Guruji's teachings
Guruji wrote this conversation to show that the world you see may only exist in your own mind, and what that means for who you really are.
Written by Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati (Guruji). Originally published at amritananda-natha-saraswati.blogspot.com.
F: My dear friends, I wish to write a few lines as a conversation between a spiritual father F and son S.
S: What is my relationship to you?
F: None, really. You are given by Siva and Shakti to me. Mom and I happen to be your trustees.
S: What is your role then?
F: Same as that of a trustee. To help you mature from beast to human to divine being.
S: What is the purpose?
F: As far as I know, it is just a game. We are playing roles in a drama.
S: If I decide to be a bad guy?
F: That is your choice. Who am I to say no?
S: You won't correct me?
F: No.
S: Why not?
F: I choose to support your decision. If you choose to play the role of a bad guy, I will support you to be a very good at that.
S: What is your message to me?
F: Do as you like. Find out who you are.
S: Wont you help me find out?
F: Of course I will. Here is a hint. You are much bigger than who you think you are. You are the creator of the universe.
S: How can that be? The world is very big, ten to the power of 48 times my size.
F: It is.
S: How can the small create the big?
F: Small and big are illusions.
S: How so?
F: Let me ask you a question, for a change. Where was this world before you were born?
S: I dont know.
F: Where will it be after you die?
S: ditto.
F: Ok. Could it be that the world you see exists only in your mind?
S: Possible.
F: Then you are its creator because it exists only in your mind?
S: Possible. But...
F: But what?
S: I am so small, the world is so big...
F: Now, now. Haven't we agreed that small and big are illusions?
S: May be, but they are are real to me.
F: Why?
S: If I am the creator, the world should obey me. But it does not. I feel powerless to control it.
F: Mom and I created you. Do you listen to us and obey?
S: Why should I obey you?
F: Then why should the world you created obey you?
S: But I have a separate life of my own.
F: Exactly. The world you created does not obey you, because it has a life of its own.
S: You are tricking me with words.
F: Yes I am.
S: Give me an experience of being the whole world.
F: I cant give you that experience, but I can tell you how to get one.
S: Fair enough.
F: This is going to be a little long. You have patience to listen now?
S: Willing.
F: You are familiar with three states of you being: awake, dreaming and sleep. When awake, you can know and act. Time is flowing continuously. When dreaming, you know but cant act. Time is going in jumps. When asleep, you cant know, cant act. Time also sleeps. Time is like space. Life is its property, like energy-matter. Time arranges things. Things without life moves things to disorder, bad acts. Things with life move towards order, good acts. Time moves forward, towards more disorder. Life makes time move backward, to more order. Are you with me still?
S: Sure.
F: Good. Time is father, Life is mother. Time is Siva, Life is Power, Shakti. OK?
S: May be. (Starts yawning).
F: Understand Shakti to go to the source, the state of perfect order when there is only one thing; you may call it Shivashakti. What is in a name? You could call it Siva, you could call it Shakti; both are same.
S: What does all this have to do with my experiencing my bigger self?
F: I am coming to that. I told you about awake, dreaming and sleeping right?
S: Yes, may be.
F: But I did not tell you about waking dream, and waking sleep did I?
S: No.
F: Waking dream is when you are manifesting an imaginary world. Because you are awake, you have control over your dream, you can redirect it the way you want. Lucid dreaming manifests. Waking sleep has two parts. 1.Thinking in words (memory or mind) is absent, feeling body movements is present. This is called yoga. 2. The other part is when both words and feelings are absent, but consciousness alone is. This is the pure witness state. This is called Samadhi.
S: Can you please summarise all this?
F: Sure. The way to Samadhi consists of three steps. 1. Yoga Nidra (conscious dream, astral interactions) 2. Nata Nidra ( conscious feeling, dyamic meditation of Nataraja) 3. Samadhi (pure consciousness when no object is visible, antarmukha witness)
S: Good. But why is the pure consciousness state important?
F: Because you are the witness of your self. Ask the question: who is your witness? The answer is, the world. So, when you are the world, you are identifying with the world.
S: I am the creator state?
F: Yes. Then it is true to say that. Then the world obeys you, because you are everywhere, at all times, and in all energies ( including matter). Because you exist at all times, you become deathless.
S: So, when the world does not obey me, I am saying that I am different from the world, separated from it, and the world obeys me, agreeing with me that it is separate. What does all this have to do with Sri Chakra?
