Freedom that is unbelievable

Good morning.

I'm so happy that you're here.

This morning, I want to talk about freedom, about true freedom.

On the past weekend, I had a very interesting conversation with a person I know since a long time; a woman.

And this woman has a Guru; not my Guru, not Swamiji, but another Guru, since a long time. And she talked to me about how that was for her, how that is for her.

And during this conversation, I became aware once again what happens around a Guru and around a Master when us normal people hear his words, see his behavior, and then we completely misunderstand.

The Guru, the Master, a Jesus is totally free, and all he wants is pass on this freedom to us, to you. But we are unable to see this freedom. We are unable to imagine this freedom. We don't know that it exists, and we can't imagine that it could exist.

And then we don't understand the freedom of the Guru, but something else. We don't copy his freedom, but we copy something completely different. And we don't know it, and then we suffer.

It's interesting.

This lady I'm talking about who had this conversation with me last weekend... I met her Guru. That's a long time ago, maybe 35 years or so, I forgot.

And back then, I had heard about her Guru already. She had told me how it is with him; how demanding this Guru is; how important it is to do what he says; how difficult it is to do what he says, what a great challenge, what a serious issue... I had heard these things, and then, I met this Guru once.

This lady had an audience, a personal private audience with this Guru, and I was allowed to come along to meet him, and what I experienced there was completely different than what I had heard before. For me, it was just the opposite. I met this being sitting there. I don't know whether even one word was exchanged; I don't think so.

I was bathing in freedom. I was bathing in love and gentleness and freedom.

It was unforgettable for me. It was clear to me: this is not my Guru. I was not attracted to stay there, but I tasted him. And what I tasted, what I experienced in myself was totally different than what I had heard from this lady: there was no demand, no seriousness, no difficulty.

And then, this this past weekend, I heard the story of what happened afterwards for this lady with this Guru.

There is an ashram where people live together in the name of this Guru. The Guru is not part of the ashram, but the people built this ashram to live there together in the spirit of the Guru, and this lady contemplated the idea to move into this ashram and also live there. She thought this is the right path, this is necessary, this is good for her. But the Guru told her: "You don't need this. You will not have to move into the ashram. You will find your path, your way to enlightenment all by yourself."

But this lady could not imagine that this is true.

Basically, what this Guru said is: "Just live your life. You don't have to do anything special. You will find your way." But she couldn't hear this.

She moved into the ashram and lived there together with all kinds of other people who took everything just as serious as she did.

And that's what we humans do. The Guru never says anything other than: "Be free", and we hear the opposite. And then, these people come together who all hear the opposite, and then they live together with rules, with restrictions, with seriousness, and the living is difficult.

And that is how it was for this lady. It was almost a nightmare, in the name of the Guru.

Of course, the Guru doesn't want anything of this, but humans do it anyway.

And then, many, many years later... she told me, many years later, she managed to realize: "Oh, this is not my place. I need to live by myself." And it was totally difficult for her to leave this ashram because she felt: "This is needed for my spiritual path. I would be...". She felt: "I will be betraying my master. I will betray my Guru, if I move out of the ashram." That was her feeling, and it was totally difficult for her. But she did it anyway, her step into freedom.

And then she remembered what the Guru had told her many years before, when he told her: "You don't need this." The Guru didn't want her to do this in the first place, but she thought it's needed. And until the end, she thought: "I will be unfaithful to my Guru, if I don't do this", and the entire time, the Guru wanted the opposite. The Guru just wanted her freedom. And then, after she managed to step into her freedom by herself, then she felt closer to the Guru than ever before. Then she could see: "Oh, wow.

This is all about freedom. None of that was necessary." But that's how we are, us human beings. That's what we do.

I remember my time when I was traveling with my Master, Soham. For 20 years, I was traveling with him all the time. He was giving Satsang in all kinds of different cities and countries, so we were traveling every week to another city. And there was a small team around him who helped with all the practical things around this traveling and around these events, a small team of people.

