Swami Vishwananda unconditional Love

Surrender happily everything that stands in between to Lord Shiva!

2012-02-01T02:43:00.000-08:00

The aim of every human being is for God to reveal Himself within. You have to let go of your egoism. You have to let go of all the things that stand between your realisation and your Self. Therefore, surrender happily everything that stands in between to Lord Shiva!

In the Hindu tradition, we call Shiva ‘the destroyer’. He destroys everything. People might get scared a bit when they hear ‘the destroyer’. But it’s always for a good cause. Whatever he destroys he always gives the opportunity to recreate. At the end of life we face death, and we are so scared about death, but this is the time when Shiva comes. He enables the soul to be born again. He gives the opportunity for all the things you have not done just to make it. If you have not reached the level of realisation, he gives you the chance to try again. He gives the opportunity all the time. But each one of us should try our best to come to the point of realising God completely – to realise who we really are.

All the great masters – like Jesus or Krishna – what have they taught us? They have taught us to realise our Self! They have taught us the way. There are different ways to realise the Divine: there is the path of bhakti, there is the path of service, and there is the path of meditation. But each one has their own way to realise the Divine.

You have really to be in it... deep inside......

2012-01-31T05:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Actually there are many forms of meditation. If you are conscious of it, you can do it anywhere. However, you have to practice it daily. To achieve something, you have to be disciplined in it and practice it every day regularly. It is very important to practice without expectation.

This is the biggest problem in the world, that many people expect many things. They want to do a little and get a lot. Of course, you will get it if you receive the grace from a master. It can be activated and made faster for you.

It is important though, that you do not just fix always on the master, but you also have to do your own part. Be disciplined wherever you practice it. For sure, you will achieve the same level as the master has. Do not just touch it a little bit, as I said before, and after that you say, “Oh, it is very nice.” You do it for one week and finish with it. You should do it even when you are not feeling well, even if you think, “Oh, I’m tired today. I have lot of work today!” If you think that because you have worked all day you will not do it, this will really break this chain.

Therefore, it is important that you practice it twice daily: morning and evening, and if possible in between. It is always good to do more of it. It is always good to forget about the body and be the Self, isn’t it? You will be calmer; you will be happier, more joyful. You will reflect the light of the Divine more, rather than just being tired, working, working, working, and being tired. Moreover, the next day you wake up with a long face, not being nice, not reflecting any light, and doing the same routine everyday.

Meditation energises all parts of you. The body especially needs it a lot. The mind, which is always worrying about something, has to be calm. The easiest way to calm the mind is to focus it on the Divine. Whenever your mind is thinking... sometimes it happens, even though you don’t want to think something! But the thought is there. Then, after you have thought about it, you say, “Oh, why have I thought like that?” You are still thinking more about it! Instead, do this: When the thought passes through your mind, let it pass. Do not question it afterwards. In place of questioning it, recite the name of God. You love the Divine Mother? Think of Her. Recite Her name inside you. You like Jesus? Krishna? Any Divine aspect.

So open up......

2012-01-30T04:45:00.000-08:00

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.

The first thing in spirituality is to control the thought....

2012-01-29T00:42:00.000-08:00

The first thing in spirituality, the first, and the best thing you can do, is to control the thought. The more the thought is negative, it reflects outside. Very often these negative thoughts are about one’s own self, thinking “How bad I am, how negative I am.” You know you are negative, but you enjoy it. (Laughing) But why enjoy it? Why like it? First, we have to change the thoughts about ourselves. Then we can change the thoughts towards other people. As long as we judge ourselves, we only look at the negative part of our own self.

Thought is very easy to control. You don’t need to sit down to control it. When the thought is passing through your mind, you know about the thought. You know whether it is positive or negative. So if it is positive, it will be constructive – feed it, then let it grow! But when it is negative, try not to feed it. Then you say to yourself, “This is not me.” And let go of it. When you let go of the thought, you will see how beautiful your own life is, and how great this life is that God has given us. Also in your meditation will be easier. For the powerful thoughts are the positivism in human beings. Through thoughts, whatever you wish for yourself, whatever you think about, you will receive it.

Thought is the willpower of man. It’s the way that you use to realise the Divine. All spirituality starts here – in the mind. Then it reaches the heart. You use thought to open the heart. And to this thought of the heart – you may want to call it the voice of God – you will learn to listen to it without any doubts. When-ever you will sit in meditation, you will feel that deep bliss, and the consciousness that you are Divine will always be with you. Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, you will have the consciousness that the Divine is with you.

There are many ways of controlling the mind....

