What I want to share from my experiences is that love conquers everything.It is my hope that it will inspire the readers to open their hearts to the Divine. If we can try to understand that we all are equally part of the Divine and are here to achieve this greater Truth and to realise our Self - if we make this our goal and do everything with Love…then everything will be lovely and you will always be happy.

Love



Sri Swami Vishwananda











Sunday, December 30, 2012

He’s not limited to any time, He’s not limited to any place, He’s not limited to any form......



Surrender body, mind, and soul completely to God. Let go of your identity, let go of this ‘I’, this egoism that makes you focus only on the outer. When you let go of your identity, then the Divine will reveal itself to you. Then you will see the unlimited. You will feel the blissful happiness. So open up – if the mind is still troubling you, take any divine aspect, focus your mind on it and surrender to the divine aspect until you reach the formless. From the form to the formless. So, do you want God? Do you want realisation? (Audience: Yes!) Is it a “Yes” from the heart or from the mind? (Laughing… audience: From the heart!) Don’t tell it to me – tell it to yourself and be sincere to yourself. Say, “Yes, I want it!” When you say it, “Yes, I want realisation, I want God!“ with such a determination, with such strength, such willpower, He will reveal Himself to you. He is accessible twenty-four hours, seven days a week, you know – always. He’s not limited to any time, He’s not limited to any place, He’s not limited to any form. When you close your eyes and drop inside yourself, you access Him. Try it. Close your eyes. Sure, your mind will trouble you, but don’t give much importance to it. The mind is also doing its part to create illusion. Remove all the pressure from your shoulders and travel inwardly. Use your mind to imagine, see your heart, your physical heart. It’s a beautiful organ which is pumping the blood in all the parts of your body. Look at it how beautiful it is! You know this.Deep in this organ, there is the greatest thing that has been given to humans! With each beat of the heart it is saying, “Let me out!” The Divine is calling from deep within you, “Let me out!” But you are the one with the key. Open up this heart, make this heart of flesh become the Heart of light, a light that the mind can’t comprehend, a light without any form, a light without any colour, the complete beautiful and most majestic light, even brighter than the sun. Then see the light...who you really are. Once you see it, once you have it – don’t let go of it. Keep it always and radiate this light. At every moment wherever you are, just be the light. Through this light healing will happen; through this light pain will be healed; through this light realisation will be achieved. 

Saturday, December 29, 2012

It’s through meditation that you can really come to the power of complete fulfilment.....


Maya Devi is very powerful, because She traps everything, everybody gets trapped in it. Even saints get trapped in it, but the saints know their goal. The yogis, the sadhus, the persons who are enlightened, they know their goal, they know what they want. They know what is real, what they desire inside of themselves. This is what is real: to show what you really want, what your heart wants; to listen deep inside of you, to be free from the misery of this world. I don’t mean that you have to die. You can become a jivan mukti. You can live in this world but, at the same time, not be a part of this world. Then you can have happiness. You will discover it, you will enjoy it, you will know about it. For that, there are many ways. There’s prayer, which helps to calm the mind. There’s bhajan singing, which will give you bliss; you can lose yourself in it, you develop bhakti inside you. But still, this is not fulfilment. It’s through meditation that you can really come to the power of complete fulfilment. When the prayer, when this bhajan singing makes you lose its aspect of witness to the outside, when you lose yourself and forget about everything, forget even about you being the body, you see that you have become One – with eternity, with God. You have attained your own realisation. This is how great saints, great prophets have taught mankind about it. One of the most beautiful aspects of bhakti is Mirabai. She was so much into it, she forgot about herself. She forgot about her body, she forgot about her mind. That state only is eternal bliss. This is the Soul itself.

Friday, December 28, 2012

...So, death, how many people are scared of it?..




... It’s a part of life, isn’t it? We are here to transcend death, to become the light that we truely are. But who really wants to become this light? Many people try it, and then they say, “It’s too long. It’s too much.” This is lack of patience. It is the goal of your Self. It’s true that we should not be attached to the body, but the body itself is divine, the mind itself is divine, so the spirit itself is divine. They are all one. And there is no difference. So, transcend the body into light.
Of course there is lots of purification on the way. At the beginning we say, “Yes – there is a God. We believe in Him. But where is He?” We try to exteriorize the Divine, we try to make God something apart from us. But God can be realised only within yourself. When we talk about God, very often we say, “God? Where – outside from us – is this person?” We think, He is there, we are here. We are different.
Whenever we talk about God, we have also to know that it is our own Self! We are actually talking about us, about each individual person. Because we are a part of God. Even if we all look different, when we remove the veil of illusion we are one light. Like this beautiful chandelier, it has many different bulbs, but the electricity is one! If you put a small bulb in it, of course we’ll have a small light, but the electricity will still be the same. It’s the same for you: all of you can shine the same light, the same divine light, more and more. You just need to let go. To really shine, you have to clean out all of the negativity.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

He will teach you to love – love without condition.....