And when I joined this crew, this team... this is now 24 years ago... I joined this team, and I was new, I didn't know How these peoples did all the things, I didn't know how all this works and what Soham wants, and so, I asked the people, and they told me what to do. And I remember, I often heard... Often I was in a situation where they told me how certain things are being done, and I wondered: "This is strange. This sounds really weird to me. Why should we do it like this? It makes no sense at all.

It should be done in a different way. It's not good for the people to do it this way. It's not good for us to do it this way. Why?" And then I heard: "But Soham wants it this way", and I heard this many, many times. But I was different. Just like with the meeting of this Guru, 35 years ago, the Guru of this lady, where I just felt freedom where other people felt a prison, just in the same way, when I heard people say: "Soham wants it this way", I thought: "I have to check this out.

This can't be true." For me, it didn't fit: there were these stupid things being done in the name of this wise man. So, I went to him and asked him: "Hey, you know, they tell me that we do things like this, but somehow I feel it could be done in a different way. Why is it? What do you want? I just want to check with you." That's how I talked to him. And he said: "Oh my God. What are these people doing?"

And what I found out again and again... whenever I asked, I found out: it was not in his interest to do it this way. It was a misunderstanding. And it happens like this: the Guru is free, and the Guru does in each and every moment what feels the best in a given moment, in a given situation, and he's totally wild. In every situation, he looks again: what's good now? What does feel right, now?

So, then there's a situation, and people ask him: "How should we do this for you?" And he looks: "How do I want it right now? Oh, this feels good." And he tells: "Okay. Do it this way." And that's what the disciples hear.

But they don't see how the Guru does it. They don't see how he is in the moment, how he looks around, how he feels what's right, and then he does this or then he wants this. No, they don't see this. They can't see this freedom. The disciples can't see this freedom of looking: "How is it right, now? How do I want it, right now?" They only hear: "I want it like this", and then they do it like this, for years and years and years to come, but already the next day, the situation might be different.

Already the next day, something else should have been done, but they don't do it. They are not free. They don't look: "Oh, how is it tonight? How is it best and in the best interest of my Guru, in the best interest of the people who come? What should we do now?" No. They don't have this freedom. They hear: "I want it like this", and they don't dare to think. They don't dare to be free. They just do what they heard once, what they understood once, and they do it for years to come.

But the Guru never said, do it like this from now on forever.

The Guru just was free in the moment. That's what he wants to pass on to his disciples. That's what he wants to pass on to everybody. Soham said every night in every Satsang: "Be in the moment. Be here, and then you will know what's right in every moment."

But we can't hear this. That is too much freedom for our mind.

And that's what I experienced again and again. Whenever I asked him, he said: "Oh my God. This is so stupid." Sometimes he said: "Yes, I want it like this." And then he explained to me why, so I could understand and so I could act in the best way. Then I knew why he wanted it like this, and then I can adjust whatever we do according to that. But I was never able to just follow some rule, if I felt that this is not right.

So, we misunderstand the Guru, because this freedom is so foreign to us. We are scared of it. We are scared to make a mistake, and for us, everything is serious. It's so important to do it right, and we don't trust ourselves. Everybody sees: this is stupid. I asked my teammates, why is it done like this? This is stupid. And they said, no, no, no.

We have to do it like this. Sometimes, Satsang visitors said: why is it like this? This is not good. And they were being told: "Yes, but Soham wants it." Everybody could see it's stupid. But to dare to be in the moment and to see what's right and then to just do it? Unthinkable. Or if you're in doubt, to just ask. That's unthinkable for most people.

And it's the same with my Guru Swamiji and with the Samarpan Meditation.

The Samarpan Meditation is a wonderful and simple tool for the path to happiness, for the path to enlightenment, for the path to freedom. But also there, people misunderstand everything Swamiji says about the meditation. It's so simple. The meditation itself is totally simple and so easy, but we cannot imagine that it's easy. We cannot imagine that it's simple. We create problems everywhere, and that's just how we humans are. It's normal for every human being, and that's why I talk about it. Swamiji says: "When you do the Samarpan Meditation...". He says: It is totally simple.

