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By Bente Marcussen

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 andteacher in high school level. For me themost exciting journey is traveling frommy head to my heart. As a breathingtherapist I use liberating breathing,dance and yoga in the workshopsI give in Norway and in Sinai. Onmy spiritual journey I never felt any

urge to visit traditional ashrams withgurus at the top of a hierarchy anddisciples worshipping their guru.Meeting Sri Vast last Summer at thengsbackafestival in Sweden, I knewhe was a different master. In his ashramwe are all like a big family. I have nowstayed two months in Sri Vast ashram.Sri Vast teaches that we are all equal,we are all enlightened. He shows us theway out of the old roles, also the guru/disciple roles. His teachings inspire

me and help me to come closer to MySelf. It is a natural, grounded, ecologicalspirituality. And there is a lot of laughter,singing, dancing and celebrating everymoment in the ashram.

When looking back on the two monthsI have spent here I can clearly see that

I have reached closer to my heart,which is also My Self. I wish to sharethe wisdom of Sri Vast and the joy andcelebration, which has inspired me inhis ashram. Therefore I have made a

personal interview with Sri Vast. If whatyou read here inspires you, you havethe opportunity to meet him in Norwayin June. See announcement in thismagazine.

Do you have any vision or any aims?

No big visions, other than helping peo-ple to see their natural state, which is the

untrained state of the Self. Rather thantalking about Enlightenment, I am busyin Celebrating Life, by enjoying everymoment. I dont see myself as a teacherbut 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. Iwant to bring Spirituality down to the practical level, into peoples everydaylife. God is not a distant, exotic, figure.God is within us and everywhere. God isthe Self. When we approach God withinus we bring God closer to our practical

life. We dont need exotic ways or par-ticular forms to approach God. I wantto create an empty space where peoplecan experience themselves totally. Thenthey meet beyond their conditions andold patterns. When seeing their patterns,they can reflect upon them and act innew ways.

Is it enough to see these patterns?

Yes, just see these patterns and the ro-les you are playing in your practicallife. When you get aware of how youplay the roles, you have got the space,which gives the choice to performthem or not. This helps you to be in the

present moment in whatever you do. Nopattern is right or wrong. The importantthing is the awareness. If you manage to be totally aware in every moment youare in the awaken state. Whatever youchoose gives you an experience. Withawareness you will be able to choosewhat is beneficial and to jump out ofold, limiting patterns that you develop

through training from childhood.

Are all our patterns due to our trai-

ning?

Look at small children! They are in theirnatural state. They are free. The pat-terns are developed through your condi-

SPIRITUALLIBERATIONfrom the Myth of Spirituality

You are naturally enlightened but you

have forgotten. The obstacles to cometo reach yourself are your ignorance.

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tioning. You learnt what you should andshould not do. Even games for childrencome with a manual, so they learn to do

it the right way. The roles we play areresults of these patterns. You have ideasabout how to be a wife, a husband, ateacher, a mother etc. These ideas createyour roles. The ways you play your ro-les influence your emotions. Feelingscannot be controlled, they just appear.It doesnt matter whether you pattern isgood or bad. By seeing it, you will seeif you struggle with it. And you have achoice to change it, or to play it cons-ciously. By changing patterns, feelingswill also change. Our likes and dislikescome from our patterns. For example: IfI think from the role of a Hindu, I mightdislike Muslims. If I de-identify with thatrole, my feelings will change. If youchoose to jump out of a pattern, andmany of your friends have the same pattern, they may not like it. Thosefriends will also jump out. Most ofyour friends are friends of your par-ticular patterns. If you dont play thatrole they have nothing to relate to. Wecommunicate 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 lovesthemselves. It is impossible not to do so.You cannot recognize love in anotherwithout loving yourself! Even if youthink you dont love yourself you buyclothes and food for you. That is out oflove towards yourself. When you knowthis you can make choices that bring

love back. There is no need to learn tolove, only recognize in what way youare loving yourself. Love is inbuilt inLife itself. When people talk about love,they dont talk about love itself, but thelanguage of love. We are trained to ex- press love in certain ways. If a persondoes not speak your language he can

still speak. He loves, but gives it anotherexpression. A translation is needed. Theteachers role is to understand and help

with the translation help you to un-derstand the Love beyond the language experience Love in every moment. Byloving your Self, you will love others.When analyzing your language of Loveyou can also see what patterns that arebringing or blocking the love in your lifeand thus make new choices.

What about the Ego?