In the Vishnupurana....it says, “Manav seva – Madhav seva.” This means, service to mankind is service to Lord Narayana. So try to see this Divine aspect in everybody. If you only look towards the outside, you will always come to a judgement point of the mind.
The mind has duality: You love – you don’t love; you are like this – or you are like that. You have to reach the point of non-duality, when you see only with the heart. This is the most beautiful thing. Years come, years go, it doesn’t bring anybody higher if the heart is not open. When you really give your best, you will open up your heart. How many saints started small, by helping a few people, and then they became selflessly devoted to the people, to the helping of others. Because in their mind they did not think that they were doing it for Jesus. They just did it because they loved to do it.
This reminds me of a saint, St. Sabbas of Egypt. You know, in the Christian tradition, whenever you go to a hermit, or to a monk, they welcome you by washing your hands and your feet. Even the Benedictines used to do it. They do not do it anymore. So, once a man came to visit St. Sabbas in his cave while St. Sabbas was meditating. When he noticed the visitor, he became very happy. He washed the hands of this man and he washed his feet, and he was so much in love and he was crying so much. When he looked up, it was Jesus sitting there. He started crying and said, “Oh, my Lord, You are here!” At that moment, the visitor disappeared.
So, God will not come to you in a beautiful form. He will always come, even as your own enemy. He will come, because this is how He will teach you to love – love without condition. 

Saturday, December 22, 2012

When true faith arises in the heart of man, all outside images disappear....





God has created everyone equally. He has placed Himself equally in everybody’s heart. God lives in the form of Love in the hearts of all people. Everyone is an aspect of this Divine Love. Regardless of your religion, be it Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or any other path, this Divine Love connects us all.
Faith is the same everywhere. When true faith arises in the heart of man, all outside images disappear. We have to understand that God doesn’t have any religion; God doesn’t have any caste; God doesn’t have any colour. God is beyond all this. We have to achieve this Oneness with the Divine beyond all diversity on the outside. As long as one looks outside, one will always see the differences between us, and of course, there will never be peace.
My mission is to help mankind realise their own Divine Self and to be able to express it in their day-to-day life. I wish for everyone to open their hearts so that they may experience this unconditional Divine love deep within.
My mission is to spread love. Divine love. The word ‘love’ itself has so many meanings nowadays that people have forgotten the true aspect of love. This unconditional love is what will change the world. All other types of love have expectations. But when one feels this true love inside one’s heart, it’s beyond all expectation. And only with this love can peace be restored.

Friday, December 21, 2012

This is what bhakti truly means....









Saint Francis expressed in one of his most known prayers: It is in Giving that we Receive. This is what Bhakti truly means. To give yourself, completely, because of Love. So may we unmask this ego that our mind creates, and that envelops us with pride, negativity,  limitation, judgement and fear. May we find the willpower and faith, that permits us to patiently purify ourselves enough to develop a deep longing for Divine union, accepting with positivity everything that comes along before we reach the final goal. May we build up the discipline to persist in our sadhana long enough to obtain the fruits of our puja, japa, meditation or any other means through which we express our Love for God. May we awake and transform ourselves on our spiritual journey, and may we see the Light that we are by listening to our inner voice that leads us to lasting freedom. Most importantly, may we obtain the Grace of the Guru, Divine Mother & God, to find our way back Home at last.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

We are so filled with this pride inside....


How will we find God? How will we find the Lotus Feet of the Lord, if we are so filled with this pride inside? Only with humbleness will one find Him, but not in the mind. You say to yourself, “Yes, I’m humble, I’m humble,” but it has to be here, within yourself, inside of you. When you think to yourself, “Yes, everybody is greater than me” you can learn things. There are so many things that you can learn. But, how many like to learn? Not so many.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Beyond all the duality that the mind creates is only the Self.....



