As Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.....”

Which type of people do we want to be? We are searching. We want to attain His Grace. We want to attain His Love, but we are so much stuck in our mind. We want to attain Him, yet how many among us will really surrender everything to Him? How many among us will surrender ourselves completely to Him, will say “Lord, here I am. Take me.”? We say yes, we want to do God’s will, isn’t it?  On the spiritual path we always want to do God’s Will. Yet in our ego self, we want to do our will also a little bit, but we say “It’s the Will of God.” As long as it makes us happy, as long as “I am happy” that’s it, it’s the Will of God, but when it’s not turning towards “What makes me happy”, it’s wrong. What do we do then? We start criticising, we start judging. Does God’s will have judgment into it? Whatever the Divine does is  always for the people. Whatever a Master does is always for raising the spirituality in the disciple.As I said in the beginning, you have to want Him. Then He will come to you. When you say “I want to realise God”, it’s not just superficial, you know? You have to really mean it. When you say “Really, I want Him,” there will be such Love inside of you, such great peace and calmness inside of you, that you will feel Him. Whatever He gives you, if you surrender into Him, if you are surrendered and you really trust that He, His will be done, then you have to remove your desire. You have to remove what makes you happy, but what makes Him happy, that’s the most important thing. Tat is called complete surrender. Such was the life of Madhava Puri. Madhava Puri was a 17th century Saint, who lived in Vrindavan. He used to go begging for his food, but it came to a point that the Love for God was so strong inside of him, that he stopped begging. He said “Whatever God gives me, I will eat.” For days and days he would go without food. On one occasion, he was around Govardhan, the holy mountain, which Krishna lifted with His little finger; he was there for four days. He didn’t eat anything, he sat there. One day, after four days of not eating, a boy, a small boy came to him with a pot of milk and gave him this milk and said “Madhava, drink this.” He looked at the boy and said “Who are you?” The boy,smiling, looked at him and said “Well, I heard some women talking about you not having eaten, so I brought you this milk. I provide for the one who doesn’t beg for anything. I provide for the one who is surrendered to the Lord.” Madhava Puri took the milk and he asked again the boy “Who are you?” He said “Don’t worry about who I am. You drink the milk. I will come later on to get the pot.” Madhava Puri drank the milk. It was like nectar. It was like milk he had never drunk before in his life. He was wondering who this boy was, and inside of him he said “Milk can’t taste like nectar. Milk can’t taste so sweet like that.”  As he was thinking and waiting for the boy to come back to get the pot, he had a dream. In the dream he saw Sri Krishna standing – the same face as the boy. He said “Madhava you didn’t recognise me. It was me who came to you. As I told you, I feed the one who doesn’t beg and who is surrendered to the Lord.” In the dream Krishna said to him “I’m guiding you to a well. Go there, deep inside this well, I am lying for some years. Take me out and do my service.”Early in the morning when he woke up, he was so much in Divine ecstasy. He was feeling so much great joy inside of him, he went around and started calling everybody “Come, let’s go to the well and remove Krishna.” Just as directed in the dream, he went and really they found the well. They removed the beautiful statue of Krishna out from the well and then he took Him out and made a nice temple for Him.They started doing lots of prayers and service to the Vigraha, to the Deity. One day Krishna came again in his dream and said “Madhava Puri, you know I was so long in this well, my body has so much heat from the sun. I need to get sandalwood paste from Puri (which is about 2,500 km up north from Vrindavan). I need to get this sandalwood paste so that I can cool down.”Without thinking, Madhava Puri rushed, left everything, gave the duty to one of his disciples to look after the Krishna. He rushed quickly on the way to Puri, walking. Without thinking  how he would go, without asking for the direction, anything. He just let himself be guided.At that time India was ruled by different kings. Each time you passed a kingdom, you would have to pay something to enter the kingdom, then they would let you in and go on. He didn’t even bother about it. His trust in the Lord was so great that he just walked. On the way, there was a famous temple of Gopinath. As he was passing by, he remembered having heard that in this temple their offering was so great that they would offer twelve pots of buttermilk to Krishna every day, and the buttermilk tastes like, really, like Amrit, like nectar. So he sat down there in the temple and he looked how they were doing their service to the Deity, and he said to himself “I will also do the same.”As he was looking how they did the offering to the Deity, he wanted to taste the buttermilk. Inside of him he had this great desire, but he didn’t dare to go and ask the priest “Give me some.” He was so scared that at night, when the priest had closed the temple, Krishna came in the dream of the priest and said to the priest “My dear priest, there is one of my devotees, one of my disciples, outside in the market. He is singing. I have a credit towards him. You have to take one pot of buttermilk. Go and give it to him. This is his.” The priest did according to what Krishna had told him in the dream. He woke up, took a shower and then took the buttermilk, and as the Lord had said that Madhava Puri was in the market place, he reached there and he saw Madhava Puri singing in ecstasy. He called to Madhava Puri “The Lord has sent this buttermilk for you. Here, take it.”When he heard that this was sent from the temple, from Sri Krishna Himself, he just drank it all. He was so happy that he started to eat even the pot afterwards. When he could not eat more of the pot, because the pot was  made of earth, he kept some. He said later on he would eat it. Of course news don’t stay in one place. They start spreading. So before the news spread, he left the place going towards Puri. As he reached Puri, of course, the news had already reached there. Nobody knew who the person was. The moment he entered the temple of Jagannath, the moment he was in front of the Deity, the Jagannath, he started dancing in Divine ecstasy. So much was his Love for God that there was no consciousness of the outside. The people knew it was Madhava Puri about whom they had heard the story. Of course, news travels faster than one walks, you know.For four months he stayed in Puri, and the devotees, the people there, enjoyed his presence very much. After four months, Krishna said to him in a dream “You forgot about me. I sent you to Puri to get me sandalwood paste.  Bring it to me. I am still waiting for you.” So after four months he went, he got his sandalwood. Big, big, lots of sandalwood he took on his back.He started walking back. Again, he passed by the temple of Gopinath. He stayed there for a few days and at night the Lord appeared in his dream and said to him “My sweet Madhava Puri, you have fulflled everything that I have asked you without even thinking. You have shown the greatest Love, the devotion you have inside of you. I am so pleased with it. You don’t need to bring the sandalwood to Vrindavan. Give it in the temple of Gopinath. I am, myself, there. Tell the priest to make it into powder and apply it on me.”This story shows how much one can surrender, if one wants to. Especially when we say we want to do God’s Will, we have really to do His Will, not our will. To know how the Will of God is, this will be the question, you know? When you pray there is always a feeling that awakens. If you are praying sincerely, and you are sincerely chanting the Name of God, there is this great longing and the great peace and calm that awakens. When this awakens inside of you, there is also the inner voice that will start awakening. When you hear this inner voice, it is even greater than what you have in the mind, because even if you want to do what your mind wants you to do, this one will be greater. You will know that. Your heart will pull you towards that voice.When you chant the Name of God, it’s not just mere chanting when you recite the sweet Name. It’s not just chanting it like that, but what it creates inside of you, what it awakens inside of you, because you see, it is said that the Name of God, and God, are one. There is no difference between the Name of God and God. So when you chant the Name, He is next to you.It is said that when you chant, first your Guru has to be in your mind. From the Master, the Lord will show Himself. So always, when you chant, always place the Master first. In that way, it will be like what Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.” To sing the name of the Guru is so easy. There are so many names. Everybody feels close with certain names, but in this age, as it is said, the sweet name of Sri Hari is the most important one. Chant always, and as you chant, let your mind be focused on the Divine. Don’t just do it mechanically, but do it and feel that the Lord is with you, and is standing next to you. 