Your only task is to sit down for half an hour, and you place your attention here at the highest spot of your body, here, this is what the Indians call the crown chakra, and that's where you rest with your attention. There's nothing to do, nothing to reach. You don't need to reach a certain state. You don't need to be in a certain way. All you do is rest with your attention here at this simple spot. That's all. And then you notice how you are distracted by your thoughts. Suddenly, you notice: "Oh, I am not with my attention at the crown chakra. I'm with my attention deeply lost in thought."

And Swamiji says: "No problem. Whenever you notice that you're in thoughts, just return to the crown chakra." That's all. That's what we do in the meditation. And sometimes you notice that you're being distracted by your body. Some itch, and your attention oneness to your big toe, or something hurts, and you feel your body and you try to make your body comfortable. And Swamiji says: "Just ignore all this. Don't think about it. Just return with your attention to the crown chakra. It's no problem." He says: "All this is to be expected. This is all normal."

And he says: "How you meditate, how well you manage to be here in the crown, it's not important. The only important thing is that you sit down, and you return with your attention to the crown again and again and again. Totally easy. Totally simple."

But we can't hear this. He goes even further. He says: "How your meditation is, how well you manage to be in the crown with your attention, is none of your business. It's none of your business. It's not important."

He even says: "Donate these 30 minutes of meditation to me. Then they belong to me, to your Guru, and you don't have to worry about it." He says this to give us the freedom to not worry about how we meditate. But we misunderstand. We cannot imagine that such a freedom exists.

We cannot imagine that it's really true that you can just meditate and it doesn't matter how it is; that it will have its effects, that it will bring us into Heaven, even when we think all the time in between, even when we are being distracted all the time. We cannot imagine this. The Guru who brings the meditation says it, but we can't hear it, and we make a problem out of it.

We think: "Oh, I got distracted by my thoughts. Oh, I should do it there better." And with this, of course, we are even deeper in the thoughts. Instead, we could just be totally playful, totally unserious: "Oh, I'm in thoughts. Then I return here. No problem." That's what Swamiji says. And then, the Guru gives us the ultimate freedom. He says: "Donate these 30 minutes to me so you don't feel responsible."

But we even cannot hear this. Even this, we misunderstand. And it's natural. It's normal that we do this. We have never ever learned that this freedom exists. We never learned that it really is like this. I received a letter about the meditation, about exactly these issues, and I would like to read out the letter and say a few sentences about it.

"I'm doing the Samarpan Meditation since many years, but I'm not doing this meditation well. My problem is not just the thoughts, but that I let myself get caught up in the thoughts. These 30 minutes often turn into a problem-solving session and brooding. It even happens that my mind literally gives me orders, like: you should think about this now and make plans. And then comes the self-judgment.

I lack discipline. And this is even true. Someone who had discipline would let thoughts pass like clouds. Swamiji said that you should give him these 30 minutes. I tell this to myself every time before and often during meditation. But then I'm back into these stupid ego dramas, and I really don't like myself for it all. Dear Mikael, I would be extremely grateful for any advice or tips."

Yes, this is how it is. I hear this from so many people.

We cannot imagine that it is okay, just the way it is for us. And when the Guru gives us the advice to donate these 30 minutes to him, so we don't feel responsible, because the Guru knows we feel responsible... The Guru knows we want to change ourselves. And the Guru knows, of course, that we can't. So, he tells us: "Give me these 30 minutes, so you don't have to worry about. It's my responsibility, the responsibility of the Guru, of life, of God." But even this, we cannot understand because it just doesn't fit into our brain.

And even this, our ego, our intellect, our mind uses to create more pressure for us. And then we think: "I gave him these 30 minutes. Now I have to do it particularly well." And in reality, it was meant exactly the opposite. It was meant as a relief from this feeling of "I have to do it right".

