Enquire:

‘Who am I?’

Look at a tree:
from one seed arises a huge tree;
from it comes numerous seeds,
each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree.
So, it is the same Atman everywhere.

life is a cosmic masquerade in which the goal is to uncover what is concealed.

According to Ayurveda a spark of consciousness is present in every living cell. As the new baby begins to take physical form, sparks of consciousness in the individual cells unite – igniting self-awareness within the unborn child. In Ayurveda this flame of awareness is known as agni; it becomes brighter as the level of biological sophistication rises. Agni is fanned by the essential vital force known as prana; the essence of biological integrity or ojas organizes the developing cells into a cohesive unified system. At the spiritual level these three primordial forces – agni, prana and ojas (or fire, breath and earth) – are the essential building blocks of life. These elementary energies fuel one’s brilliance, vitality and love. The passion for life which is inherent in the soul of a baby begins to be expressed at the moment of conception, or perhaps even before.

Why does life happen? According to the sages universal intelligence gives rise to life for the simple reason that it may evolve into complex expressions capable of pondering and appreciating the mysteries of the universe. From this perspective life is a cosmic masquerade in which the goal is to uncover what is concealed. At the beginning of life the disguise is quite apparent to the conscious mother who recognizes the deep spiritual connection uniting her baby’s soul with her own. Her most important role from the moment of conception is to nurture her child so that it can rediscover its essential spiritual nature.

The rhythm and pitch of human voices are clearly perceptible in the womb. An adult listening to conversations recorded through a miniature microphone placed in a womb can understand over half of the words spoken by a man and over a third of the words spoken by a woman standing in front of the pregnant woman.

We can only marvel at the intelligence that guides the development of a complex human being from a cluster of apparently identical cells. Where are the laws that govern this dance of life? They are written in the millions of years of evolution. We can describe what happens; we can replicate the conditions as in in-vitro fertilization or cloning, but we cannot fully understand how each cell knows which genes to awaken and which ones to leave dormant. We cannot explain how the flawless mirror images of eyes, ears, arms, and legs are formed in perfect symmetry. We cannot explain how different parts of the nervous system ‘know’ how to communicate across vast cellular distances to transmit critical information. The orchestration of life occurs in a deeper domain of existence which is mysterious. As early as the fifth week after conception the basic components of the nervous system – a primitive brain, a spinal cord, and the sensory material for hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling – are established. The anatomy required to perceive and interpret the world forms rapidly once a new life comes into being.
The auditory system that enables the baby to hear develops as the outer, middle and inner ear. The outer ear begins as little buds that gradually fuse to create the baby’s sound-collecting dish. The middle ear is formed by linking three tiny bones that transmit vibrations received by the outer ear to the inner ear. The inner ear is a remarkable apparatus that translates the pitch and intensity of sound waves into specific electrical impulses which are conveyed to the hearing region of the brain. The equipment for the unborn baby to eavesdrop on the world is well developed by the time the mother enters the second trimester of her pregnancy. Every living being has a truly magical beginning.
A number of modern studies have confirmed that by the eighteenth or twentieth week of fetal life, the unborn child hears and responds to sounds in his environment. Although you might expect the womb to be a quiet place, it is actually quite full of sounds and sensations. Tiny microphones placed in a pregnant uterus reveal that a multitude of audible vibrations enter the unborn baby’s sanctum. The mother’s heartbeat and digestive tract offer a steady background noise along with the pulsing rush of blood flowing through her veins.
The rhythm and pitch of human voices are clearly perceptible in the womb. An adult listening to conversations recorded through a miniature microphone placed in a womb can understand over half of the words spoken by a man and over a third of the words spoken by a woman standing in front of the pregnant woman. To the unborn baby it is the mother’s voice that is most easily recognized. Unlike outside sounds which are muffled to some degree, the voice of the mother is actually slightly amplified. If the mother is singing the sound in the womb can reach 80 decibels or more, which is as loud as a telephone ring or the whirr of a vacuum cleaner. The foetus perceives the mother’s voice as sound as well as vibrations that move directly through her organs, tissues, and bones. An unborn child becomes familiar with his mother’s voice long before it emerges from the safety of the womb.The emotional state of the mother is communicated to the foetus through the hormones she secretes.If the mother is engaged in a loving and nurturing conversation or listening to pleasing music, her brain triggers the release of chemicals that reflect her calm and comfortable condition. These chemical messengers travel from the mother to the foetus through the umbilical cord connecting the unborn child’s feelings with those of the mother. On the other hand if the mother is involved in a heated argument, her body is flush with stress chemicals that can trigger discomfort in the foetus. It is easy to imagine the distress caused to an unborn child who is regularly exposed to harsh and unpleasant sounds. The mother’s heart beats fast and her adrenal glands produce stress hormones. The unborn child activates its own fight-or-flight response but unfortunately can neither run from nor wrestle with the source of its discomfort. The seeds of anxiety, apprehension and hostility are sown in the womb. The baby-to-be learns to associate sounds with sensations.