Why “Bhaja Nitai Gauranga Radhe Shyam Japa Hare Krishna Hare Ram” ?

 End of May, Gurudev asked all residents, people living in Springen and guests to chant a certain mantra for 12 hours continuously each day, taking turns of 15 minutes each person. After the evening prayers last Tuesday Guruji came and joined us and we started all to sing the mantra. It was a real nice and joyous atmosphere and we sang until our little BalaKrishna had to go to bed (because he really gets put to bed in a pyjama). Guruji said the following about the mantra chanting:

Why “Bhaja Nitai Gauranga Radhe Shyam Japa Hare Krishna Hare Ram”? You see “Bhaja Nitai Gaur” – “Bhaja” here stands for seva. It stands for the service one is rendering. It´s not a physical service, but it’s a service to the world through vibration. The aim of human life is to attain pure love, so that you can truly say that you have loved God. Like I explained in the satsang: there are stages to reach sacred love - prem. In this yuga they say always “chanting the Divine Name one achieves that level”.  So why Gauranga? Gauranga is a combination of Radha/Krishna, so that’s why we are singing “Bhaja Nitai Gaur” – service to Nitai and Gauranga, which is service to RadhaKrishna. At the same time “Japa Hare Krishna Hare Ram” – at the same time you are chanting the mahamantra also. So how you will reach the love is by chanting and through the grace of Prabhu Nityananda - and Mahaprabhu can give Himself. Because if Nityananda Prabhu says something Mahaprabhu can´t refuse. It’s the same if Radha says something to Krishna, Krishna can´t refuse. That’s why it is said that Radharani is more wonderful than Krishna Himself.There is three kind of Love. When we talk about love, you say “I love you”, always – have you ever written a sms to Krishna, to God, to say “God, I love you and I miss you so much”? No, you never! People: Yes! (lots of laughter) But to all the people you say “I love you, I love you, I love you”, you know. Imagine how much love that He has – for you, and yet, you forget about it. You are mostly concerned about human love, relationship all this, which will last only for some time and finish and then you jump again on another thing. Misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery – always misery! When your soul aim is to attain – just love, through service to Him.By chanting “Bhaja Nitai Gauranga Radha Shyam Japa hare Krishna hare Ram”, these 15 minutes that you give of your time is a great contribution. Because everything is vibration, you know, everything vibrates. This time, when you concentrate and when you are chanting – He is here. And that´s what the mantra awakes. The knowing, that He is the Lord that governs everything. He is the Lord that governs your heart and He is the Lord of your heart and nobody else. In the Gita, it says “All the names that you chant are mine, all the forms are just inside of me, not out of me. Nothing can exist out of me. Whatever you see…”.You can say “yes, God is there, outside”, but the whole universe is inside of Him. How can you be out of Him? Without Him you would not be here. You can´t exist without Him! So that is what you have to realize: Even if in His cosmic form, He is deep inside everybody, He is in everything, but yet we are all part of His cosmic body. What you see outside is the yog-maya, which catches everybody, which veils everybody through ignorance. But it is also His maya. His maya also catches Him. And His maya is Radharani – He can´t escape Her. He can´t escape because Radharani is completely fully in love. “Bhaja Nitai Gaur”, oh Lord Nitai! How you surrender to Gauranga, how you surrender to love incarnate? Through the service I am giving. Make also this love awake inside of us, make us also part of this drama, make us part of this contribution that we can give to this world. That´s what “Bhaja Nitai Gaur” stands for, you know. In the Narada Puran, Krishna Himself said to Narad Muni “one can give big lectures, one can talk a lot, one can read a lot, but if they don´t have love inside their heart, it´s nothing.” So, it´s that what is important. To learn to love God, you know. Not superficial, but real. So, that’s in short that what the mantra stands for. Jai Gurudev!

Let the Love of God completely take possession of you.....

When He’s taking something out, let Him take. What He takes out 

will be replaced by Divine Love. You will feel this Cosmic Love inside 

of you. You will feel this Great Love of God inside of you, and in 

this Love you will cry, you will laugh, you will not even understand 

it with the mind what is happening to you. Let it happen,   don’t 

question it, because you have to let the Love of God completely 

take possession of you. As long as there is the mind, you will never 

understand His Love. 

Only when you renounce the mind you can understand His 

Love. You can’t analyse, you can’t understand Him, because 

understanding is with the mind and with the mind there is no 

point in  understanding Him. You have to renounce, you have to 

surrender to Him. When you surrender, you don’t question Him. 

You don’t question why it is like that, why it is like this. You just 

accept it, because you know He’s with you.

While you are going through this purifcation, know that the Lord 

is near to you in whatever form you call Him. If you like Him in this 

Nrsinghadev form, He will come in this form. If you like Him in 

the form of Jesus, he will come in the form of Jesus. You see, God 

is not limited to one form. He’s unlimited. That’s why He is God. If 

God were limited, then He would not be God. Then He would be the 

fashion of one’s mind, but God is not that. Even if you give a form 

to Him, He’s not that. He’s beyond our creation. He’s beyond our 

mind’s creation.

 When we invoke the Lord, we have also to invoke Him inside our hearts.  

                                When He takes full possession of us, we become Him.

“Help yourself and God shall help you.....”