I’m talking about opening the heart of man, opening your heart to love. Because you can love, you can love beyond what your mind is thinking about love. In the depth of this love you’ll be one with the Divine. Beyond all the duality that the mind creates is only the Self, and that’s what each one is here for. And no matter which path you are following, at the end, each path will reach that point. All paths are right but you have to be disciplined in them. When I say disciplined I don’t mean forcing or pressing. This is spirituality. Something that has to emerge from the heart of man, is like a flower that opens without any force. Let it open, and let it shine with beauty.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

He is the manifestation of who we are, all of us.....


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.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Who is yourself in reality?.....


.... It’s just Him! In the Gita, Krishna said: Everything is me. In the Bible, Christ said: Give what belongs to Caesar, to Caesar. And what belongs to God, to God. But what belongs to God? It is your spirit. It is your true Self. Make your prayer like this, “Lord, do whatever you want with me, whenever you want with me, and however you want with me”. And in your mind don´t ask any questions. This is a poison, because the mind always doubts. The mind always thinks it knows best. And when you surrender this mind to the Divine, bhakti will arise, devotion will arise. And when devotion arises, the purity of Love will also arise together with it. It´s not a love where we just say “I love you, I love you”. It´s a Love where when we say “I love you”, there is no condition in it. It is not “I love you because of something. I love you because of your body. I love you because of your wealth. I love you because you are beautiful outside and if I pull the skin from your body, I don´t love you anymore”. But it’s because when you say “I love you” you love Him the way He is. And that´s the purity of Love, the Unconditional Love, the way God loves, the way your heart knows how to love. That´s why you do feel Love, but the moment you start to put conditions to that Love, it fades. But when you stick to this purity of Love, and make this Love grow, it will grow. Because Love is like a seed, which is inside the heart of man: the seed has to grow, has to blossom, also. It has to germinate and grow big; the seed can´t just stay like that. That´s what Christ said, also. There are so many similarities between Hinduism and Christianity. Christ said: If you plant a seed on a stone, it will never grow. But if you plant it in the heart of man it shall grow.” And this is the Love in the heart of man, when real Love is felt, when real Love starts to grow. It grows in six different stages, which are called: Sneha Prem, Pranaya Prem, Mana Prem, Raga Prem, Anuraga Prem, and Maha Bhav. These stages of Love - of course, I will now not go to detail about it - grow when this purity is there, which leads you to complete surrender to the Divine. But first, what is in regard to normal life, is to calm the mind and let Love itself start to grow inside of the heart. Only through this Love will you know who you are. And this is not up to me to tell you, it’s up to you to make the first step.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The seven flowers.....


When we love, we love and forget. We don’t expect anything when we love somebody. Well, there are two different kinds of love. There is a love on the outside, where you only expect something, but there is another kind of love. There is a love where you will do anything for this person. Just to please this person you will do anything. Even that kind of love is divided in two. Whatever is done unconditionally will always make you happy, but whatever is done with a condition will always make you unhappy. To awaken this Love, to make this Love greater and greater is not that difficult. I always say, you just need to want it. I’ll tell you a small story. Once there was a Sage, a great Saint who went to a town. He was so famous that people were very excited when he was coming, so they started preparing four weeks before, busily preparing a lot of things. Then someone said “I heard that this Swami likes to use seven flowers when he performs his prayer.” That’s a lot of flowers – a big confusion started happening. They wondered “What  flower shall we take to give to this Swami?” They didn’t know what  flower to take. So they ran to the Saint and said “Reverend Sir, we heard that while praying you use seven flowers, but there is such a variety of flowers that we don’t know what  flowers to use.” The Saint looked at them and started laughing like mad. He said “Yes, I use seven flowers to pray and I want that each one of you gives these seven flowers to me. The seven flowers are: truthfulness, love, service to people, prayer, devotion, loyalty and control of the senses. These are the seven flowers. He said “If somebody gives these to God, gives them to one’s Self, God will be pleased with that. There is no greater thing than that. This reminds me of Krishna who said in the Bhagavad Gita “When somebody offers to me just a small leaf with Love from the heart, I shall accept it.” People offer a lot of things to please God – big, big things on the outside, but everything is from Him. It is He who gives; we are just taking what is given by Him and offering it back to Him. This Love that we have inside is also Him, but it is up to us to develop it or not. It is up to us how we handle it. We can go and do service on the outside like many organisations that just buy a lot of things and give them to the poor countries. Does this mean that this is service? You can always put a hundred euros aside every month, put it into an account of some organisation somewhere and say “That’s service”. The moment the money is gone you don’t even know what is happening with it, but when you yourself go; when you yourself participate in it, it creates another joy. It is this joy that God wants you to develop. People say “Yes, but I don’t have time to go and serve”, because in the mind they think that when you talk about that kind of service you have to run to India or to Africa. Your neighbour is dying, your neighbour is hungry by your side and you are thinking of India and of Africa, but God is thinking about them. Service starts near, around you. Stop seeing the difference, clear your mind of differences and see the same Lord everywhere. Offer the flowers that I just mentioned from deep within your heart. Offer them to Him. In this way you don’t even need to sit to pray, because He will be always with you. Open up your heart and serve whenever you can. Help whenever you can.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Feel it from deep within you ....