The only thing the Guru wants to give you is freedom, total freedom, but we don't know this freedom, and we cannot imagine that it exists. No matter how often the Guru says it, we can't hear it, because it's unthinkable for us.

In almost every video I make about the Samarpan Meditation, I say this: it doesn't matter how the meditation is. This is not what it is about. But it's unimaginable.

It's like this: during the Samarpan Meditation, it's not important at all whether you reach a thoughtless state. This is not why we sit down. This meditation is a practice of consciousness. You take your awareness, you take your attention, and you put it here (to the crown chakra). That's the only exercise. And then you get lost in thoughts, or you get lost in body sensations, and then, the exercises to take your consciousness, to take your awareness, to take your attention and return it to where you want it to be: to the crown chakra.

That's what we are doing. That's the only exercise. There is not the goal that we do it again and again to finally reach a state of thoughtlessness during these 30 minutes. This is not the goal. Nobody ever said this, but we think like this. The Guru never said: "You must reach a thoughtless state. That's why you meditate." He never said it once. He said: "Sit down. Put your attention to the crown chakra. And whenever you find yourself somewhere else, return with your attention to the crown chakra. That's what we do."

And that's a magic exercise. This is what the whole thing is about: to become Master of your attention, to practice taking your attention to where you want it to be. And the more often you get lost in thoughts, the more often you get lost in physical sensations of the body, the more opportunity you have to practice exactly this.

Thoughtlessness, inner silence comes, by itself, over the years, slowly slowly, but this is not the goal in the meditation.

I made a video about this. It's called "It is not about silence", that's where I talk about this at length, about what this meditation is truly about. So, the Guru tells us, but we can't understand. So, I want to answer to this report I just read out to this email.

Yes. Donate these 30 minutes of your daily meditation to your Guru, to Swamiji, or, if you do the meditation and you don't have a Guru in your life, donate them to God or to life, it doesn't matter what you call it. Just know: it's not your responsibility.

This donation makes you free, that's the purpose, free of the responsibility how your meditation is. Your meditation can be any way, it doesn't matter.

We cannot imagine this freedom.

You are free not only to experience your meditation the way it is for you right now.

You are free to be the way you truly are, right now. We have these imaginations how we need to be in order to progress on our spiritual path. We have certain ideas how we must be, so we are allowed to enter Heaven or paradise.

And the reason why we think like this is that we observe the Guru. In India, there are gurus, they do certain things, for instance, we see that these Gurus, they don't eat meat. And then we think: "Ah, I need to give up eating meat, and then I can also become like this Guru. Then I can progress on the spiritual path." Or we see, the Guru doesn't drink alcohol, and then we think: "Oh, I need to give up alcohol, and then I can progress."

Or, particularly in the Christian world, we think: "Okay, sexuality has no place on this path. I need to give up sexuality. I need to be celibate, and then I can be in Heaven, then I can come close to God." We see all the priests; they are supposed to be celibate. And then we think this this is required on that path. And you see this in India too. These gurus, they are not married. They are not interested in sex.

And then we think: "I also must not be interested in sex, and then I can progress." So, we observe these things. We see a saint, how he lives, what he does and what he does not do, and then we copy this in our desire to become saintly ourselves, to reach into Heaven, to become happy, to become free. But what we don't know in our ignorance is that this is not the way the Guru became a Guru. This is not the way a saint became the saint he is today.

I want to report a little bit about my life.

Years ago, I was eating meat. Soham was eating meat.

We had meat almost every day. We liked it. And we were drinking wine. We liked it.

And I had sex. I liked it.

And then, over the years, the longer I was with Soham, the longer I was in Satsang, the closer I came to myself, the more I became happy inside of myself, the more I was in peace with myself... to that extent, the lust to eat meat, at some point, just disappeared. On this path, during these years with my master, what happened was that I became more and more sensitive. My ability to perceive the subtle and the inner grew more and more.