When we look at a Saint who is in union with God – what is the name of the union with God? We have the Sanskrit name, samadhi, don’t we? What is  samadhi? Everybody longs for  samadhi but the state of  samadhi is without any discrimination, without any judgement. It is pure Love. As long as you see the judgement in your mind, as long as there is discrimination in your mind, you will still have to work to attain the non-discrimination state and then, only this real Love, this pure Love will awaken. When this pure Love awakens, it embraces you. It is not a feeling that you will say “Yes, I feel happy or I feel sad.” It is beyond that. If I could express it with words, it would not be what I’m talking about. This is the state where you find union with the Divine, where you realise your Self. As long as you are searching, you are just searching for that Love. When you find it, you will only find that Love. So don’t lose hope, no matter what, know that the Divine is always with you and wherever you are, whatever you do, it’s Him who is doing through you. Try your best from your side, you have always to try your best. The human being is not perfect and I’m sure later on it will not be perfect either, because when one becomes perfect, one has this quality that I just said before. When one becomes perfect, one becomes Divine, so one is not human anymore. But as long as one has this quality, one stays human. Try your best to become Divine. That is what all the great Masters have taught. Christ came and taught that, Krishna has taught that and all of them have taught to realise your own divinity, because only then real happiness will be there. Then you can say “Yes, I am happy,” because that happiness will not go away, it will stay forever. Otherwise you will stay in illusion. You will think and try to make yourself think that you are happy. As long as you have not attained that, keep trying. You will receive all the help needed as long as you give your hand because if you don’t make your effort, you can’t expect God to do His effort, do it for you. He is fully realised, but He is here to help you to realise your Self, but you have to give your hand. You have to do your part. Otherwise it will be like somebody who is thirsty sits down and says “I am thirsty, I’m thirsty, I’m thirsty!” Do you think the thirst will go away? No, it would not go away. The person has to get up, make the effort of opening the tap, take a glass, put it under the tap and bring the water to the mouth and drink it. Then the thirst goes away. It is the same if you just sit around and say “OK, I wait for God-Realisation to come.”  It will not jump from there on your head. It is only when you prove yourself and that you are making an effort that the Divine will help you. You know the saying that says “Help yourself and God shall help you.”

Menstruation is purification – and a great service to all.....

At every spiritual ceremony women, who are in their monthly cycle, are asked, not to touch any temple-items, not to offer flower petals and not to offer anything into a yagna fire. Here is a summary of explanations which Swamiji has given at different occasions, to help everyone to understand why it is like that: 
Once Swamiji explaining, that a woman is energetically receptive and during the month she collects a lot of negativity from her environment. In doing so she does a great service, as she purifies her environment. This impurities get removed from her during menstruation. At this year´s Bhu Devi yagna Guruji was quite clear, that women in their cycle should not participation in the yagna. He gave the following explanation: “Menstruation is purification. You are going through your personal purification. You should not even touch the person which is performing the puja. You should not even touch other people. When you are doing a ritual everything gets energetically intensified. In menstruation there is already a certain negativity inside. So it gets intensified in the ceremony. So you should keep a certain distance. You can participate with the mind. You see, the manas puja (puja in thoughts) is also very important.”  At another occasion he explained that normally the flow of energy in people is upwards, but during the time of menstruation, the flow of energy in the woman is downwards. In a spiritual ceremony the energy is going strongly upwards towards the Divine. That means, that the flow of energy in a woman is going in the opposite direction than the energy of the ceremony. This causes an energetic disturbance which can lead to not being well. So in telling women to stay at a distance it is also about protecting them from energetic disturbances. All together, it is not about portraying women as somehow impure. As Swamiji said just recently, women are the physical manifestation of the Divine Mother and menstruation is also given by the Divine for the purpose told above.
With so much explanation for sure it will be more easy to follow this call with a good feeling.

In simplicity you will find it, in the simplicity of your heart.....

Often people think “Why do we have to be spiritual? Why do we have to be ready for God?” Why not just sit down and say “God will give whenever He wants to give?” It’s true if you don’t make any effort, you will not know how to handle what God wants to give you. It’s only when you start making your effort and say “Yes God, I’m working on myself to be ready for You. I’m working on myself to be ready for this realisation and I’m trying to be ready also to help others”, then God will give it to you. Even if He has to give it on a silver plate or even on a diamond plate, He will do it, but the effort, you have to do it. That reminds me of a small story. I like to tell stories all the time, but I don’t even know from where they come. For sure up there’s a big store of stories. Once there was a prince. He went to the Queen – the Queen’s name was Madalassa – and said to the Queen “Mother, you have sent all my brothers away to become ascetics in the forest. Why?” The mother thought for a while and said “My son, of course they could have realised the Divine here also, but they went to work on this in the forest.” It’s like this, if there are two boats   – one boat, which is decorated very beautifully with a lot of beautiful lights and very shiny, but in this boat there is a hole and there is another boat, which is simple, very simple, but without a hole – which one would you take – the beautiful one or the simple one? You would take the simple one. This is the same thing the Queen was saying to her son. Spirituality is often like this boat that is decorated very beautifully; whoever goes into it sinks in the middle of the water,  whereas the one who takes the simplest form of life and leads a life in spirituality, lives in an ascetic way, he reaches his goal. In simplicity you will find it, in the simplicity of your heart. You see, the heart is not complicated. When you look at the heart, what the heart says is very simple. It’s like the boat, which is very simple. Whereas, when you look at the mind, it’s decorated with so many beautiful things that it traps people into it. To become spiritual is to divert this beauty of the mind to the heart, and go in the boat of the heart to reach the final destination, to reach the Oneness of God within you.All that you are practicing is good; whatever path you take is good. Know that the main thing is that you have to reach the goal, no matter which path you take.
Let God steal your heart.The more you say “Yes, take it. Steal it. It is yours already”, the more you will see how you float in your spiritual path, how you float in the hand of God.

Love is a word which has thousands of names because everything is Love.....

Christ talked about Love; many Masters have talked about Love, taught Love and experienced Love. But what is Love? It is a word which has thousands of names because everything is Love. If you perceive Love everywhere, the thing you perceive to be Love turns into Love. Two persons when they meet each other
they have a different kind of love. We recognise each other and we feel that there is something, then that love grows. In the same way there is motherly love for her child. For the child, there is love between friends, yet the fullness of Love stays always hidden. How many friends have you made in your life? How many people have you met in your life? Hundreds, maybe thousands. You meet them and feel a connection and then it disappears. Friends also come and after some time they go. When you are at school or college we have certain friends with the same goals, which is to study. You have certain friends and then they disappear and give place to other friends. That’s all included in the love that one emanates from oneself. The same on the spiritual path, on the path of searching, there is another kind of Love which awakens inside of you and in this Love it is not about letting go because this Love is always growing. So the question arises can we really love in this time that kind of Love? Well yes, it is possible because that kind of Love is unconditional Love which everybody carries through life from small, ‘til you reach your destination. You always carry this universal Love inside of you and whether you love in a different kind of love or the universal Love is determined by how you let it vibrate within you. So the question is, like I said, if it’s possible to love? Yes, it is possible to love this kind of Love. To be able to let it grow and awaken inside of you, you should learn first to accept. But accept what? There are so many things to accept. When you look around, everywhere is telling you to accept. Accept this because everybody says this is right or that is right, but it is not about accepting this or that; it’s about accepting yourself. Only by accepting yourself you develop this trust inside of you. When you have this trust inside of yourself, this Love will grow more and more. Of course I don’t say that doubt will not arise, but this is where you will learn to control doubt by controlling the pride. There is one thing which can be an obstacle in one’s path and that is spiritual pride. When you live in the world outside, you don’t bother about anybody. You do your things and people do their things. But on the spiritual path very often there is competition. Each one competing with each other thinking which one is the best. It’s like if this one is like that then I have to be like that, too. No; you are individual and your aim, your dharma is different from everybody. Often people say “Swamiji I am on the spiritual path but I am working on this and that, I am so busy. I can’t be there!” Well, God has put you there so you have to do your duty there and if He chooses to come to you in that way, He will come to you. He will awaken the cosmic Love inside of you wherever you are the moment you start to accept. Have acceptance of yourself and then control this pride because this pride will always stop somebody.

