Sri Preethaji: Daily Practices to Creating a Happier You!

In an ever-increasing world of stress and unhappiness many have turned to spirituality as a guiding light to achieve inner peace and joy. We meet with Sri Preethaji of Ekam, described as a mystic space for the transformation of human consciousness. She, along with her husband Sri Krishnaji are spreading their knowledge and offering tools and practices to liberate humanity from suffering and lead seekers from across the globe on the path to enlightenment. Sri Preethaji has co-authored the US best-selling book, The Four Sacred Secrets, along with Sri Krishnaji, in 2018 and together they have taught the Enlightened Living Series on India’s television channel Times Now for over six months.

Priyaanka: Could you share with us the philosophy of Ekam?

Sri Preethaji: The vision of Ekam is to help individuals live an enlightened life; in an enlightened state, and we are very specific about creating a transition in humanity’s consciousness. We believe that when there is a particular number of people who can live in this profound state of consciousness, then it is possible to create a race transition in humanity’s consciousness. We help individuals nurture a beautiful state of consciousness, that is, the inner experience. This includes thoughts, emotions, perceptions, beliefs, the chemical rush that you experience, everything that you experience internally.

Every human being only lives one’s life in two states. You are either in a state which is internally disturbing, or in a state which is very calming, very peaceful. We call it a stressful state and a beautiful state. If you’re able to live a life that is free of suffering, live a life that is free of stress, you experience a very beautiful quality of life.

So, it doesn’t matter where you are living, how you’re living, what mode of transportation you’re using. Those are comforts and external. The experience of life is uncomfortable when you have tuned and sculpted your brain and your consciousness to live in stressful states, it is hurting your body. It is hurting your mind. It is hurting your consciousness. It is hurting your life. And we teach with our practices, our meditations, our processes, people to help move out of stressful states to move into beautiful states.

Priyaanka: In today’s day and age, we are moving so fast and we are constantly so stressed that I don’t know, if any one of us really pauses and looks inward and actually even asks, how am I really feeling? What is making me react? What are my triggers? Could you share some practical steps that an individual can take to move to a more blissful state and be more spiritually aware?

Sri Preethaji: That is the sad part. You can see the actual repercussions of scores of people living in the state of anxiety and stress all the time. There’s a breakdown in the families, in society, within nations and between nations. There is a breakdown that is palpable, but to assume that it is caused by some external factor outside, and you’re not responsible for it is ignorance. What we say is just as you have a vision for your external life in terms of your children, your family, your wealth, your health, your relationship, you also need to have a vision for your inner state. We call it a spiritual vision. When you are in a state of suffering, nobody gives you a solution. People say that it’s life. The word acceptability is overused, but what do you need to accept? Are you able to accept it? Is it easy to accept? These are the questions that we need to ask. It is as if you are sculpting your inner experience with holding a spiritual vision. What happens is when there is a disturbing inner experience, you need to bring attention to it. Just because you’re running away from it, using different entertainment or different escape routes, you’re running away from it, but it is continuing to build and that’s what is showing up in your relationships. You can’t be stressed and believe that you’re having a beautiful family because stress and love really don’t go together. When you are in stress mode, please understand that you’re not there for your children. When you are stressed, you are not being productive enough at work. You are not mentally present. You can’t be the most creative person. Your energy is torn. A large sum of energy is getting used to manage your stress.

So, what this spiritual vision helps you to do is every time you get stressed, not that you run away or escape through some philosophy but you need to bring attention to your inner state. And there are two practices that I would highly, highly recommend.

One is the Serene Mind practice. Every moment you feel uncomfortable within yourself, it can be your go-to practice. It is mystical as well as scientific. It is scientific in the sense it changes the activation in your brain. When you’re stressed, your amygdala and the hippocampus are overactive. It changes the activation from that region to the medial prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for greater calm, greater connection and awareness. So Serene Mind is a very simple three-minute practice.

For people who have never looked inward, it can be a little tricky. But believe me, I have taught this practice all over the world. People take their time to get a hang of it, but once they get a hang of it, it’s actually rewiring the brain, allowing them to move to a place of calm rather than allowing stress to destroy their lives and their bodies and their health.

The other practice that I would highly recommend is a daily Soul Sync practice. You can do it in the morning or you can do it at night, whichever is comfortable for you. That is a 12-minute practice. Both are available in detail online.

Soul sync practice is a very beautiful practice. People who have been a pro in meditation use it. People who have never meditated, who are doing it for the first time also use it. It is holistic. It pushes your body into a place of calm. It leaves your mind into a place of quiet and your consciousness, the sense of self is expanded. And in that sense, when your sense of self is expanded, you are allowed to hold one particular intention that you want to see manifest in your life. So that’s why I say it’s a daily practice. It sets a vision in that space of expansion; you are realizing that vision. It works on your breath and on your awareness.