A pregnant mother should avoid repeated exposure to distressing sounds as noise pollution has a negative effect on both mother and child. Scientists report that mothers living along the flight path of a busy urban airport produce lower levels of growth promoting hormones and are more likely to have smaller babies than those living at the same distance from the airport but not directly in the flight path. Similar findings have been reported in women who work in factories where there is a constant high noise level. To the extent possible, a pregnant woman should make a conscious effort to limit her exposure and therefore of her unborn baby to vibrations that are distressing.
On the other hand it is not realistic to expect a woman to completely avoid unpleasant sounds throughout her pregnancy. I suggest that you do not worry about causing harm to your unborn baby every time you are upset, have a disagreement or listen to loud rock and roll music. Life does have such moments – but they should be avoided. I simply wish to say that you should be aware that the being inside you is eavesdropping on your life. Whenever possible, expose yourself to nourishing rather than distressing sounds as whatever you experience is also experienced by your unborn child.
Once I was in a pathology clinic that had the latest four-dimensional ultra sound machine. They had recorded images of foetuses at different ages. A foetus which was five months old was smiling; another was moving as though dancing in the womb. There was one clip where twins were sitting one behind the other as if waiting to come out. The most fantastic clip was of a baby who would raise its right hand and point its finger upwards. I said, “Doctor, this baby is saying ‘don’t you dare tell my sex to my parents’”!
A BBC documentary shows that the baby smiles when the mother listens to soft music. In one documentary a baby was reacting with anger when its mother was listening to hard rock. It has been proved that whatever the mother thinks and feels is passed onto the baby. A child prodigy is the best example of the fact that the growth of a baby’s mind begins right in the womb itself. A ten-year old child surprised music connoisseurs by playing difficult compositions from Mozart on the piano. His mother said that when pregnant she listened to classical music; she was an accomplished musician herself. Extensive scientific studies show that the period in the womb and the first three years after birth are the most important for learning. So it can be conclusively said that ‘geniuses aren’t born – geniuses are nurtured!’
In the Mahabharata, Arjun’s son Abhimanyu – while still in his mother’s womb – hears his father, explain the intricacies of the ‘chakravyuh’ – a trap laid for enemy warriors. He hears how a warrior can enter this trap and single handedly defeat many men. It is said that Abhimanyu heard only half the explanation as his mother dozed off mid-way. He knew how to design the chakravyuh, how to enter it and defeat the enemy, but had no knowledge of how to come out of it. Due to this incomplete knowledge he was killed. A child in the womb is listening to you. It hears all the sounds; even the parents discussing an abortion in the event of the baby being a girl. How can a mother kill her own baby, her own flesh and blood just because it is a girl?

