SPIRITUAL

from the Myth of Spirituality

By Bente Marcussen

LIBERATION
Interview with Sri Vast, Enlightened Spiritual Master in South India. His focus is Practical Spirituality and Naturalization of mankind.
I am educated as a body therapist and teacher in high school level. For me the most exciting journey is traveling from my head to my heart. As a breathing therapist I use liberating breathing, dance and yoga in the workshops I give in Norway and in Sinai. On my spiritual journey I never felt any urge to visit traditional ashrams with gurus at the top of a hierarchy and disciples worshipping their guru. Meeting Sri Vast last Summer at the ngsbackafestival in Sweden, I knew he was a different master. In his ashram we are all like a big family. I have now stayed two months in Sri Vast ashram. Sri Vast teaches that we are all equal, we are all enlightened. He shows us the way out of the old roles, also the guru/ disciple roles. His teachings inspire me and help me to come closer to My Self. It is a natural, grounded, ecological spirituality. And there is a lot of laughter, singing, dancing and celebrating every moment in the ashram. When looking back on the two months I have spent here I can clearly see that I have reached closer to my heart, which is also My Self. I wish to share the wisdom of Sri Vast and the joy and celebration, which has inspired me in his ashram. Therefore I have made a personal interview with Sri Vast. If what you read here inspires you, you have the opportunity to meet him in Norway in June. See announcement in this magazine. Do you have any vision or any aims? No big visions, other than helping people to see their natural state, which is the life. We dont need exotic ways or particular forms to approach God. I want to create an empty space where people can experience themselves totally. Then they meet beyond their conditions and old patterns. When seeing their patterns, they can reect upon them and act in new ways. Is it enough to see these patterns? Yes, just see these patterns and the roles you are playing in your practical life. When you get aware of how you play the roles, you have got the space, which gives the choice to perform them or not. This helps you to be in the present moment in whatever you do. No pattern is right or wrong. The important thing is the awareness. If you manage to be totally aware in every moment you are in the awaken state. Whatever you choose gives you an experience. With awareness you will be able to choose what is benecial and to jump out of old, limiting patterns that you develop through training from childhood. Are all our patterns due to our training? Look at small children! They are in their natural state. They are free. The patterns are developed through your condi-

You are naturally enlightened but you have forgotten. The obstacles to come to reach yourself are your ignorance.
untrained state of the Self. Rather than talking about Enlightenment, I am busy in Celebrating Life, by enjoying every moment. I dont see myself as a teacher but as a Celebrator. So your teaching is more a sharing than traditional teaching? Yes, people who have been visiting many ashrams will see a difference. I want to bring Spirituality down to the practical level, into peoples everyday life. God is not a distant, exotic, gure. God is within us and everywhere. God is the Self. When we approach God within us we bring God closer to our practical

God is your Self. The whole existence is the existence of God. You meet the God by being God. Being God means being love, being love means responding. To respond you have to be to be alive. To be alive you have to be in this moment. And when you meet this moment you experience being total. In that totality God is experienced. - Sri Vast
tioning. You learnt what you should and should not do. Even games for children come with a manual, so they learn to do it the right way. The roles we play are results of these patterns. You have ideas about how to be a wife, a husband, a teacher, a mother etc. These ideas create your roles. The ways you play your roles inuence your emotions. Feelings cannot be controlled, they just appear. It doesnt matter whether you pattern is good or bad. By seeing it, you will see if you struggle with it. And you have a choice to change it, or to play it consciously. By changing patterns, feelings will also change. Our likes and dislikes come from our patterns. For example: If I think from the role of a Hindu, I might dislike Muslims. If I de-identify with that role, my feelings will change. If you choose to jump out of a pattern, and many of your friends have the same pattern, they may not like it. Those friends will also jump out. Most of your friends are friends of your particular patterns. If you dont play that role they have nothing to relate to. We communicate through the roles of our egos, not from our Selves. Can you reach your Self if you dont love yourself? No. But the truth is that everyone loves themselves. It is impossible not to do so. You cannot recognize love in another without loving yourself! Even if you think you dont love yourself you buy clothes and food for you. That is out of love towards yourself. When you know this you can make choices that bring love back. There is no need to learn to love, only recognize in what way you are loving yourself. Love is inbuilt in Life itself. When people talk about love, they dont talk about love itself, but the language of love. We are trained to express love in certain ways. If a person does not speak your language he can still speak. He loves, but gives it another expression. A translation is needed. The teachers role is to understand and help with the translation help you to understand the Love beyond the language experience Love in every moment. By loving your Self, you will love others. When analyzing your language of Love you can also see what patterns that are bringing or blocking the love in your life and thus make new choices. What about the Ego? It is about cooking something for you or cooking for others! By cooking for you, there is no ego. You dont cook to impress others. It is an inward act, not an ego act. The ego is active if you act in order to be seen and respected by your ideas. And this Self is intentionless and futureless. It meets every moment as fresh, as a newly bloomed ower so that it can enjoy the fragrance of this moment. This is meditation. I want people to live in meditation every moment. Some people say that they meditate half an hour daily. That means there are 23 hours when they dont meditate. They learn to separate meditation from Life, like many religions separate God from the Life. If meditation becomes an act, it is not a part of the moment. Meditation means to live totally, participating in life fully and celebrating that participation. Only through celebration you meet God. Is that what you teach people visiting your ashram? Yes, we share our celebration. Here the space is created to meet the moments together. Beyond their past, beyond their future, beyond their conditions, beyond their ideas. My whole effort is to create emptiness where the Self can be realized. This effort is made effortlessly, this is the purpose of this ashram. Here all the efforts are made to help people to nd their natural state. Only by being natural we can experience what God is. God is supernatural. Superly natural. When we become natural we become newborn children where each moment is approached unconditionally. Jesus also said so, that we have to become like children to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Yes, he also showed us the way from the unnatural to the natural state. People are busy in their unnatural dramas, their trained states. When you get aware of your unnatural state you get the possibility to become natural. Then old patterns become invalid, you loose your emotional links to those patterns. In your Natural state you are absorbed towards the

