Lust for life
July 2015
By Pradeep Krishnan
Pradeep Krishnan, meets Sri Atmananda who believes that spirituality is about experiencing life fully by experiencing yourself fully
I have always had a passion for meeting gurus, since they help me to have more clarity in my spiritual quest. Recently, when I came to know that Sri Atmananda, a Hyderabad-based New-Age guru, was holding spiritual sessions in Thiruvananthapuram, I decided to join them. At the introductory session itself Sri Atmananda, the 35-year-old ayurvedic doctor turned spiritual guru, enthralled the hundred-odd audience with his powerful presentation of ideas. In the meditation session that followed, seekers had a unique experience of peace, bliss and happiness engulfing them.
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Kavuri Sai Siva Prakash (KSS Prakash) was born in 1980 to Sri K Ramachandra Moorty and Smt K Rajalakshmi in Hyderabad. Even at the age of seven he used to say that one day he would initiate and give deeksha to several seekers. After attaining self-realization in the year 2000, Prakash took a degree in ayurveda and started practizing at the behest of his parents and guru. However, Providence had its way, and in 2006, Dr. KSS Prakash quit the medical profession to dedicate his life to making people experience the bliss that he had achieved. Soon he started conducting spiritual programmes all over India, based on the Himalayan way of cosmic healing and meditation, that he had devised. Before long, disciples had started addressing him as Sri Atmananda and guruji and in due course Siddha Sanmarga, a charitable trust, was established to coordinate his spiritual programmes.
Sri Atmananda conducts programmes on sanmarga meditation and healing, Shri Vidya sadhana, dynamic resonance meditation and dynamic cosmic meditation all described as the Himalayan way of cosmic healing, which reportedly yield faster results in healing physical ailments, and clearing the chaos in one’s life. Sri Atmananda is married to Smt. Renuka and lives in Hyderabad.
Apart from conducting regular courses and seminars, Sri Atmananda conducts meditation courses for imparting efficient leadership and management skills and releasing the stress and anxiety of senior executives of several corporate houses. His official website declares, “His teachings guide everyone to lead a complete and successful life, ultimately allowing one to merge with the infinite bliss. His mission is to take the eternal cosmic light to every individual on this planet Earth and thereby turn this world a better place to live in.”
Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Sri Atmananda:
Please tell us about your spiritual journey. How did you come to this path? Who is your guru? What was the turning point in your life?
Around the age of seven, while playing with my friends near a pond in my father’s village, I fell into it and started drowning. Sometime later, a woman appeared from somewhere and took me to a nearby hut. She put me me in her lap and whispered in my ear that she would give me “something.” Thereafter, she took me to my home and introduced herself as “Yellamma.” Later, when my parents went near the pond to give her some gifts and express their gratitude for saving my life, the locals asserted that no such lady by the name Yellamma lived near the pond except the goddess of the nearby temple. My parents were dumbfounded and believed that goddess Yellama had indeed saved me. At that age I never realised that it was a spiritual experience. Everyone forgot that incident. After several years around the age of 19-20, while I was in deep meditation, a lady appeared before me. When I asked her who she was, she smiled, and at once the childhood incident came to my mind, shattering me completely. Instantly, self-realisation happened. It was a turning point in my life. In fact, in this life, I was never under a specific guru having the relationship of teacher and student. However, soon after this realization a Himalayan yogi appeared before me and initiated me. I believe that it was this yogi, my guru, who made me aware of my childhood experience. When I asked his name, he asked, “Do you need the truth or the matter?” After that I never asked his name. My guru, the nameless Himalayan yogi, sent me to several other gurus and teachers to learn different methods and techniques, including Sri Vidya. The mysterious Himalayan master still keeps visiting me and guides me at every step. Generally, I do not like to make this public, but I feel that he is instructing me to share this with you.
How did Dr. KSS Prakash become Guruji Atmanandaji?
My guru has chosen me as an instrument to spread spiritual wisdom. He prepared me for a bigger role in life and was the first to tell me that my mission in life was to awaken people and make them experience their own self. However, Dr KSS Prakash happened because my guru and my parents wanted me to have a degree. Thereafter, from the age of 19-20, my guru, the nameless Himalyan yogi, started moulding me into a spiritual teacher, to spread experiential spirituality to mankind, which is a path designed by our rishis. He taught me how to give people experiential spirituality and make them conscious of their own inner potential. Atmananda happened because of my guru.
What, according to you, is true spirituality and how can it be practised?
Spirituality can never be practised, only religion can be practised. Only confused people practise, people with clarity live. Spirituality has to be experienced, as it is not practising some ritual or the other. Spirituality is expressing and experiencing one’s own self fully. It is never arriving at something or the other. In fact, even practising meditation for many years too will not make one spiritual. People who had meditated for years together have told me that they have not experienced a still mind. The lives of great masters like Sri Ramana, Nityananda, Sai Baba, Meher Baba, had changed completely once they had the experience of their own self. True spirituality is a skill that enables one to enjoy one’s own being by expressing oneself fully each and every moment.