Nobody needs daughters; parents hanker after sons. It is not only the uneducated who are doing this; many educated women too opt for an abortion. In Rajasthan a school teacher aborted six girls and eventually died in her seventh pregnancy delivering a boy! What did she gain? Millions of female fetuses are aborted every year. Under the Indian law the punishment for murder is a life-sentence or death. Shouldn’t those parents and grandparents who kill the girl child be penalized accordingly? Shouldn’t the family be taken into custody under Section 302? Gender discrimination is not healthy for society.

A girl is denied the right to live and to be educated. She is discriminated against when young, taken out of school to help the mother with household chores and sometimes even to be a nanny to her younger siblings. Girls are not welcomed at the time of birth. They are considered a responsibility and parents choose the easy way out – they kill the girl in the mother’s womb! For a few thousand rupees, a life is aborted.
Baby girls do not have a voice of their own; how can they protest? Who will listen to their silent screams? A girl is killed in the womb by a doctor; I call it murder and not abortion. What is her fault? Why is she denied the basic human right to life? A male child is never denied that right! Why? Today the ratio of girls to boys has dropped so much that in some parts of north India, girls are brought from other states and sold to men as brides. Sometimes a girl is shared by two brothers and in some cases even by father and son! It is shocking, deplorable, condemnable and inhuman.
We have to stop these inhuman atrocities being forced upon girls. In the Indian joint-family system, it is the elders or the husband who decide whether or not to have a girl child. Sometimes the daughter-in-law is threatened into having an abortion – she does not have a choice. The wife who is financially dependent on her husband has to oblige – what else can she do? This is why I say that women should be educated and must have economic independence. They should not be pressurized into doing something they do not want to. A woman is not weak – she has been conditioned to believe that she is weak. Girls are a wonderful creation of nature – kind, beautiful, energetic, a great power house of energy. A girl grows up to be a companion to man; a good friend; a doting mother; a loving wife; a wonderful girlfriend. She is a giver; she is tolerant; she is perseverant. Allow her to blossom to her full capacity. Girls are wonderful! – can a man think of making a life without a woman? She defines man’s life, fulfils and nurtures him.
A woman can play multiple roles with élan. Can’t men at least support her and respect her? Please think about how you can repay a mother’s debt – the debt of love. Every woman is Shakti – a divine being – love and respect her.
If a woman remains ignorant and blind can society progress fully? If in any society, the woman remains ignorant, illiterate and deprived of her rights, can that society or country flourish? Our country will not prosper as long as women are not given their rightful place. The day the women of this country awaken and empower themselves with knowledge, this country will touch the heights of prosperity.

The infinite spectrum of creativity has often been perceived as limited to the fields like art and literature. It is because when we think from limited mind, things look in a very small bracket, as our conscious mind is not bigger than a bubble. The scientists have proved that the capacity of human brain is immense but we are using only 3% of our brain; this means even Einstein used just close to 6% of his capacity.
With the limitations of the mind, we tend to believe that ‘creativity’ means art, literature, dance or music. But once we transcend the mind then we realize that right from the smallest speck of dust to the largest volumptuous sized planet in cosmos, each and every area is part of creativity; even a glade of grass is so immaculately designed and shaped, has been given a specific color, identity, and consciousness, but which is in sleep mode. When we say ‘creativity’ then whatever our senses can perceive and whatever is beyond the perception, whatever we can think about and whatever is beyond thinking comes in the region of creativity. So, we cannot use a marker and boldly say that this is a part of the creativity, and rest is not.
Nothing in this universe is mundane. The flawless beauty of trees and plants, the blossoming of flowers, the chirping of birds, all is happening because of creativity. Just have a look at your hands; they are so intricately, beautifully, and creatively aligned. Can this be compared with something lesser than an art? The way your eyes and ears are working; the way the dance of the blood is happening in your body; it’s more of a “dance” as it is going against the gravity, rushing all towards the head and it’s coming back down. So, we cannot limit creativity to art, literature, music or dance. Creativity is much bigger and we need to broaden up our vision to really understand this.
In Mythology, we say that the creator has created this creation, the world, which we are seeing, but if you go more into the depth, then there is no creator but creativity is happening. It’s a constant process; the nature is working constantly & persistently.
Creativity is a continuous process and you cannot put it in a bracket that these things alone fit into the label of creativity and rest does not. Creativity is something which is an ‘integral part’ of us. The only thing is that we have to open-up our eyes to see, admire and enjoy the creativity.