It is about cooking something for youor cooking for others! By cooking foryou, there is no ego. You dont cook toimpress others. It is an inward act, notan ego act. The ego is active if you actin order to be seen and respected by

others. The ego is linked to the mind. Ithas a past and a future. The child actsto survive, not to be popular. Childrenconduct pure acts to meet the moment,totally free and innocent. The mind andego are future oriented which is a conti-nuation of the past. Acting from inside,meeting the moment means to experi-ence the inner Self. This is to live in anawakened, meditative state, which wecall enlightenment.

Living like this is often known as Sel-fishness.

This is not Selfishness but Self-fullness.I teach Self-fullness. You may call it Sel-fishness. This kind of Selfishness is verygood because it is the only way to knowyour Self. You are the Self beyond all

your ideas. And this Self is intentionlessand futureless. It meets every momentas fresh, as a newly bloomed flower so

that it can enjoy the fragrance of thismoment. This is meditation. I want peo-ple to live in meditation every moment.Some people say that they meditate halfan hour daily. That means there are 23 hours when they dont meditate. Theylearn to separate meditation from Life,like many religions separate God fromthe Life. If meditation becomes an act,it is not a part of the moment. Medita-tion means to live totally, participatingin life fully and celebrating that parti-cipation. Only through celebration youmeet God.

Is that what you teach people visiting

your ashram?

Yes, we share our celebration. Here thespace is created to meet the momentstogether. Beyond their past, beyondtheir future, beyond their conditions, beyond their ideas. My whole effortis to create emptiness where the Selfcan be realized. This effort is madeeffortlessly, this is the purpose of this

ashram. Here all the efforts are madeto help people to find their natural state.Only by being natural we can experiencewhat God is. God is supernatural. Super-ly natural. When we become natural we become newborn children where eachmoment 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. Peopleare busy in their unnatural dramas, theirtrained states. When you get aware ofyour unnatural state you get the possibi-lity to become natural. Then old patternsbecome invalid, you loose your emotio-nal links to those patterns. In your Na-tural state you are absorbed towards the

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

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.

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Supernatural. There you experience theinfinite which is the Kingdom of Heavenwhich Jesus referred to.

Is that what Enlightenment is about?

Yes, an enlightened person experiencesthe natural state of every moment. Thereis no struggle there. Struggle appearsonly in the unnatural state, in your mind,

in your patterns.

Is there no suffering in the Enlighte-

ned state?

Suffering is something happening in themind. Suffering is created by the past/future-oriented mind. Suffering is due tothe attachment. Pain happens in the mo-ment. You have to meet the pain other-wise you suppress it. When you suppressthe pain, it becomes a seed for suffering.If you meet and accept the pain it canbe a seed for your growth. Acceptanceis different from agreeing. Accept that itis paining. Accept that this pain does notbelong to you. Then it will become cle-ar, the root of the pain from which youwant to be liberated. Liberation leads tothe natural state. Enlightenment is theSelf-realizedstate, which isnothing but thenatural state.

How to get

there?You are natu-rally enligh-tened but youhave forgotten.Getting back there happens when youcome closer to yourself. The obstacles tocome to reach yourself are your ignoran-ce. You have to liberate from your igno-rance. This liberation happens throughsurrendering. Surrendering is the keyfor self-realization. You can surrender to

anything, you can surrender to a stone,to a tree or to a person. Surrendering isimportant. Total surrendering is an ego-less act where you dont differentiateyourself and what you are surrenderingto. When you are surrendering, yourare surrendering your ignorances. Yourignorances are nothing but your identi-fications, claimings, comparisons, sepa-rations. When you are surrendering youare surrendering your I-state. When ithappens you dont identify yourself withyour ego, mind or even your body. Then

there is no claiming and suffering. Therethe great Silence arises within. In thatsilence you realize the Self. Your reali-zation is that you are the Self which isinfinite. Beyond. Vast.

When you meet someone, do you con-

nect to their Self?

Yes, I meet the natural, joyful state in pe-ople. That is why we have so much funin the ashram. We celebrate every day,every moment. I can also see peoplesstruggles in their unnatural states, intheir ignorances. By helping them torealize themselves their lives transform.

I can see the God in you and I can playwith that God. That is why I see all asenlightened. I am not here to enlightenyou. This thinking would mean I regardyou as unenlightened and something lessthan me, which is not true. When a per-son is enlightened, when the realizationis made, that persons world becomesenlightened. The person experience theenlightened world. In that world he canexperience everything as enlightened sothat nothing is there to be enlightened.Enlightenment is not something thathappened in a persons life once upona time. Its happening every moment inyour life, in your every approach whichis totally now.

Will people experience this by staying

in your ash-

ram?