Bhu Devi yagna is a Vaishnava tradition to celebrate and pray to Mother Earth......

....Bhu Devi is actually Mother Earth. This yagna that we are doing is to show our gratitude and appreciation to Her, and also our understanding that She is going through a lot, not only now, but for centuries, actually. She has been taking a lot onto Herself, but people don´t see that this Mother is suffering. Its so easy to forget how important this Mother Earth is. We are here, we are born, yet we give Her so little attention. Mother Earth gives. She gives, gives, gives, not even expecting anything, nor taking. She is a manifestation of the compassionate, the ever-giving One and She is a manifestation of devotion also. One can pray to God but, you see, when you show your appreciation, when you show your thankfulness, you have to show it to the person, to the Deity. There is a temple in Hampi, in South India, where She is venerated as the Universal Mother, as the Mother of Brahma, Vishnu, even of Shiva. Because it’s only here on this physical plane that She manifests Herself - even all the Avatars manifest themselves. The Divine manifests Itself here, on Earth, because She is very special to Him. She’s considered to be the wife of Maha Vishnu. She’s considered to be the other part of Lakshmi. Whenever Maha Lakshmi takes aspect as, for example, Sita or Radha or Andal or a different manifestation of Maha Lakshmi, it is Bhu Devi who manifests Herself. In the Srimad Bhagavatam Maha Vishnu said to Bhu Devi (after He rescued Her from drowning in the big ocean) “You will be ever present on my chest. From now on, people will venerate You as my wife and whenever You are in distress, I shall manifest Myself on You, to save the world.” Everything is made with five elements. The whole Universe is bound by these five elements, but in the whole Universe, not everywhere has these five elements in action. The only place where you have the five elements in action is Bhu Devi. That’s why, among all the planets, the Earth is the most beautiful. We are very lucky. That’s why the Divine always manifests on Mother Earth.The prayer that we are going to do right now is called the Sudakshari Matri Puja. There will be sixteen invocations (into kalash), actually seventeen with the Bhu Devi, of all the forms of the Divine Mother. The sixteen aspects, forms and shakti of the Divine Mother, are actually the sixteen facets of the moon - called Nitya Kala - and also the sixteen qualities of Maha Vishnu. All these prayers which you will be chanting, all the mantras which you will be chanting, all of them will be transferred to the Mother Earth kalash, which in turn will be transferred to the whole world.We are going to chant the mantra Om Shrim Hreem Kreem Shreem Sri Devi Bhumavatiye Namaha. It is for Bhu Devi, Mother Earth. It is said that if someone chants this mantra 36 times daily one will, first of all, get rid of all the negativity inside oneself and, secondly, one will get peace in oneself and in the surroundings. Om is the king of all the mantras and it is actually also the root of Lakshmi mantra. The Om mantra is a primordial sound in itself. What happens when one chants Om, is that one is dissolving pride. The word Shrim, this bij mantra, is very powerful in itself as it destroys all the negativity and brings peace. Hrim is also a bij mantra of giving peace, but Krim is Kali, Aim is Saraswati, The bij mantra Shreem or Srim denotes Maha Lakshmi, the giver of boons, and the Sarva Shakti, the all-pervading Shakti. Maha Lakshmi creates also the balance. The balance in the elements, balance in yourself by purifying you, by cleansing all the negativity out of you, by uniting your body, mind and spirit, so that you can advance on your spiritual path.Then we have “Shree Devi Bhumavatiye Namaha”. This is the presiding Deity, Bhu Devi, Mother Earth Herself. When we chant the mantra, we invoke the Deity. Vibrationally the Deity is present. The Deities are vibrations. The moment you invoke them, call for them, they take their place and are present here with us. After that, they will be installed inside of each one of us because in reality we invoke them from deep within ourselves.

Make the ultimate goal of your life Divine love, and surrender to it......

You know what God wants from you? Surrender your mind to Him, continuously. Surrender your mind to the lotus feet of God, to the feet of your Guru, to the feet of any Divine master, and free yourself. Free yourself from the mind, free yourself from all the misery that you created. When you free your mind, you realise the Divine everywhere, in every aspect, in every small thing. Even the clothes you are wearing are divine. Each atom is divine. If you have divine eyes to look at the world with, you will see that it 
is just the radiated light of God shining through everything, but as long as you don’t come to that realisation, keep trying. 

Excerpt of Sri Swami Vishwananda´s Satsang, Part 1, 17.05.2013

1. Equanimity is one of the 26 qualities of devotee. Do you think it is possible for an average person to attain it and how?
Yes, it is. Because the real nature of who you are, the soul, is not bound by anything – not by good, not by bad. Soul is ever free. Nothing to bind it. As how the soul looks at it is always looking in an equal way. 
But the soul receives all the information of the universal consciousness – God. But when this knowledge enters the mind, the mind has to interpret it in a certain way. So the mind automatically puts a limitation, a judgement, on anything. This is why we judge. Because of the judgment the mind can´t comprehend the knowledge. In the Gita Krishna says: hey Uddhava, don´t waste your time with good and bad in this world. If you want to attain me you have to go above these qualities. This means it is possible. In the Bible it says: if you want to attain the kingdom of God, you have to rise above all limitation. Yes, one can attain that level, if one really wants. This is the most important point. To attain equanimity is possible - but if you want it, this is the question. Until you are sincere, you can´t. Because the limitation, it is you who puts it. It is possible to attain that level even for a normal person. How much you focus on it, how much you desire for it. Desire in a right way – even to desire the Divine needs to be in a right way. Outside people desire the material things. But here, to desire you have to have a certain eagerness. We can say we love God, but do we have the eagerness for Him to manifest Himself? We can do japa, but to have this love you have to want it, you have to rise above limitation. You are on that path. That’s why God has called you. Through many lives of working. Its up to you. The teacher is here to remind you that´s up to you to follow it.