INNATE GREAT CREATIVE CAPACITIES

Every human being is born with great capacities: capacity to think, to create, to admire beauty, to write beautiful poetry, painting, dancing, cooking, mothering, fathering. There are scores of people who are painters but they don’t know that they have this capacity or ability in them.
Society at large is more concerned for pleasing the senses. So, there is a non-ending list of materials which people long and dream to possess, including the hunger to get recognition, name and fame. They go on praying to God for fulfillment of their wants and wishes. Now actually it’s not what they want, it is what they are seeing that people have it and now they too want to have what others have.
We can say that creativity exists in every person. Cooking is an expression of creativity; keeping your books neatly on the book-shelf is creativity. Beauty too is an expression of creativity. Move into the tribal areas where there is no reach of any cosmetic industries and neither do they have money to spend on products, but yet all these women have innovative ways to beautify their bodies. They might use the chalk or mix ash or use some dye made by crushing some plant leaves, and make a paste to then beautify her body. This too is creativity.
Now, creativity is being lost in these mundane activities. Right from the tribal woman, to that upscale New York cosmopolitan educated woman who has loads of money to spend and buy those expensive things from 52nd Avenue, both these women have their own versions of creativity but both of them are concerned with their body alone. Their expression of creativity is too much limited to the matter, their body, which is mortal. So we can say that it is not the optimum or real creativity. But everyone has it, in one proportion or degree.

LOVE BRINGS OUT ALL CREATIVITY

We need to relate and spend more time with our own self; Relating with one self means relating with breath, mind, brain and then consciousness. The more you bring this “pranic energy” in your body, higher will be the degree of your consciousness.

The higher the degree of consciousness, there will be more possibilities for the higher intuitions to happen to you.
And when you are in the range where mind has been uncluttered, body has been energized with “Prana Energy”, with the “Cosmic Energy”, you are more at an receiving end, where you’ll be able to imbibe the knowledge, the wisdom from your own higher regions.
This is the best thing which one can do and this means you need to learn “yoga“. You need to learn to meditate. You need to learn the value and the celebration of ’singing’, the ‘kirtan‘. You need to learn to be in ‘love’. Love brings out all creativity. You need to be in love with your own true self, your own ‘higher self’ and those who will begin to move in this direction, their personalities get shaped up.
There is a long list of mystic masters viz Sant Kabir, Baba Sheikh Farid, and more, who never went to any school or university, but a mystical thing happened to them, and that’s their master happened to them. This one meeting with the master inspired divine love in their hearts, and this small light of divine love grew so big that their personalities were transformed. Then this love pushed them to such a state where poetry began to flow through; not any ordinary poetry, but the poetry in which the truth was being depicted. If the master wouldn’t have come in their life, they would have ended up being just a very ordinary person.

MEDITATION INSPIRES CREATIVITY

Meditation Creativity
Every meditator is definitely a creator because he or she is creating the higher levels of consciousness within, and with this higher level of consciousness, all beautiful things will happen.
There is a profound relationship between meditation and creativity. A non-meditative person cannot be really a creative person. Now sometimes people are allergic to the word “Meditation”. What they don’t understand is that
The real objective of meditation is to be in the right state of mind where concentration, contemplation and awareness manifest in the being.