The West needs awakening. Today the East is trying to reach the western materialistic, stressful lifestyle. If the West transform, the rest of the world will follow.
others. The ego is linked to the mind. It has a past and a future. The child acts to survive, not to be popular. Children conduct pure acts to meet the moment, totally free and innocent. The mind and ego are future oriented which is a continuation of the past. Acting from inside, meeting the moment means to experience the inner Self. This is to live in an awakened, meditative state, which we call enlightenment. Living like this is often known as Selshness. This is not Selshness but Self-fullness. I teach Self-fullness. You may call it Selshness. This kind of Selshness is very good because it is the only way to know your Self. You are the Self beyond all

Supernatural. There you experience the innite which is the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus referred to. Is that what Enlightenment is about? Yes, an enlightened person experiences the natural state of every moment. There is no struggle there. Struggle appears only in the unnatural state, in your mind, in your patterns.

Is there no suffering in the Enlightened state? Suffering is something happening in the mind. Suffering is created by the past/ future-oriented mind. Suffering is due to the attachment. Pain happens in the moment. You have to meet the pain otherwise you suppress it. When you suppress the pain, it becomes a seed for suffering. If you meet and accept the pain it can be a seed for your growth. Acceptance is different from agreeing. Accept that it is paining. Accept that this pain does not belong to you. Then it will become clear, the root of the pain from which you want to be liberated. Liberation leads to Will people experience this by staying the natural state. Enlightenment is the in your ashSelf-realized ram? state, which is At the age of 31 in the middle of a cold This opportunothing but the and snowy winter in Sweden I fell down nity is given. natural state. while meditating. I went out of my It is their own body. I saw the whole galaxy becoming choice. Dont How to get small, and the whole existence started come here to there? to breathe together in one single breath. be Enlightened You are natubut come here rally enlighI was totally in bliss. to celebrate tened but you the enlightehave forgotten. ning moments with us. In my world you Getting back there happens when you are all enlightened. Come here to realize come closer to yourself. The obstacles to the natural state of you and celebrate come to reach yourself are your ignoranthat realization. ce. You have to liberate from your ignorance. This liberation happens through Have you always been in touch with surrendering. Surrendering is the key your enlightened state? for self-realization. You can surrender to As a child I had many transcendental anything, you can surrender to a stone, experiences. I was away about an hour to a tree or to a person. Surrendering is or two at the time. I came to a totally beimportant. Total surrendering is an egoautiful world where life is experienced less act where you dont differentiate in its totality in harmony with the whole yourself and what you are surrendering existence, the experience of being one. to. When you are surrendering, your When I returned back it was like waare surrendering your ignorances. Your king up from a dream but it was not a ignorances are nothing but your identidream. It was the existence on another cations, claimings, comparisons, sepalevel, out of my body. For some years I rations. When you are surrendering you wondered which one of the two worlds are surrendering your I-state. When it that is true. These transcendental experihappens you dont identify yourself with ences kept me away from suffering since your ego, mind or even your body. Then I experienced another existence of me there is no claiming and suffering. There where there is no suffering. I was able to the great Silence arises within. In that see the sufferings in others due to their silence you realize the Self. Your realiignorances. zation is that you are the Self which is innite. Beyond. Vast.