Priyaanka: Are you noticing an increasing trend of people moving towards spirituality and questioning the purpose of life? The meaning of life? Is there an increasing curiosity?

Sri Preethaji: Where the world was 10-15 years ago and where the world is right now today in terms of spirituality, there is a huge shift. People are looking at spirituality to manage their stress, to create a beautiful family, to become efficient at work. We have leaders of different leading organizations leaning towards spirituality to have clarity and purpose. Earlier spirituality was considered for a small group of seekers. Now we have children as young as 16 or 20 coming for a 42-day immersion for spirituality. Most people who get in touch with us are wanting to take a deep dive, just not superficial. It’s not a lifestyle change. They really want to feel different. They want to live differently. They want to experience great love and togetherness in their family.

Priyaanka: How would you explain our purpose of being here as someone who is enlightened? Because we are all seeking our purpose, but what is it and why are we here?

Sri Preethaji: The two-level answer that both Sri Krishnaji and I give for this question, the first level would be the more you feel connected to life, the more you can feel connected to people in your life and life itself. The situation that is around you. You discover what you need to be doing with your life because you want to create a difference. You want to impact. The more you are connected, there is a purpose that drives from within you. You are seeing that I can make this impact in the world. And that is one level of purpose.

Another level of purpose is when you are in a very profound state of consciousness. When you are experiencing this moment completely and fully. When you’re totally present, then this question of what is my purpose doesn’t arise because you’re living it. You are living and experiencing completely. Sri Krishnaji says the ultimate purpose of life is to be enlightened. And when you’re enlightened, these questions dissolve when you are totally present in life experiencing this moment.

Priyaanka: On the concept of karma, when people talk about balancing good and bad in your life and taking multiple life births in that cycle of balancing good and bad deeds, it sounds like it’s an endless cycle because in many ways we will always be indebted. Is there a way to transcend this?

Sri Preethaji: The way to transcend this is to transcend suffering. When you are free of every form of suffering. The loneliness, the meaninglessness, the boredom. When you’re able to transcend that experience of suffering, that is when you have transcended karma; that you’ve transcended the wheel of samskara. It ties in to what we teach here. We teach people to move away from suffering states and move into beautiful states. The more you are able to do it, the more you are becoming free of those patterns repeating over several lifetimes. You’re here to learn a lesson. You’re here to learn freedom. You’re here to learn freedom from suffering. And if you have experienced that freedom from suffering, and if you’re able to actually live in a state of calm, irrespective of your life situations, then you have ended a cycle.

Priyaanka: Does the understanding of spirituality change depending on which religion I belong to?

Sri Preethaji: See every religion started off with somebody or many people having very profound experiences of consciousness. It is actually spirituality with which it has started; experiencing incredible love, incredible oneness, moving into the transcendence, experiencing the divine, feeling one with the divine. All these are experiences in consciousness and religions have started with such powerful experiences. Religion is a code; a code that is set for you and you have to adhere to that code. Of course, Hinduism is a little freer as opposed to the other Semitic religions that the world is seeing. But still, when it just becomes a code and does not translate into your inner joy and inner experience of the divine, or it doesn’t translate into the inner experience of love, then it’s just a code that you’re trying to adhere to for you to feel nice, for your family to be feel nice or the society to accept you, if that is the case.

But spirituality is a deep dive in one’s consciousness. The purpose of spirituality is for you to live and experience an incredible sense of joy, of togetherness, of love, the union with the divine and experience states of oneness. These are the very purpose of spirituality. And as I started, the simplest of it is to move from a stressful state to a beautiful state, but you know, go deeper. It is like moving into the experience of transcendence, moving into experiences of enlightenment. These are states that are possible for human beings with this particular brain and design and consciousness. And as you move into those powerful states in consciousness, suffering does not stick to you. It is more like a lotus leaf, though it is coming out of mud and slush, it does not stick to it. Suffering is like the vortex. If you’re not sucked into that vortex and you are living in this space of expanded sense of self being, that is spirituality. But being spiritual, does it change what religion you are adhering to? Not necessarily, whoever the God is whom you’re praying to or whoever the deity is, the deity becomes very real for you. It is just not an idea. It translates into an actual experience of connection, of freedom, of liberation. I wouldn’t say it changes your religion, but probably you’ll have a greater experience of your religion.

Priyaanka: Anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Sri Preethaji: The more you are in suffering states, you feel a very limited experience of oneself, and the more you are able to move into expanded states of consciousness, you experience freedom, liberation. There is such clarity in thinking, there is such intelligence in your decisions, in your actions, but how do you move from this spectrum to the other side of the spectrum?

So that is why we have meditations, we have practices, we have deep processes. If you’re asking for more that you can share, I do a mystic process every month once online. And people from all over the world join in. It is only for 3hrs on a Sunday. That’s an online mystic process.

To know more and sign up for the practices and mediations offered, visit www.ekamindia.org


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