F: I have been talking about the first three enclosures, the square-waking awareness, 16petals-dreaming imagining awarenss, 8 petals-sleeping unconsciuosness. The inner circle has to be approached through putting thinking mind to sleep, and feeling mind to sleep, putting both to sleep, just abiding in a pure consciousness. Then you enter the world state, and then the energies making this world, the trinity and beyond. All this is Sri Chakra.
S: Is there some course on achieving "I am creator" state of Samadhi?
F: Sure. Pray to Shakti to reveal Her secrets and be your comanion-mentor-guide-guru. She will surely help you. If your compassionate mother doesn't help you, who will?
S: What about science?
F: All science is Mother, Saraswati. She can teach you. Love and Nature are also your Mothers. They can also mentor you. Shiva dances because Shakti gives him life.
S: One final question. If I choose to be good, will you help me?
F: What more can I ask for? May Shiva and Shakti dance in the atirudra yagam conducted in a grand style by S.
Source: Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati (Guruji), "Conversation between a spiritual father and son," amritananda-natha-saraswati.blogspot.com. The dialogue itself is dated Visakhapatnam, 6 Mar 2010.
Beneath his own dialogue, Guruji added words from the scholar Kamalakara Mishra, to deepen the point he was making. Mishra lays out how different schools of Indian thought describe what the liberated soul is actually left with. Vaishesika says the soul keeps only bare existence. Samkhya adds knowledge to that existence. Vedanta adds bliss on top of existence and knowledge, but still holds the soul is inactive once free. Kashmir Tantra and Sri Vidya go one step further, saying the free soul also keeps activity, joy, and freedom to act, not just quiet awareness.
"Moksa or liberation is nothing else but the awareness of one's true nature." — Kamalakara Mishra, quoting the Tantraloka
Mishra also points to Abhinavagupta's idea that this awakening feels like remembering a wealth you had forgotten was yours all along, not gaining something new. Guruji shared this to back up his own point in the dialogue above: real freedom is not going still and empty, it is remembering the fuller, more active self you already are.
The father's teaching that "small and big are illusions" is close to the heart of inner worship in this path. You are asked to sit with the idea that the world you experience is shaped by your own mind, not separate from you and not something only "out there." That is a doorway into treating your own body and awareness as the real site of practice, not just a place you visit religion from.
The three steps toward Samadhi, Yoga Nidra, Nata Nidra, and Samadhi itself, describe a quieting that happens inside you, without needing any object, image, or outer ritual. This is the same inward movement that body worship and meditation in this lineage point toward: quiet the thinking mind, quiet the feeling mind, and let pure awareness remain.
Mishra's point about moksha still including activity and joy also matches how this path treats outer worship, such as yantra, homam, or deity puja. These practices are not meant to be abandoned once you go inward. Guruji's own life shows a person can rest in deep awareness and still act, teach, and build things in the world.
In the dialogue, the father tells the son that the world he sees exists only in his own mind, and did not exist before he was born and will not exist for him after he dies. Because of this, the father says the son is its creator, even though the world feels much bigger than him.
Guruji compares this to a parent and child. Parents create a child, but the child still has a life of its own and does not simply obey them. The world you create, in the same way, has taken on a life of its own.
Guruji lists Yoga Nidra, a conscious dream state involving astral interactions, then Nata Nidra, a conscious feeling state connected to the dynamic meditation of Nataraja, and finally Samadhi, pure consciousness where no object is seen and only the witness remains.
Guruji ties the states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping to the first three enclosures of the Sri Chakra. He describes moving inward through these enclosures by quieting the thinking mind and the feeling mind, until only pure consciousness remains.
The post also shares words from the scholar Kamalakara Mishra, who explains that different Indian philosophies describe moksha differently. He points out that Kashmir Tantra and Sri Vidya are unique in saying the liberated self is still full of joyful activity, not just still awareness.
Read the original: Conversation between a spiritual father and son, on Guruji's blog. It also carries the full words of Kamalakara Mishra on moksha, quoted there in Guruji's own post.
A reflection on the idea that you create the world you experience, not just pass through it.
A plain explanation of the word Sri Vidya and what it points to.
Guruji's own plain teaching on the ten Mahavidyas.
If something in this teaching landed for you, the best next step is a short private conversation.
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