2. Should one learn to do everything with joy or only to do what brings joy?
Sometimes you do things which do not bring joy, but you should always try to do it with joy.

3.How do we be in contact all the time that He guides us?
The Divine is never far away from people. He is continuously close to you. How to become aware is through mantra japam. The more you chant the Divine name, the more the mind is in a subtle state and the more you will feel Him and you will feel Him in every action, in all that you do. From time to time He has to withdraw Himself, because the human nature is greedy. If the Divine gives everything in one go, how will you appreciate? But when you have to look for Him, you will feel that longing. Otherwise you will be ungrateful for it. You have to remind your mind through your japam. No matter, how you are, where you are, He is one step ahead. He is walking facing you. He is always in front of you, guiding your step, whether you want it or not.

4.How to help others through prayer? 
Pray, but don´t beg.

5. If I give myself up completely to the Divine, do I also give up my personality?
Why would you give up yourself but hang onto your personality? Better to not give anything. That’s how people are: they give a gift and want back half. If you give something, let go of it. But if you hold on one side and He is holding on other side… Even the personality, you have to let go. To transcend the personality into the Divine you have to let go. If you don´t let go, you have another life to let go and another and another.

6.Should I serve even when I get abused?
If one has taken a certain path, duty of serving, it does not matter if you get abused or not. But if you feel that despite giving all your service, to whom you are serving, there is not appreciation and there is not willingness to enjoy the service, you should bug away from that. Than you should reduce your service so that the person starts to appreciate it.

The Unique Love Relationship with God....

Human beings on the spiritual path or in the material, in the working field, they become envious. When envy enters the mind of man, man becomes blind and when man becomes blind, he doesn’t see the light anymore. Your true Self needs this light to survive, but the way the mind functions drags you into illusion. When this envy enters the mind, one steps away from this light, or the light starts to diminish within oneself. What happens is – it’s like you have a mirror, you clean the mirror, it is beautiful, you can look at yourself nicely, but after some time the mirror accumulates dust. What do you do? You clean it! All the qualities of the mind like envy, jealousy, pride, ego, when these arise, it is very difficult to clean them. It’s hard, even when you try your best, they are there. Like when you clean the mirror to look at yourself, you wipe it clean, you don’t leave it dirty. Yet, when humans clean the mind, they always leave a certain residue of darkness inside. They don’t really want to let go of all of it completely, because this is a sign of insecurity in oneself. You say “If I let go of everything, what is for tomorrow?” Hasn’t Christ said “If God is looking after everything, He will look after you, also?" It’s the same if you want to change, you have to let go of all this negativity. You have to let go of all this darkness. You can’t keep this darkness and say “Yes, I am changed.” It’s the same when envy enters the mind. It blinds you, because then you will always be jealous, you will always be angry about your neighbour. If you see that your neighbour is advancing spiritually or the neighbour, your friend or your colleague is progressing, what will happen inside of you?  You will try to be competitive. You will try to compete with your colleague to be the best. Are you concentrating on your spiritual path, or are you concentrating on his progress? You should be happy if somebody is progressing, because when you start to
progress on this spiritual path, you develop this Love. Know that God’s Love is the same for everybody. Whether you are a wicked person or whether you are a saintly person it is the same, but the reflection is different. How much you reflect towards Him, He will reflect back towards you the same. That doesn’t mean that for a saintly person the Love of God is more or that He doesn’t love a wicked person. No, He loves everybody the same. That’s why He graced so many people who were wicked to become Saints, so they
could reflect this Love. This Love is unique. The Love for God is unique, because each one has a personal relationship and this relationship to the Divine is between you and the Lord. There’s no other person in between. The uniqueness of this Love dissolves all.

What you do to others you are doing up to me......

Saint Bishoy from Egypt was a great ascetic who was doing lots of penance in the desert. One day there was an old man who was very filthy, very dirty who came to him and he said " Oh, please, for sure you have been walking in the desert for a long time. You must be very tired. Come let me give you hospitality. Let me look after you." So he, Bishoy, took this old man. He carried him back to his cave, or whatever, and there he started washing the feet of this man. As he was washing the feet of this man he was crying with Love. He felt so much Love, he was crying so bitterly that he was washing the feet with his tears. When he looked at the feet of the man, he didn´t see the feet of the man, he saw the feet of Christ with the Stigmata inside. Like that there are so many saints, you know. This shows that what Christ said "What you do to others you are doing up to me. What you do good - when I was in prison you visited me, when I was hungry, you gave me food. When I didn´t have clothes, you clothed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink." This fulfilled that what you do to others, you are doing it to Him. The same thing - when you do good, you are doing it to Him, but when you are doing bad, also, you are doing it up to Him. You are not doing it to the person. Don´t think only good things go to Him, but the bad things that you do, also, to other people come to Him. So this reflects this quality that God pervades everything inside of everybody.

Be like a child. Sit in the lap of the Mother and let the Mother do everything for you.....

What´s the use of having great knowledge if you can´t even comprehend yourself? If knowledge can´t bring you to understand yourself fully, hold tight to the devotion, to the faith that you have inside of you. The more faith you have - towards yourself, towards the Divine within you - the more Love there will be. Then you will see how easy spirituality is. You don´t need to run very far. You run just from the mind to the heart. Mahavatar Babaji is always asking " Why are people wasting time? Why don´t they just surrender to Love?"  If animals can do that, humans can do it also and better. You all know how to love, don´t you? Who doesn´t know to love? Everybody knows. Once your mind is calm, you will feel it. You should stop trying to understand the Divine with your mind; let Him reveal Himself to you. During Navaratri, I was saying " Be like a child. Sit in the lap of the Mother and let the Mother do everything for you." Well, we are all babies, you know. That´s what Christ said " To enter the Kingdom of God, you have to be like a child," and He is perfectly right. When you are in the state of a child, you surrender to the Divine will, you surrender to the Mother´s will. The Mother will hold you, she will carry and feed you, but you have to swallow. The same is true with the Master. Everybody follows different Masters, different paths. All paths are right. All paths are good, but the Master will not walk for you. He will show you the way, but you have to walk. Sometimes the Master will carry you - it depends on how much you have surrendered - but the Mother will always carry you. That´s the Love of the Mother. So, let the Divine Love awaken and sincerely, with pure Love, ask God for Himself or Herself.

Self- discipline is something that you have to work for......