What do you mean by experiential spirituality?
These days, people, by and large, are not taught about life and living. Rather they are taught about earning and running behind objects. Spirituality is neither worshipping some yantras nor is it about getting release from the so-called doshas. Even spiritually-oriented people are stranded or confined to their own method or system. Hence they don’t know how to face the vicissitudes of life with a calm mind. Even if a small problem crops up, they become perplexed and bewildered. Experiential spirituality equips one to face life boldly and courageously. It is neither performing rituals mindlessly for days and months together, nor is it about forming a sect. It is about the awakening of one’s inner being. The Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, proclaim that one is an eternal soul, the infinite all-pervasive God. Experiential spirituality is an inside out journey that awakens one to the all-pervasive, infinite, Source within. It gives people the experience of their own being 24x7x365. This is a path devised by our great maharshis and I am here to make people aware of it.
Other than living is there any other purpose to human life?
Living is remaining in a state of perfect harmony within one’s own self, when one experiences peace, tranquillity and joy with effortlessness. Living itself is the all-inclusive purpose. God had created life because life is the perfect expression of creation. The purpose of living is generally misunderstood to be to make money, or attain a position. Nowadays, people are crazy to find a purpose for life. Man is not supposed to run after some purpose. According to Sanathana Dharma, true living happens when one can experience both joy and sorrow with an equal mind. Unfortunately, we don’t have that ability. The purpose of life is neither bliss nor enlightenment, neither this nor that, but to experience one’s own self. What is important is to live in tune with self-expression, so that the purpose of one’s life flows naturally. Out of such a living, events and deeds emerge on its own. A spiritually-oriented person should have ‘ful-fillment.’ Once you are full, naturally you fill others. If I am not full and am trying to fill others then it becomes a mockery. The purpose of life is to enjoy it completely and fully, enjoying the difficulties, troubles and enjoyment itself as a flow, as an expression of one’s own self.
Tell us about Siddha Sanmarga, the path you devised. How can it help to get rid of the conditioned mind and lead one towards total freedom?
The siddha sanmarga, the parampara that I come from is a supramental lineage started by the ancient hierarchy, the masters of the Blue Mountain (nilgiris), and the masters of the White Lotus Clan that helps to channelise the Supreme Cosmic Light flow to an individual, which naturally awakens the inner avenues of that person. In this path, from the very first initiation, the ‘being’ of the person is awakened by synchronising his heart and mind. If the heart and mind are not in tune with each other, naturally conflicts would arise. This path equips one to enjoy one’s own being every moment by bringing alignment to one’s mind and heart. Such an alignment naturally brings perfection in everything that one does. Difficulties, confusions, and problems will naturally move away from such a person.
Nowadays one can see several paths and innumerable gurus. How to choose or select one’s own path?
That is the uniqueness of Sanathana Dharma. Since time immemorial, we Indians have had innumerable gurus and paths. But the important factor is the ability to choose one’s own guru. One should not choose one’s guru merely by his looks or by the number of his followers. The Guru Granth Sahib says that he only is a real guru in whose presence one experiences the sense of bliss effortlessly. A guru is one who can give the disciple the experience of bliss spontaneously. A guru who makes the disciple experience his own perfection, who awakens the disciple to experience ahamsampurna is the right guru.
You say “mankind was not meant to suffer, but to experience the best of the best on planet Earth. It is only through ignorance and accumulation of negative karmas that there is untold suffering.” How to end suffering and how to avoid accumulation of negative karmas?
Mankind is not meant to suffer because mankind is an embodiment of perfection. What we consider as suffering is due to non-understanding of the natural laws of existence. Both the devas as well as asuras, the positive and negative energy, came from the same source, Brahma. But unfortunately, we are not taught to use the positive and negative energies properly. In fact, both suffering and happiness arise from the same source, one’s own mind. Actually, suffering acts as a propulsive factor in life. The more one concentrates on one’s own being, neither suffering nor happiness will affect him. When one has a perfect state of awareness, when one is aware of one’s own being, suffering will at once vanish.
True spirituality is a skill that enables one to enjoy one’s own being by expressing oneself fully each and every moment
What is your concept of God?
It is the universal Governing-Operating-Device. Any expression of existence can be called God. In the Universe, existence and expression can never be separated and existence devoid of expression can never happen. Expression is the manifestation of existence. Where there is existence, expression can never be denied. All existence and expressions together is God. Expression is active God and existence is passive God. You exist so you are God.
How does healing happen in a body?
Healing is remaining in a state of perfect natural harmony. Our human body was not created or designed to bear suffering. The human body is designed in such a way to balance its own instabilities. Healing is synchronising the mind and heart to let it remain in a state of natural harmony. For healings to happen, experiences have to be created. When one’s mind, being, awakens, the natural system for harmony at once happens.
What is your message to our readers?
Be your true self and be spiritual. Don’t try to be spiritual. Try to be your own self.
About the author : Pradeep Krishnan, a seeker based in Trivandrum, is deeply attracted to the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.