And out of this ability to feel more, out of this increased sensitivity, through this more resting in myself, by itself, the eating meat dropped away. At no point did I think I should stop with this. It's easy to think: "Oh, this is not spiritual. I shouldn't do this." I never thought this. I ate meat whenever I wanted, and I wanted to eat meat a lot, so, I did. I didn't care about this at all. I just was with my Master year over year over year.

I learned from them to be in the moment. I learned to accept myself the way I am. I became more and more sensitive. I learned to be in the moment more and more and see and feel how things are. And out of this, naturally, completely by itself, the desire to eat meat just dropped away. And at some point, I didn't eat meat anymore, and Soham didn't eat meat anymore either. We just stopped. We didn't want to anymore. It didn't feel good anymore.

And then, six and a half years ago, the Samarpan Meditation came into my life and into Soham's life, and, I don't know, a few months or maybe half a year after we had started with the Samarpan Meditation, we didn't feel like drinking wine anymore. It just stopped. And there it was the same. I didn't think: "Oh, I really should stop this. This is not spiritual, this is a hindrance on my path."

I never thought this. I liked drinking wine, so I drank it, and I enjoyed it, and Soham did the same. But then we meditated, and out of this, our sensitivity increased even more, and I was even more close to myself, I felt myself and God and everything even more. And out of this, I don't know why, the desire for drinking wine just vanished.

It totally disappeared, but all by itself.

And the same with sexuality.

I meditate now the Samarpan Meditation six and a half years, and I just become more and more quietly happy. There are no wishes left, no desires left. I'm just resting in well-being and a very interesting kind of contentment.

And I'm just not interested in sexuality anymore. Sometimes it still happens, and then I enjoy it. I even enjoy it more than ever because I don't need it anymore, and there is no importance attached to it anymore and no contradictions and no judgments connected with it anymore. So, when it happens, I can really enjoy how it is, but it's not important at all. I don't long for it.

So, this hunger for sexuality, this desire to have it and to make it happen, this completely vanished.

But it happened by itself. I don't know why. Just by me becoming more and more content and happy through the meditation, it just disappeared, and I was a very sexual person before. I really liked it. But now, I don't know where it went. It is gone, but not because sex is a problem and a hindrance on the spiritual path. No. It just became obsolete, unimportant, uninteresting.

My inner Heaven, my contentment is so much more interesting.

So, all this happened by itself out of the one thing which the Guru taught me: being here in the moment, meditating, being the way I am. These three things, that's all I do, and out of this, all the right things happen. I don't have to worry about it.

But most people don't know this, and most people don't see this. When they see a saint, they copy what he's doing, and then they think: "Ah, it's not good to eat meat, so I need to stop." They see, he doesn't drink, and then they think: "I must stop drinking alcohol". And they see that the Guru or the Saint is not interested in sexuality at all, and then they think: "Oh, I must renounce sexuality. I must live celebrate in order to become like him." And when we do this, we go into the opposite direction. We create a conflict with ourselves.

We think: "The way I am right now is not right. I must change." And this is only because we completely misinterpret what we see when we observe the Saint, when you observe Jesus or a Guru. And this misunderstanding is totally normal. Everybody does it, including the Christian church. There are all these rules for priests, for example, that they must be celibate. This rule is a problem. Sexuality is not a problem, but the rule is. When we make rules for ourselves, when we are convinced: "I must be different", then we have a problem.

We don't know that eating the right way or not being interested in sexuality anymore all comes by itself when we do the one thing Jesus was talking about. He said: "Put God first." That's his way of saying: "Meditate". Put God first means: "Look inside. Don't look to the outside. Look inside. Be in the moment. Meditate. Be here." That's 'putting God first'.

And he said: "When you put God first, everything else will follow." That's what the Guru says: "Just be in the moment. Just meditate. All the things you worry about, forget them. They will all take care of themselves", and that's my experience in my life.

But we can't believe this. We see the Guru, we see Jesus, we see the saint, and because we don't know anything about this freedom, we misinterpret what we see, and then we make rules for ourselves, and we judge ourselves. Like, this gentleman in his email reports how he judges how his meditation is, and then, how he deals with it is also wrong, and he cannot imagine that this is all okay.