When you meditate, when you do your  sadhana, you can achieve this state where nothing can disturb you. No left and right, no hearing, no seeing, because in the deepness of meditation, in the deepness of your practice, you have to be fully focused. If you are not disciplined with yourself, do you think you will have this focus? No, this is where everything gets uncertain. You will do prayer, but you will be really superficial and then not be satisfied with yourself. Self- discipline is something that you have to work for. It’s purification of the mind and of the senses. When the mind gets purified, when the mind becomes positive, you will see how easy it is in your sadhana also. It doesn’t matter if you don’t succeed in one go. I know that people when they start practicing, they would like to have quick results, like in one month. They want it very fast. Know one thing, if you go  in fast, you will go out fast also. You see, it’s like cooking. If a Mataji would like to make syrup, but she just took the fruits and threw them into a pot of water and then removed them quickly, would the sweetness go out from the fruit and into the water? It would not. You have to leave the fruits inside for some time. It is the same with your sadhana. If you just go inside and then quickly out of it, being impatient with yourself, it will be the same. It will not be sweet. The sweetness that you have inside of you is waiting to be awakened. 

“Let your thoughts be in hell, but you rejoice in the Divine.....”

On the spiritual path, the utmost thing that we have to do is to control our mind. We say to watch our thoughts. What is a thought? A thought is an image. A thought is a creation.  Why is it said that we have to watch our thoughts; because most of the time our thoughts make us negative. We have to watch them and have them under control – very often it’s quite difficult. Our thoughts make us who we are, because we always run behind them. A few days ago there was a reading in the chapel where there was a saying from St. Silouan of Mount Athos that said “Let your thoughts be in hell, but you rejoice in the Divine.” I will comment a little bit on that. Nowadays, the moment you see your thoughts running to hell, you are all running with the thoughts to hell. Your thoughts are jumping, jumping and jumping and then boom – there they go. You are also jumping behind them and doing the same, throwing yourself after them. When we watch ourselves, we see that very often we like to speak out what we have in our minds. We like to tell  everybody how great we are. We like to publicise ourselves and say “Oh, I have seen that light, I have seen this and I have seen that. I have felt this and I have felt that.” Why? It is to feed that thought, so that the thought can become bigger. It’s like when you analyse a reptile. A reptile can be very soft, very easy, going its way, but the moment it falls in a pit, it will try it’s best to come out. The moment the reptile comes out of that pit, it will be more aggressive than ever. This is how our thoughts are also. The moment we let it out, it’s infamed with this vigorous power, saying “Yes, I am out.” Like Christ said “It’s not what goes inside the person that makes them polluted, but what comes out of the person.” In the Gita it says “A controlled mind is your best friend, but an uncontrolled mind is your worst enemy.” Like I said, the way we think is the way we are. We have to control our thoughts. Prayer and continuous remembering of the Divine help us to control our mind. They help us to bring our mind, which is always running, into calm, into silence. Through silence, the thoughts will disappear. If your thought is negative and you let it out, all around you everything becomes negative. There will be nothing positive. But if you keep this thought inside, through prayer and through inner silence, it will dissolve. But no, we like so much to express ourselves, to express our thoughts. You can;  I won’t say “No, don’t do it”, but  first, master it, then you can express it. If you silence yourself completely, if you silence your mind, you will receive everything. You will not even need to ask. You will receive, because God is merciful. He is the all-knowing, so do you think you really have to ask Him?

At Ram Navami Guruji gave us an extensive and quite informative speech about the incarnation of Rama and of course he knows how to apply Rama`s example to our all life....

Here is the summary:

Rama was the embodiment of Dharma, He was very righteous. The question arises why he did not accept His wife Sita back after she was kidnapped by the demon king Ravana. At that time, a woman was not allowed to be alone in a room with a man other than her father. Otherwise she was not even allowed to enter her house again. So when Rama came back home after many years of exile, people accused Him for taking Sita back. He had to act according to His role as a king in order to appease His people. What the people did not know was that it was only a shadow of Sita Devi who was captured by Ravana. The real Sita has been guarded by Agni Dev. There is a close connection between Rama and Agni Dev. Dasharath, Ramas father, was not able to have children. One day Narad Muni, the Divine messenger, came to Dasharath to tell him that the Lord had decided to incarnate into his Yadava dynasty. He told him to do a yagna in order to conceive a child. During this yagna Agni Dev appeared and gave two mangos to him. They were meant for two wives of Dasharata so that they might conceive. One mango was for the incarnation of Narayana and the other one for the incarnation of Adishesh, the serpent. But he had three wives. So the two wives shared the two mangos among one another and this is how it came that two wives conceived one child and the third conceived two children as she got a share of each of the two mangos. So Narayana incarnate as Rama, Adishesh became Lakshmana, then there was the shanka and the chakra incarnating in Sathurnath and Bharath. The reason why the Lord had to incarnate at that time was the presence of Ravana on earth. Ravana was one of the two gate keepers of Vaikuntha, Jaya and Vijaya, who had to incarnate as a demon. But this is another beautiful story. Guruji told us, that whenever the Lord has the intention to incarnate, he asks all the Devas for their assistance on earth, so all come with him to earth. So when the Lord incarnates, they are already all waiting for Him. And all know their mission. This is what we celebrate with Ram Navami.The reason why Rama refused to take Sita back was because of His people. Sita always stayed pure, She is Maha Lakshmi, but this the people did not know. They were unhappy that their King took Her back after She was with Ravana, as they thought. So Rama had to act on His dharma as a king. This is a beautiful example how the Lord surrenders to the Devotees, He puts Himself always last. Relating to this Guruji was also explaining why the Lord, Narayana, is wearing a tilak, as the tilak symbolizes the lotus feet of the Lord. The meaning of Narayana wearing a tilak is to always remind himself of the love of the bhakta. Guruji told us, that the same way Rama was doing His dharma, each one of us should do their dharma. It is not in our hand to decide about this, life will guide us towards this. There is of course the universal dharma of realizing oneself, but God has put us also to our individual dharma and we have to learn to love it, no matter what our task is. And if we learn to accept it and realize that the Divine has given it to us, it will lead us to our aim. And this is what it means to live spiritually. How can we live a spiritual way if we cannot accept what God has given us? When we finish our dharma which God has given us in the outside, He will reveal to us the inner dharma. But how will we handle the inner dharma, when we do not learn to handle the outer dharma?

Swami says: “So that is the Dharma. That is what Rama stands for, that is what He is showing. Each one has their own dharma, each one is very important in that. The role of a priest is a priest, the role of a banker is a banker. You can't put the priest into a bank, you know somebody searching for God you put him in a bank I am sure the bank will be ruined completely and together with him all the people. If you realize that where God has put you that is what your dharma is, try to enjoy it even if you don't agree with it.”

Love is such a big gift......