Try to understand that the whole idea of a relationship begins from that point when you have already established a sound, beautiful, and dynamic rapport with your own self. Isn’t it a joke that we are bothered about others but we are not worried about our own self? We often ask as to how I can have a healthy relationship with others, but the question should be how I can have a sound relationship with myself. A person who is himself lost cannot give directions to others. It’s as simple as that. Our society and our family – all have been leading an ignorant life. They themselves have been stumbling. Ask any parent, did they plan their baby? Were they emotionally, psychologically ready for this new system, a new person in their life? Were they ready to be a vehicle to bring a new soul on this earth, to give birth to a new body, to give a new life, to be engaged for a wandering soul to start a new journey? Ninety nine per cent of the answers will be that children are born unplanned.

Children are just accidental inventions.

Children are just happening to the parents and now because they are pregnant, they must give birth to the child. They must rear the child and they must provide a sound family system according to their own understanding. The issue is really very important, and I wish to take your attention on this as no one ever has guided you on these lines – Before you think of others, think of yourself. Let me quote Jesus Christ on this ,’the other is hell’ , when you say other, it is going to be hell. Why? Because if you don’t understand your own self, you will not understand anyone who is around you. There will be elements around you who are foreign to you, who are different from you, who have their own entity , withwhom you have to build a relationship that can be friendly one or filled with prejudices and hatred.

The basic thing is that for the person who has known the real self, the term “other” no longer exists; there is no one other left. Whoever he sees, talks to, meets, communicates, that person will never be the other, as every other person has now become his/her own reflection. If you stand in front of a mirror, you see your own face. What do you see, when you look into people’s eyes? In first place, you must have that deep-rooted, communicative eye to look at the other person. As you are hiding your own true self and living a false life, so is the other person. So, these two false personalities will never gel, will never have a communion, and will never have a heart-to-heart relationship. What they will have is just a communication and in these times of great scientific inventions we don’t have to be in front of one another, e-mail will do all the work and SMS will do the rest.

You start your day with a “Good Morning” and the next sentence which comes out of your mouth is a “Bye” because you have to run to achieve your own goals and your ambitions and the other person too is busy with his own objectives. In this scenario, who has the time to communicate? The need is to understand that unless you are not deeply involved with your own inner being, unless you are not established in your own true identity, unless you don’t know who you really are, how can you enjoy? No one enjoys one’s own company – that’s why we are always looking for a friend, for someone on whom we can release our tensions and pressures. You need to talk all the time, you need to have a shoulder upon which you can cry, you need to have a set of ears in which you can fill up all of your mind’s garbage.

Now, if you can’t enjoy your own company, you can not be a good company to others. The day you enjoy your own presence, the need of “others” ends. In a way, the need of being in any relationship also will end. When this stage comes, that is the time when you are appropriately ready and groomed to be in a relationship. When you are seeking a relationship, at that time, you are a beggar and beggars cannot be givers. When two beggars sit together none of them will become rich: zero plus zero is always going to be a zero. If you are a beggar because you were seeking happiness from the other and the other has come to you with the same expectation, there is bound to be a clash.

This clash comes out in open after some time, not on the same day, not in the first meeting, but later. In the first meeting, there is hope, there are great expectations that a golden future is ahead in this relationship. Parents are always expecting from their children, that the day they will grow up, the day they will have great jobs, that will be our happiest day. Parents dream that their child will become a professor, a great entrepreneur, a successful professional. The child is already living the parent’s dream and is already expecting that all of the father’s hard-earned money will come to him only. So, there is no need to work hard because father has good connections in the political circle and has a great status in society. So, we already have enough money and I can just float on the glories of my father or my mother.

Children are looking at their parents, and parents are looking and dreaming a golden future for their children. The wife and the husband also have such dreams.

We expect a lot from others. Moreover, we want others to change for us. Here is the root cause of all the confrontation in a relationship. We expect so much from the others that they cannot deliver. And once that happens, we start complaining. There is an agenda to change this person for our good but the other person too has his own ego. Why would he or she change for you – and then we all live a frustrated life.