When you meet someone, do you connect to their Self? Yes, I meet the natural, joyful state in people. That is why we have so much fun in the ashram. We celebrate every day, every moment. I can also see peoples struggles in their unnatural states, in their ignorances. By helping them to realize themselves their lives transform. I can see the God in you and I can play with that God. That is why I see all as enlightened. I am not here to enlighten you. This thinking would mean I regard you as unenlightened and something less than me, which is not true. When a person is enlightened, when the realization is made, that persons world becomes enlightened. The person experience the enlightened world. In that world he can experience everything as enlightened so that nothing is there to be enlightened. Enlightenment is not something that happened in a persons life once upon a time. Its happening every moment in your life, in your every approach which is totally now.

And how was your childhood? My family was worried in the beginning, but they got used to it. My mother raised me and my sister. My father died before I was born. My mother was open and strong. She gave me great acceptance for being just the way I was. She encouraged me. She didnt control me. She often invited wise people and spiritual teachers so I could share some of my experiences and ask questions. I spent much time in silence, walking on the beach. I didnt like to take part in the games of other children, which were competitive. I saw life in a different way. I had few selected friends. Sometimes I had sharings at my veranda from the age of 6. The kids found me entertaining, and they brought their parents. My out-of-body-experiences got stronger and longer at the age of 15. They kept me on the track of seeing life beyond the usual. It was a life beyond all demands, struggles and ghts. I grew up in a sharing, compassionate society with freedom and love. I got breast milk from many mothers in my village until I was 8 years old. They were so proud of feeding me. I was raised both in the Vedic and in the Christian tradition. In the Catholic school I could not adjust to the many rules. I realized that the school system did not support inner growth. When speaking my wisdom I was beaten up physically. I remember saying: I was here 2000 years ago, you didnt learn anything then. I was punished for claiming to be Jesus. I told them I was not Jesus but that we share the same Christhood and that they now face this Christhood as 2000 years earlier. At the age of 23 I started an ecological, educational center. In this center many elders, yogis and teachers came to share their knowledge. Many people came from different paths to join us. We gave free education and free health care for the village people where we used natural healing, herbs, and Ayurvedic medicine. We got nancial support from many different institutions for this. We had many projects and educations to explore how we can live harmoniously with the nature. Did you learn from any special guru

Dont be a gardener but be a garden. Dont be a dancer but be a dance. Dont be a singer but be a song. Just loose yourself into it. You will meet God in it - Sri Vast
or teacher? No, I was never a seeker. I didnt agree with any religion. I had my inner wisdom from childhood. My transcendental experiences gave me practical wisdom

breathe together in one single breath. I was totally in bliss. Back in my body I was hot, sweating, and I couldnt move. I was weightless and the breathing was changed. All my questions were answered. The total purpose of living revealed itself. I have experienced myself through all the beings, in all forms. The past discontinued and the future also disappeared. The great acceptance of life aroused. Existence opened up to me. Such a silence, such a bliss! Life became endless, goalless and ageless, just a great silence the silence of Samadhi. Then I knew that everything is enlightened in this world. You are engaged in environmental, ecological lifestyle. Can you tell something about this? My teaching is to combine Spiritual and Ecological thinking and living. A new approach is needed. It is not about growing owers and trees without chemicals. It is about blooming together! It is a big difference whether I regard a tree as a piece of wood for my consumption or if I regard the tree as a living being. Why do humans think that nature is meant for human needs? If we become co-existent with the nature, we cannot just see it as a piece of wood or a stone. Then it will be like two individuals experiencing life on this planet together. We have diverted life and made hierarchic ideas about higher and lower beings. That is one of the reasons for the suffering on our planet. For me it is not about cultivating organic food, but about cultivating organic persons. I extend my relationship and experience of living beyond the humans. My teachings are to broaden the human perspective on life, expanding your experience of the existence.