When we talk about freedom, what are the things we think of at first? Freedom of country, political freedom, economic freedom… But the inner freedom is the most important among all the different kinds of freedom, and that is what mankind really wants to achieve. This is the reason why each soul has come on earth. They come to achieve this freedom, this love of God. Let me try to interpret this kind of freedom: If you want something you shall have it. But you can also detach from the desire by your own will. You see, mankind desires many things, but when they have them they get attached to them. This attachment brings unhappiness. The more you are attached to things which are limited or not eternal, the more you feel miserable. You lose this inner freedom. You become limited in the mind. You become limited with your body, which in turn makes your soul limited. So, to free one’s self, one must surrender the body, mind and soul to God, to the Unlimited. It’s true that everybody can’t renounce the world and live only for God, but you can continuously try to remember God wherever you are. Remember that the soul inside you is the light of God. The more you think of yourself being part of this light of God, this great love, the more you will reflect this love. But the more you think that you are just a normal human being, the more you will just be a normal human being with all of its limited qualities and you cover all of your divine qualities. Take time every day, just five minutes, to be with your Self. Forget about the world outside, forget everything. Forget about your husband or wife; forget about all your relationships with the outside. Only think of the relationship with your Self. Do you know what treasure you will find? You will find the biggest treasure of all, a treasure that nobody can steal from you. And that is love. Love is such a big gift. We feel it with our heart, we know it with our mind, but to realise it, to become one with this love, to spread this love, unconditionally – this is the aim of mankind. The more you spread it, the more you reflect it, the more you will discover your Self. 

Do we have a free will ? ....

All spiritual sadhana, why do we do it? It’s because we know that there is something greater that our soul wants. We want something, but yet, with the mind we don’t understand it too much. We try to understand. We always look at it with the mind and we always want it to be how we want it to be, our way. But what is our way, actually? It is His Will. We always think that we have a free will. Once somebody asked a saint “Do we have a free will?” The saint said “Well, you have a will, but it’s not free.” It’s like a cow: the cow is tied with a rope and is given only a certain radius to turn around. The cow is free, but it is free only in a certain radius. And such is so, also, with the will of man. And the rest is His will only. But in this little radius with things which seem so big, we like to make ourselves feel greater than anybody else, don´t we? We like to make ourselves even greater than the Lord Himself. This reminds me of Narad Muni, the messenger of God, who was cursed by Maha Vishnu, who had said to him “Narad Muni, go to Hell! You are doomed! Go away.” Narad Muni became very quiet and said “My dear Lord, as you have told me to go to Hell, can You please tell me where it is?” Maha Vishnu said “OK.” With His Shakti, He manifested a chalk and He started to draw. He said “Here is Heaven” and then He drew Heaven “And here is Hell” and He drew Hell. Seeing that, Narad Muni became very happy. He approached the drawing, jumped into the drawing and started to roll in the place where Hell was. Maha Vishnu was very amused and said “Narad, what are you doing?” Narad Muni answered to Him “Well, You told me to go to Hell, didn´t You? Here I am. I’m rolling myself in Hell.” Then Narad Muni continued, saying “You are the Lord of everything. When you say ‘This is Heaven’, of course, it becomes Heaven. When you say ‘This is Hell’, of course, it course it becomes Hell. When you sent me there, I went there. Even if it is just a drawing, it is Hell for me, I can feel it.” Maha Vishnu was very pleased with him and He blessed him. This shows us, also, the limitation of ourselves, the limitation that our mind creates. We could be free, but our mind doesn’t let us be free. We can see the Lord everywhere, but our pride always stops us. We can love Him, but our expectation is always there, too. When one lets go of these three things, one will be really, fully into Him. Above all, He is the manifestation of Love. He is the manifestation of who we are, all of us. In Him Love is manifested in the outside, in everything that He expresses, in every action of Him. 

If somebody knows the glory of prayer, the glory of chanting the Divine Names, they know the value of it....

As it is said in the Shrimad Bhagavatam “It doesn’t matter how you chant My name, how you recite the name of the Divine.” Some have a beautiful voice, some don’t have a beautiful voice. But, it’s equal to Him. The main thing is that you chant, that you pray. Prayer: that’s what transforms somebody. Through prayer, people find solace; some to attain the lotus feet of the Lord, some to achieve whatever they desire in life. But the main thing is to pray: that’s what transform you, what gives you this inner glow, so that you can call yourself spiritual. People, humans are always on a search. They are always searching for something. Some people search for it in the outside world. Some people search for it in the inside world. But, only few really know the importance of prayer. In the Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas said “The value of a stone is known

only to somebody who knows about gems”. Then they can value how precious the stone is. The same thing: if somebody knows the glory of prayer, the glory of chanting the Divine Names, they know the value of it.

Let Love fully blossom in your heart .....

When faith is strong, the Love will be much stronger, because when you have complete faith, you are the Lover. And when you are the Lover, the Beloved will always be with you. So, strive for that! Work, so that

Love can fully blossom in your heart; so that your mind can fully be into the Divine; so that the Divine can reveal Himself to you.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda......

You will realise this cosmic Christ within, which is our Self. Of course, this is not a very quick process. You really have to dedicate yourself to that. It’s not just by touching it a little bit and feeling it and saying, “OK, this is good. I will take it or not.” You have really to be in it...... deep inside. You really have to fall in love completely. Completely trust, to really know the depth of this love, to really know the depth of this trust. One way is through meditation.

What will make you realised? ...

...It is very simple and easy to offer your heart to God. So, whenever you think that you have to offer something to the Lord, first inside of you, offer your heart to Him saying, “Lord, I offer You my heart.

It is not mine anymore, it is Yours. Make me love the way that You Love. Make me Realise this Divine Love.” Spirituality is just about a relationship to God and this Love relationship to the Divine will

make you Realised.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

We often talk about the mind. But God has given a heart to man, too. The heart is not just here to pump the blood in the whole body. It’s also to feel. Very often, when you get hurt, the heart has a lot of pain, doesn’t it? And when you feel happiness and joy, the heart is wide open. And to love God is... I can’t even express it in words actually, because it’s a mixture of everything in it. Sometimes you will fight with God, sometimes you will blame God, and sometimes you will just be completely in love with God. And at the end of all three, it’s just this pure love. And this is the freedom that all of you have. But you have to really express it, to really let it grow. Not with a ‘but’. So many times we say, “We try to open our heart, but there is always something in the way.” Try it, you will see. One day you will surrender completely, saying, “Open my heart. Here I am. I surrender to You – body, mind and soul is Yours! Do whatever you want to do.” 

Chant the name of God always, so that on your lips there are always the Divine names.....