This opportu-nity is given.It is their ownchoice. Dont

come here tobe Enlightened but come hereto celebratethe enlighte-

ning moments with us. In my world youare all enlightened. Come here to realizethe natural state of you and celebratethat realization.

Have you always been in touch with

your enlightened state?

As a child I had many transcendentalexperiences. I was away about an houror two at the time. I came to a totally be-autiful world where life is experiencedin its totality in harmony with the wholeexistence, the experience of being one.When I returned back it was like wa-king up from a dream but it was not adream. It was the existence on anotherlevel, out of my body. For some years Iwondered which one of the two worldsthat is true. These transcendental experi-ences kept me away from suffering since

I experienced another existence of mewhere there is no suffering. I was able tosee the sufferings in others due to theirignorances.

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 startedto breathe together in one single breath.

I was totally in bliss.

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And how was your childhood?

My family was worried in the begin-ning, but they got used to it. Mymother raised me and my sister. Myfather died before I was born. Mymother was open and strong. Shegave me great acceptance for being just the way I was. She encouragedme. She didnt control me. She often

invited wise people and spiritual teac-hers so I could share some of my expe-riences and ask questions. I spent muchtime in silence, walking on the beach. Ididnt like to take part in the games ofother children, which were competi-tive. I saw life in a different way. I hadfew selected friends. Sometimes I hadsharings at my veranda from the ageof 6. The kids found me entertaining,and they brought their parents. Myout-of-body-experiences got strongerand longer at the age of 15. They keptme on the track of seeing life beyondthe usual. It was a life beyond all de-mands, struggles and fights.

I grew up in a sharing, compassio-nate society with freedom and love.I got breast milk from many mothersin my village until I was 8 years old.They were so proud of feeding me. Iwas raised both in the Vedic and inthe Christian tradition. In the Catholicschool I could not adjust to the many

rules. I realized that the school systemdid not support inner growth. Whenspeaking my wisdom I was beaten upphysically. I remember saying: I washere 2000 years ago, you didnt learnanything then. I was punished forclaiming to be Jesus. I told them I wasnot Jesus but that we share the sameChristhood and that they now face thisChristhood as 2000 years earlier.

At the age of 23 I started an ecologi-

cal, educational center. In this centermany elders, yogis and teachers cameto share their knowledge. Many peo-ple came from different paths to joinus. We gave free education and freehealth care for the village people whe-re we used natural healing, herbs, andAyurvedic medicine. We got financialsupport from many different institutionsfor this. We had many projects and edu-cations to explore how we can live har-moniously with the nature.

Did you learn from any special guru

or teacher?

No, I was never a seeker. I didnt agreewith any religion. I had my inner wis-dom from childhood. My transcendentalexperiences gave me practical wisdom

to approach the life. I saw how each mo-ment built a foundation for the next mo-ment. At the age of 31 in the middle of acold and snowy winter in Sweden I felldown while meditating. I went out of mybody. I saw the whole galaxy becoming

small, and the whole existence started to

breathe together in one single breath.I was totally in bliss. Back in my bodyI was hot, sweating, and I couldntmove. I was weightless and the bre-athing was changed. All my questionswere answered. The total purpose ofliving revealed itself. I have experien-ced myself through all the beings, inall forms. The past discontinued and

the future also disappeared. The greatacceptance of life aroused. Existenceopened up to me. Such a silence, such abliss! Life became endless, goalless andageless, just a great silence the silence

of Samadhi. Then I knew that everyt-hing is enlightened in this world.

You are engaged in environmental,

ecological lifestyle. Can you tell so-

mething about this?

My teaching is to combine Spiritualand Ecological thinking and living.A new approach is needed. It is notabout growing flowers and trees wit-hout chemicals. It is about bloomingtogether! It is a big difference whetherI regard a tree as a piece of wood formy consumption or if I regard the treeas a living being. Why do humansthink that nature is meant for humanneeds? If we become co-existent withthe nature, we cannot just see it as apiece of wood or a stone. Then it will be like two individuals experiencing

life on this planet together. We havediverted life and made hierarchic ideasabout higher and lower beings. That isone of the reasons for the suffering onour planet. For me it is not about cul-tivating organic food, but about culti-vating organic persons. I extend myrelationship and experience of livingbeyond the humans. My teachings areto broaden the human perspective onlife, expanding your experience of theexistence.

This view seems to oppose the In-

dian thinking that make the cast

system possible.

I am not opposing since I am not pro-posing. I am just creating the aware-ness. The cast system is nothing but ahierarchy. You need a concept to sus-

tain the hierarchy. The rulers say that thesystem is created by God. The cast sys-tem is built on the belief of karma I didsomething good in the past life and thereward is being born into a higher cast.