The spiritual person is grounded. The spiritual person is busy in being, not busy in attaining and accumulating.
to approach the life. I saw how each moment built a foundation for the next moment. At the age of 31 in the middle of a cold and snowy winter in Sweden I fell down while meditating. I went out of my body. I saw the whole galaxy becoming small, and the whole existence started to

This view seems to oppose the Indian thinking that make the cast system possible. I am not opposing since I am not proposing. I am just creating the awareness. The cast system is nothing but a hierarchy. You need a concept to sustain the hierarchy. The rulers say that the system is created by God. The cast system is built on the belief of karma I did something good in the past life and the reward is being born into a higher cast. You did something wrong in your past

Enlightenment is happening in this moment, in every step you take. It is an endless freedom and a completely effortless living, a sense of Oneness and a Constant ow of Love. - Sri Vast

life and your reward is to be born in a lower cast. By blaming the past you accept the slavery of the low cast system. If God judge you, he is judgmental, then there is no God. God is love and acceptance. God is totally busy in celebrating this moment. God has no time to look at what happened in the past! Many religions, philosophers, priests and gurus separate you and God. By making you human and a sinner, they create themselves as Gods in their mind, in their belief system. Their way of understanding karma as a result of past lives actions make them keep up the cast system. It also makes them earn more money in the name of removing karmas from past lives. Karma is nothing but what you carry in this life, created by you in your past. Every step you make today creates karma for tomorrow. I teach liberation from all kinds of identication. When you transform, you cannot be in any cast or any other mind-created system. All your identications come from ignorance, whether you identify with the Brahmin cast, with being an Indian or a Norwegian. I do not give solutions to your problems since they are illusions. I do not give people new identities. I ask you to come out of any kind of identication to be liberated. I do not ask you to change this or that, I bring your self to your senses so that you can develop all your potentials. We are trained to use our mind and neglect our senses. The more we control our senses, the more we identify with the mind. Then our senses loose the capacity to live in the moment. Religions teach us to control. I teach how not to control, but to sense totally, to experience the connection between yourself and the existence. You use the term God. Is that the same as the Self? God is your Self. The whole existence is the existence of God. You meet the God by being God. Being God means being love, being love means responding. To respond you have to be to be alive. To be alive you have to be in this moment. And when you meet this moment you experience being total. In that totality God is experienced. What is spirituality to you? For me, being spiritual means being natural. I break the ideas of how to be spiritual. There are no dogmas, no belief systems, only a grounded practical spi-

rituality. All children are naturally spiritual. The ways they are nurtured by their caretakers help them to keep it or block it. People told my mother that I was very special as a child. I told her that they are fooled by their mind, because if one out of hundred children are special, the other 99 are not special and we create these separations. This kind of separations removes the spirituality from the persons life. We are all special. When you are free from these comparisons and separations you become spiritual. The spiritual person is grounded. The spiritual person is busy in being, not busy in attaining and accumulating. Do you get reactions from other spiritual centers? Yes, I dont live up to others expectations about a spiritual teacher. I am married,

I enjoy the Satsangs you give 3 nights a week. What is a Satsang? The Song of Sat. Sat means truth, a sharing of the truth. The teaching of that moment. Satsang teachings are not from the mind. It is not something you prepare in advance or something that comes from the books. The beauty is the listening to the silence of the teacher. There you meet your inner silence. Sri Vasts ashram is a Center for learning and transformation, a harmonious place for people to study and to nd their inner truth, to come closer to themselves. It is a meeting place for people to renew and grow. The day starts early with Yoga and Meditation and during the evening gatherings there are singing, dancing, Satsangs / open lectures, story telling and much more. All these activities enriches the individual learning process. Holistic Educational programs that explores the holiness of everything are offered for 1 to 6 months intensive courses. People come here from all over the world to study and to grow spiritually. Many different courses and educations are available, for example the Yoga Teacher Education, Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultant, Ecology and Spirituality and Sustainable Development and Inner Yoga and Natural Healing. It is also possible to come here for different retreats with Sri Vast, for treatments at the Ayurvedic clinic or just to stay and participate in the community life. There are also many projects to empower the local communities. Vocational Skill Training is offered to villagers that are unemployed. Many of them are shermen afraid to go back to the sea for shing after Tsunami. The ashram also provides free medical camps and counseling services to a large number of villages. A kindergarten is also run by the center for the local people. All this work is nanced by donations and funds from giving retreats and educational programs at the center. For more information on Sri Vast Center, please see: www.vastcenter.org Note: this article was rst printed in the Norwegian magazin Ildsjelen in May 2005.

Only by being natural we can experience what God is. God is supernatural. Superly natural. When we become natural we become newborn children where each moment is approached unconditionally.
even to a Westerner. I have two children. I never married a woman, but a person. Some teachers dont understand my undogmatic, practical spirituality. Others come here to get new inspiration. You also work in Europe, dont you? Yes, I live partly in Sweden and partly in India. During my stay we give many retreats and Satsangs in many countries in Europe. The West needs awakening. Today the East is trying to reach the western materialistic, stressful lifestyle. If the West transform, the rest of the world will follow.