About the Divine Names, in the Scriptures, let’s take the Psalms 113: King David said: From sunrise to sunset, I should praise the name of God. Take the Bible: Saint Paul said: Whoever finds refuge in Your name, shall be saved. Buddha said: Whoever chants my name, at the end of their life, they shall reach me and I will lead them to paradise. In the Veda it’s said: In this time chant, chant, chant, because only the name of Sri Hari will save humanity. Mahavatar Himself, you know, has said “Chant Om Namo Narayanaya. If you want peace in the world, recite the name of Narayana, it will bring joy and peace.” So, something like that almost every saint has said. Shirdi Sai always was telling to his disciples “Chant Om Namo Narayanaya.” Lahiri Mahasaya also said it to his disciples “read the Srimad Bhagavatam and chant the name of God always, so that on your lips there are always the Divine names”, because when there are always the Divine names on your lips, there will be no time for you to think of negative things.

Let us celebrate the resurrection of Christ....let Him arise inside of you....

We use the word Love to express God, because there is no other word greater than that to express Him in our language, but if we look deeper inside ourselves, what we feel inside we can’t even put a name to. The word love is just a word, but God is greater. What you have inside of you is even greater than what you can think about. If He is calling that within you and if you are sincere, if you cleanse your mind from all impurity and be sincere with yourself, you will have Him. Even in one second you will have Him. He can change your life even in one second. It is not what you practise. Why do we practise? It is to show that we are interested in Him. We are interested really in achieving something, which is very beautiful. We show our appreciation, we show devotion and we are thankful for what He has given us. But know that everything depends on His grace and His grace is within you. And when you cleanse everything from your mind that is in the outside, when you really reach the depth inside, when you surrender completely to Him, He surrenders completely to you. Like it is said before in the other Gospels, the Father does not exist without the Son and the Son does not exist without the Father. The Spirit does not exist without the Son and the Father; the Father does not exist without the Spirit and the Son. So these three exist within you already. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit exist within your Self. That is what Christ said: Call upon me to become the sons of God and the daughters of God and to realise your true identity. And when you have Realised your true identity of being the child [of God], the Spirit will flow inside each part of your veins and each part of your arteries will radiate the Divine Light, this Cosmic Light. You will see each atom as being the same light. We look very often only in the outside. Our mind is on the outside. We see the duality of the outside. You and x, y and zed are different, yes, but in reality we are all one. If we remove all the identity that we have put from many lives, if we remove all the karmic things that we have created around the soul itself, we will see that the light is the same. There can be, like I said, so many lights, with different kinds of bulbs, yes, but there is only one source of electricity that lights everything. In the same way, you can be different in bodies, you can be different in your colours of hair, face and whatever else, the clothes you are wearing, but yet the light that shines inside you, the Light who you are in Reality, is the same one. All of you are one and if you see it in that way you cross over the mind. So take this Commandment, when Christ said: Be humble like a child, and then you shall enter the Kingdom of God. When you look at the child, the child doesn’t bother about anything. So experience this in life. Make yourself become like that. Don’t close yourself. Rise above everything and see God face-to-face and see yourself face-to-face. And be humble always, because if you are arrogant, if you have pride, don’t think that you will have God and don’t think that you will ever have Realisation. You can practice for whole lifetimes. I said lives, not only one life. You can practice thousands of lives if you want and you will not get it. You will not reach this point. But, if you really humble yourself and really be pure in your heart and really cleanse your mind, then you will see that He can remove all the karmic things just like that. Life He can change. He can change the lives of people in one second, but you can destroy your life, also, in one second. It’s up to you. It is only you who has this choice. If you want to change, you will change. If you don’t want to change, you won’t change, but you have the choice. This He will not do. The Master will never do this for you. The Master will show you the way. Like He said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.” This is only the Way, but you have to make your first step. If you don’t make your first step, then forget it. Like it is said, it is easy to judge, forgetting that you have a big pole in your own eye, but it’s often like that. You judge others, but what is it you are judging that you see in others? Is it not your own reflection? So, be humble like Him. Today you are all celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Let Him arise inside of you. Let Him Resurrect inside of you. Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

                                       " Happy Easter to all "

He is inside of you.....

Seeing the beauty of the Lord, we ask ourselves how did all the people in His lifetime feel when they saw Him? What did they feel? What did the Gopis feel? How was it for the people of Vrindavan to be near Him? We have read several stories about that. We read how beautiful He was, how great He was, but yet we ask ourselves ”But why not now? Why, when we pray so much, nothing happens?” You, also, would like to feel and experience this Love. You, also, would like to be so much in love with Him, but yet you find it very difficult, don´t you? Why? If we look at ourselves and we look at the people in Vrindavan, there, whatever they would do throughout the day, Krishna was the main important thing in their lives. Their minds were so much into Him. Whatever they would do, wherever they were, it was just for Krishna. They would cook for their own family, but it was for Krishna. They would wash their clothes and, in their minds, it was for Krishna. Everything was for Him. They were so much surrendered, that every breath of them was Krishna. If every breath of them was the Lord Himself, of course, the Lord was present inside of them at all times. But nowadays, when you are working, how many times do you think of God? Only when you have time, because when you are working, you are fully concentrated on your work. And the little time that you have left, what do you do with it? You worry about how to make the work better. When you do your spiritual practice - let’s say, when you are doing your Atma Kriya - you concentrate so much on the breathing, you concentrate so much on reciting the Name of God. Why? All spiritual sadhana, why do we do it? It’s because we know that there is something greater that our soul wants. We want something, but yet, with the mind we don’t understand it too much. We try to understand. We always look at it with the mind and we always want it to be how we want it to be, our way. But what is our way, actually? It is His Will. We always think that we have a free will. The limitation of ourselves, the limitation that our mind creates. We could be free, but our mind doesn’t let us be free. We can see the Lord everywhere, but our pride always stops us. We can love Him, but our expectation is always there, too. When one lets go of these three things, one will be really, fully into Him. Above all, He is the manifestation of Love. He is the manifestation of who we are, all of us. In Him Love is manifested in the outside, in everything that He expresses, in every action of Him. But in humans it is manifested deep inside, because we don’t let it out. We are scared of it. We are scared of our true Self. We are scared of what we have inside, but yet we crave for that. We want it. We are always looking for it everywhere. In whatever we do, whoever we meet, we are looking for this Love. But it’s not on the outside. It’s inside of you. Then one will ask “But why do we have to concentrate on Him outside? Why cannot we concentrate on Him inside?” With all these things covering you, all these expectations, this anger and fear, it’s very difficult to concentrate on the unmanifested form of the Lord, on the Love of God inside of you. That’s why He has given His outer forms for us to concentrate on them. It’s like when someone learns to shoot. First they start to shoot at big things, no? And the more experienced and concentrated they become in shooting, the smaller things are given to them to shoot at. So it’s the same thing: as long as you have a mind, which is very active, always jumping around, you need something to focus on in the outside. When your mind is calm through your sadhana, then you will be able to concentrate easily on the Lord inside of your heart. So chant the Divine Name. Focus on His form first and through that, at the end, He can show you that He is inside of you.