We are looking for Him on the outside. We are looking for Him in this world, but we can just drop deep inside ourselves and find Him. Let go of the mind which is always busy looking on the outside. If we just drop ourselves deep in our heart, we can feel this peace and happiness and enjoy it. You will see how great it is, how great it is to love. Feel it from deep within you – this is the true love of loving somebody. It is not only for one person but for everybody. Love unconditionally!

Friday, December 14, 2012

All of you flow back to the same ocean.....


 
 
 
Our mind tries to separate things, but look behind what only your physical eyes can see. Look at the light. This light which you all reflect, which everybody in this world reflects; this is the reality. When you achieve this level, know that you have come to the point of complete realisation.
Keep practicing everyday, make it your daily sadhana.
Meditate, sing the name of God. There are many ways you can reach this light. Like all the rivers flow back to the same ocean, the same is within all of you. All of you flow back to the same ocean. Make this deep ocean of love which you carry grow more and more, and the Lord will reveal Himself deep inside you.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

“First find yourself, then find the world, then look for the world”


A great philosopher said, “First find yourself, then find the world, then look for the world”, no? So, once you have found yourself, then you become a jivan mukti, you become free from the bondage of karmic things. Then you can do whatever you want, as much as you want: nothing will bind you. But as long as you have not found yourself, keep trying, keep looking, and the Divine name of Rama will help you, or the Divine name of Krishna, the Divine name of Jesus, all the Divine names will help you to find that. That’s why they say that the bhakti path is one of the easiest paths, but you have to dedicate yourself. It’s not that the next moment, you just divert your mind from your path; or a little wind blows, and you let yourself fall from left to right. So, hold tight to the Divine names, any Divine name that you feel close to – you don’t need to have ten Divine names, you just need one Divine name. If you have a guru mantra, just chant your guru mantra; if you have one Divine name, one form of the Divine that you feel close with, just concentrate on one. It will be more intensified than concentrating on ten Divine names. In the mind of man, they think that when they have ten, they will advance faster. They will not advance faster. Actually they will advance less fast, because one Divine name is like digging one hole and getting the water; ten Divine names is like digging ten holes to try to get water. You will not get it. So, if you want, just chant one name.


 

Saturday, December 8, 2012

We are so busy with what we see outside.......

Discipline helps us to calm our mind, because when the mind is very agitated on the spiritual path, we can’t concentrate. We can’t really focus ourselves on our heart. So even if you want to focus yourself on your heart, your mind is jumping, jumping, jumping. So we do our Sadhana. We chant, we practice Yoga or we do Om Healing or Atma Kriya to calm the mind. It helps that we can listen more clearly to ourselves and realize the Divine within ourselves. Not just tell somebody “Just do your Sadhana and meditate and you will attain God"... It’s true: If one is sincere towards oneself, one will attain God, because God will come to that person and will manifest Itself, the heart will manifest itself. But yet we look at the world and ask “How many people really are sincere towards themselves in that way?” We are so busy with what we see outside, what we think. We want to always analyze everything with our mind, that we give so much less importance to the heart, even when we know that “Yes, we have to be in the heart, but we see how dominant our mind is."So without saying “Yes, I want really strongly to follow, I want to change and I want really to attain my goal, it's difficult.”We can outside say “Yes, yes, yes I want this”, but inside we say “Wow, it’s far away”. As long as you see this distance and are discouraged, you will not enjoy your practice. It doesn’t matter how big the distance is. Keep trying. And never loose hope.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Swami Vishwananda talks about the Mother Nature...


Swami Vishwananda said: "If we want to contribute to
Mother Nature, it is up to us to change. The change is not:
“Yes, I will do my sadhana, or I will do my prayer.” 
No, the change is NOW!"