The “Third Eye Awakening” Fraud and the Obnoxious and Abusive Nithyananda Followers

On Aug 3, 2012 while returning from Kailash Yatra I first saw Swami Nithyananda.  He was walking back and forth in heavy gold ornaments with his disciple.  He would go upto the Nepal-Tibet border near the Friendship Bridge and walk back.  Then back again he came and then walked back.  Many of his disciples were waiting to go across.  Behavior or clothes etc of a person are never a good way to understand his/her spiritual attainment.  So I left my understanding of him at that.

Nithyananda has been mired in many controversies and did go underground for sometime as well.  But per published reports that was taken care of and he emerged without charge.  In today’s day and age of media and powers targeting Swamis, it isn’t a far fetched idea that he may have been targeted as well.

Primacy of Supreme Consciousness is Sacrosanct and Non-negotiable

In my Spiritual journey, I started off with reading and trying to understand Sage Vasistha as well as I could in “Yoga Vasistha”.  It took me well over 2 years to get past the first 3 chapters.  Not because I couldn’t read well but because to understand Sage Vasistha the way he was sharing his knowledge is indeed not easy.  And I can say categorically that even then I wouldn’t have completely understood what he said because I haven’t had the experience that he or Ram had.  But at the fundamental level, I did understand things in their seriousness.

One thing emerged on my reading of Yoga Vasistha: Primacy of Supreme Consciousness is Sacrosanct and Non-negotiable.  That is the most critical and sufficient goal, aim, endeavor of Spiritual path.  Nothing else.  Anything else and whatever else that does not agree with that should be thrown away right away.  No matter what that is.

Thereafter, I have always evaluated people from the standpoint of what they say on the benchmark of its alignment with the Principle of Primacy of Supreme Consciousness.  If something aligns with that principle, then it is aligned with Spiritual truth, if not, then it needs to be put aside.  Gurus and Enlightened Beings have said a lot of things – some for Spiritual path and some for Social situations.  Anyone who is enlightened always says things that align with taking the listener to the point of realization of Supreme Consciousness.  So it does get tricky because for two different contexts Enlightened Masters say two different things which still align with the Truth.

To understand the veracity of the spoken word, what you then need is the context and the intention of the Master.  That is all one has to go by in this day and age with the lack of awakening that is needed to understand when you see an Enlightened Master.

Some utterances are however totally out of whack and clearly out of alignment with the Principle of Primacy of Supreme Consciousness.  Most of the utterances and explanations of “Western Spiritual teachers” like Eckhart Tolle fall in that category.  They seem “nice and goody-goody”, even profound, but make no Spiritual sense when evaluated under the Principle of Primacy of Supreme Consciousness.

Swami Nithyananda’s claim of using “Third Eye Awakening” is one such stuff.

Ramakrishna Paramhans and his “Third Eye Awakening”

There is an interesting story of Ramakrishna Paramhans’ experience of final awakening.  Ramakrishna was an amazingly crystallized consciousness.  His devotion to Goddess Kali was so deep that in his experience, he lived every bit of his life with her.  Not to the outside observer, but to him Kali was a living experience.   That experience of Kali was his greatest tool, strength … and his biggest barrier to moving on to the final Supreme State.  He had an awakened Ajna but his Sahasrar was still not activated.  That leap was yet to be made.  That is when Totapuri, an amazing wandering monk and Guru entered his life.  His clear instruction to Ramakrishna was:

“You have to kill this Kali.  This won’t do.  This woman is too much of hindrance.  Gather courage.”

Try as hard as he could, Ramakrishna could not do that.  He pleaded that he could cut and kill his own mother, his father, his wife, himself and even his Guru.. but Kali?  No that wasn’t possible.  That is when Totapuri threatened to leave.  He came upon a broken piece of glass which he brought and said “Next time Kali comes to you and I see tears of bliss coming from your eyes, I will cut your forehead.  At that time, take Kali’s sword and cut her up!”

From where will I get the sword, asked Ramakrishna.  “From the same place you got Kali”.

As soon as Ramakrishna again went into his experience of bliss with tears flowing, Totapuri cut his forehead and Ramakrishna took Kali’s sword and cut her into two.  After that he went into deep Nirvikalp Samadhi for 6 days.  He had attained to his Supreme State.

That was the awakening of the “Third Eye”.

Ajna is not the Third Eye.  It is right beyond that.  It awakens when one is pushed deep into the abyss of Sahasrar.

Attaining to the highest state did not give Ramakrishna any “special powers” – Siddhis or whatever you may want to call them.  It gave him alignment and oneness with the Supreme Consciousness.  He, his Kali and the existence had dissolved.  Everything that one can call “himself” and the “other” had been comprehensively and completely destroyed for Ramakrishna!

That was precisely the import of Sage Yajnavalka when he gave the call of Neti, Neti.  To get to the Supreme State, you need to push aside everything that can be observed.  For, that state is one of the Eternal Observer!  When all that you can observe is dissolved comprehensively, then only the Eternal Observer is left.  That is the state of Complete Enlightenment.

Now, let us go back to the Nithyananda’s claim of Third Eye Awakening.  He (and Rajiv Malhotra) are parading kids who have supposedly “awakened” their Third Eye.  If they indeed had done that, no need to read anything would be left anymore.  One would be aligned with the source of this existence.

Abuse from Nithyananda’s Followers, Swamis, and Maas

I have met many Swamis and Maas – Sanyasis basically – in my life and specifically since I have been touched by Sadhguru and Isha.  They are a different level of beings.

However, the level and kind of abuse that has been showered on me by Nithyananda followers, specially the Sanyasins there – via Facebook and my blog post comments – is quite honestly – Shameful!  Lingo that even the worst criminals would be ashamed to use!!

This post is not written against Nithyananda as a Guru or teacher.  I wouldn’t go to him, but to many he is offering a lot.  So that should be respected.  So, this is NOT about a “rival Guru” – for I maintain that Guru is not a person.  Guru is the quality of this very Existence.  So, even though one person as Guru may have guided you, the Grace is of all the Gurus together.  It is the Grace of the Source of Existence itself!

And, that is what saddens me.  That, here are people who profess to walk the path of Spiritual awakening and all I am doing is pointing to the obvious anomaly in their understanding of something that is so fundamental to the Spiritual path – the Supreme Consciousness and it being beyond the physical!

I don’t care who you are – but unless you have absolute and complete clarity on this – Supreme Consciousness as the Primary state of attainment – then I cannot respect your understanding of Spirituality.

This is one thing that no matter what path any Guru ever took, all were clear and focused on.  Spirituality is an existential puruit.  Not a social rearrangement!  The “Third Eye Awakening” is the Key to this Existence itself, not a key to doing “miracles”!!

Here is a sampling of the comments that were posted by many disciples of Swami Nithyananda – including the Sanyasins there.  I leave your judgment of what such a crowd is being prepared for to you.

I maintain that injection of just pure hatred, anger, passion and love for occult/miracles will only lead Hindus “Activists” to destroy the very thing they are hell-bent on saving.

I happened to write a comment addressed to all this abuse to see if they could understand their own folly.  Instead, that started another rally of abuses.