My Guru Swamiji says: "Don't change yourself, but meditate."

Once he was talking to alcoholics, a whole hall full of alcoholics in a clinic, and he told them: "Drink as much as you want." Nobody could believe him. But he said: "Drink as much as you want. Don't try to change yourself. Don't try to be different. But meditate." Jesus said: "Why do you worry?

Put God first. Everything else will follow." That's my experience. That's true. So, whenever you catch yourself that you judge yourself... you can't stop the judging. You can't stop your thoughts, and all the judgments are also just thoughts about yourself. You can't stop this, but know that they are not true. You will continue having thoughts. You will continue to judge yourself. But know, know deep down, remember: "This is not true. I don't need to believe these judgments."

You can remember: "My thoughts cannot imagine this, but it can be like this. It's allowed. I'm free."

And now, at the end, I want to add one more thing, because it's easy to now feel wrong about this. We make a problem everywhere, and now I say: "There's no need to make a problem out of how your meditation is, there's no need to make a problem out of how you are, no matter what you think about yourself." And then, we make a problem out of this: "Oh, I'm stupid. I take all this too serious. I shouldn't." And then you're back into the next problem. And I want to tell you that this human tendency to do this is so old.

It's not your fault. It started with the advent of humanity. When the first humans were created out of animals... What distinguishes the humans from the animals is a particular kind of consciousness, a particular kind of awareness, an awareness which allows you as a human being to perceive yourself. This is the consciousness you need as a human being to fulfill the task we have in this life: to recognize who you truly are, and that is God, Heaven, freedom itself.

But this consciousness, which allows you to perceive itself, from the very beginning, also allowed us to judge ourselves. The moment we were able to perceive ourselves, that's the birth hour of humanity, in that moment, we also became able to judge ourselves, and that's what we did. And that's what happened in the very beginning of humanity. That's why one of the first stories in the Bible is that of Adam and Eve in the Garden Eden.

I made a video about this, 9 months ago, I think, or 8 months ago. I forgot the name of the video (Too wrong for Heaven?), but it is about Adam and Eve, and if you're interested, you can find it, I will make a link to it in the description of this video. And in this video, I described how it worked. There were Adam and Eve, in paradise, in the Garden Eden. They had gotten the consciousness of humanity.

And, immediately afterwards, the first thing what happened was: we started judging ourselves. In the Bible, it's said: "We ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree, from the fruit of the knowledge of good and bad": judgment. We became able to judge. We started judging. The humans had gotten this consciousness, but God said: "Okay, you got this consciousness, there's just one thing you shouldn't do with it: judge.

Don't judge." That was the forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Life gave itself this consciousness, which is an amazing gift, but if you use this consciousness to judge yourself or anything, you will leave paradise. You will destroy paradise for yourself. It's not that God throws you out of paradise. It's not that you have been thrown out of paradise because you have sinned.

It says in the Bible that God said: "Don't eat that food", meaning: don't judge. Enjoy this consciousness, but don't judge, because as soon as you start judging, you are out of paradise. But, of course, we did. We had never learned how to handle this amazing consciousness we've gotten, and now we learn it. So, there's no need for you to feel wrong or bad or stupid about the fact that you cannot handle this amazing consciousness... that you give attention to your thoughts all the time, that you judge all the time.

There's no need to judge that now on top of everything. It's old. This task what you are tackling right now, is as old as humanity, and now is the time that humans learn how to handle this. And this is the gift of the Samarpan Meditation: it teaches you how to handle this consciousness, and all you need to do is sit down for half an hour every morning, and the rest happens by itself, just as Jesus said.

And then you discover the freedom which is here. Then you discover the freedom, this unthinkable freedom that you really don't have to worry about anything, this freedom that you really, truly can just be the way you are.

I'm so happy that you are here. Thank you that you are here. Thank you.

I love you.