You did something wrong in your past

The spiritual person is grounded.

The spiritual person is busy in

being, not busy in attaining and

accumulating.

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 flow of Love.

- Sri Vast

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

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life and your reward is to be born in alower cast. By blaming the past you ac-cept the slavery of the low cast system.If God judge you, he is judgmental, thenthere is no God. God is love and accep-tance. God is totally busy in celebratingthis moment. God has no time to look atwhat happened in the past!

Many religions, philosophers, priestsand gurus separate you and God. By ma-king you human and a sinner, they createthemselves as Gods in their mind, in theirbelief system. Their way of understan-ding karma as a result of past lives ac-tions make them keep up the cast system.It also makes them earn more money inthe name of removing karmas from pastlives. Karma is nothing but what youcarry in this life, created by you in your past. Every step you make today crea-tes karma for tomorrow. I teach libe-ration from all kinds of identification.When you transform, you cannot bein any cast or any other mind-createdsystem. All your identifications comefrom ignorance, whether you identifywith the Brahmin cast, with being anIndian or a Norwegian. I do not givesolutions to your problems since theyare illusions. I do not give people newidentities. I ask you to come out of anykind of identification to be liberated.I do not ask you to change this or that,

I bring your self to your senses so thatyou can develop all your potentials.

We are trained to use our mind and ne-glect our senses. The more we controlour senses, the more we identify withthe mind. Then our senses loose thecapacity to live in the moment. Reli-gions teach us to control. I teach hownot to control, but to sense totally, toexperience the connection betweenyourself and the existence.

You use the term God. Is that the

same as the Self?

God is your Self. The whole existence isthe existence of God. You meet the Godby being God. Being God means beinglove, being love means responding. Torespond you have to be to be alive. To bealive you have to be in this moment. Andwhen you meet this moment you experi-ence being total. In that totality God isexperienced.

What is spirituality to you?For me, being spiritual means beingnatural. I break the ideas of how to bespiritual. There are no dogmas, no beliefsystems, only a grounded practical spi-

rituality. All children are naturally spiri-tual. The ways they are nurtured by theircaretakers help them to keep it or blockit. People told my mother that I was veryspecial as a child. I told her that theyare fooled by their mind, because if oneout of hundred children are special, theother 99 are not special and we createthese separations. This kind of separa-

tions removes the spirituality from thepersons life. We are all special. Whenyou are free from these comparisons andseparations you become spiritual. Thespiritual person is grounded. The spiri-tual person is busy in being, not busy inattaining and accumulating.

Do you get reactions from other spiri-

tual centers?

Yes, I dont live up to others expectationsabout a spiritual teacher. I am married,

even to a Westerner. I have two children.I never married a woman, but a person.Some teachers dont understand my un-dogmatic, practical spirituality. Otherscome here to get new inspiration.

You also work in Europe, dont you?

Yes, I live partly in Sweden and partly inIndia. During my stay we give many re-treats and Satsangs in many countries in

Europe. The West needs awakening. To-day the East is trying to reach the wes-tern materialistic, stressful lifestyle. Ifthe West transform, the rest of the worldwill follow.

I enjoy the Satsangs you give 3 nights

a week. What is a Satsang?

The Song of Sat. Sat means truth, a sha-ring of the truth. The teaching of thatmoment. Satsang teachings are not fromthe mind. It is not something you pre-pare in advance or something that comesfrom the books. The beauty is the liste-ning to the silence of the teacher. There

you meet your inner silence.

Sri Vasts ashram is a Center for lear-

ning and transformation, a harmonious

place for people to study and to find 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 en-riches the individual learning process.

Holistic Educational programs that

explores the holiness of everything are

offered for 1 to 6 months intensive co-

urses. People come here from all over

the world to study and to grow spiritu-

ally. Many different courses and edu-

cations are available, for example the

Yoga Teacher Education, Ayurvedic

Lifestyle Consultant, Ecology and Spi-

rituality and Sustainable Development

and Inner Yoga and Natural Healing.

It is also possible to come here for dif-

ferent retreats with Sri Vast, for treat-

ments at the Ayurvedic clinic or just to

stay and participate in the community

life.

There are also many projects to empo-

wer the local communities. Vocational

Skill Training is offered to villagers

that are unemployed. Many of them

are fishermen afraid to go back to thesea for fishing after Tsunami. The ash-

ram also provides free medical camps

and counseling services to a large num-

ber of villages. A kindergarten is also

run by the center for the local people. All

this work is financed by donations and

funds from giving retreats and educatio-

nal programs at the center.

For more information on Sri Vast Center,

please see: www.vastcenter.org

Note: this article was first 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.