2012-01-28T23:29:00.000-08:00

The more you chant the Divine Names, the more you become the Divine Names and the more the mind ceases to trouble you. Once the mind ceases to trouble you, it will be much easier in your meditation. So, when you help others, you see this happiness, you feel this happiness and with the Divine Names you will realise that you are serving the Divine. This helps you on your spiritual path. But I will give you one simple way of calming the mind, which is through the breath–the gift of life. You can go on, you can live without food, you can live without drinking, but you can’t live without breathing. That’s what Christ said: Give us our daily bread– the bread of life, which is the Pranashakti. In all spiritual paths, wherever you go, in whatever culture, they have the controlling of the breath. So we will do together now one easy example of how to control the mind. There are many ways of controlling the mind. Some are very easy and some are very difficult. So, which one do you like? The more difficult or the more easy? The mind flow is always running ahead. Even when I tell you to sit for meditation, where has your mind already jumped? It’s already thinking “Oh, how would it be?” Sometimes, you are sitting here and you are already sitting in America. So fast is the mind. That’s why we say “It’s jumping like a monkey from tree to tree.” So to hold this monkey, to tie it up is very important. Otherwise, you will never be free. You will be like this monkey.You see, when I say to meditate, the first thing people always do is to close their eyes. It’s a trap. The moment you close your eyes, your mind jumps. First, before doing this calming of the mind, let’s see in one minute how your mind is. OK? Close your eyes and observe your mind. Stop. Tell me without being ashamed or being shy, in this oneminute’s time where were you? Eh? So, your mind ran outside? How many were travelling around? Were you far away? Were you very far, like India? Not so far, eh? Well you see, so quickly we can travel. Faster, even faster than lightning is the thought of men.

Once there was a very learned priest.......

2012-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

Once there was a very learned priest, a pundit, who went to a king and said “King, I will teach you the Bhagavatam.” The king, who, of course, knew about the Bhagavatam, looked at the priest and said “No, I don’t want you to teach me the Bhagavatam, because you yourself have not understood it, so how could you teach it to me? Go back, learn it and, when you understand it, come back to me.” The priest went away very angry, because his ego and pride had been hurt. He closed himself in his room, took all the books and started to read, again, the Bhagavatam. When he finished, he went again to the king and said “King, I have read everything and I am coming to you, again, to teach you the Bhagavatam.” The king replied “No, no, no, go back!” So he was sent back for the second time. This time he thought “If the king is sending me away all the time, for sure there is a meaning. Let me study it really carefully.” Again, he closed himself in his room and this time he really surrendered himself and he really opened his heart and read the Bhagavatam. As he was reading the Bhagavatam, new knowledge arose in his mind, new wisdom came. Things that he didn’t know before arose within him. Then he realised that he had been going to the king for the wrong reasons - for fame and wealth - and that was why the king had been sending him away. When he realised this, he didn’t go to the king anymore. After a few months, the king remembered him and went to see him. He said “Priest, I have come to you, because I didn’t see you coming back, so I was wondering what had happened?” But he saw that the priest was radiating so much light so, without asking him anything more, he fell at his feet and said “Now you can teach me. I surrender to you. I take you as my Guru. Now I see that you have understood the Srimad Bhagavatam.” Humans always do this mistake of wanting things for the wrong reason. They pray to God, they ask for Realisation, but they do this out of selfishness. They ask “God, grant me this, grant me that, give me this.” They don’t really trust; they just ask. Out of pride, out of ego, one asks always to gain things that will make him happy only for a certain time. When you have enjoyed these little things and the happiness is gone, then you are back again in the same misery.

He will just shine through you.....

2012-01-26T05:12:00.000-08:00

The same when you take the life of Saints. Take the life of Mirabai, Bhakta Prahlad, any Saints who have attained the Divine, they glow this light of the Divine. They glow, they reflect the Love of the Divine through them. They don’t need to talk about God, but they just need to be around. Same with all of you: the more you chant the Divine Names, the more the Divine will start to reflect on you. Then you can call yourself spiritual, because when you become spiritual, all the negative quality is removed from you, all the negative karma that you have created through many lives before, it get removed. And what takes place is this joy – the joy of serving, the joy of really being here, the joy of trying to attain the Lord, you know. And this joy starts to appear with you the more you attune yourself to the Divine. But you have to do the first step, because the Divine is already there. He’s waiting for you. The moment you make the first step, He will just shine through you.

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

2012-01-25T05:20:00.000-08:00

When people are near a Teacher, they always judge the Teacher. Actually they are not judging the Teacher: they are judging their own Self. Because what you see, the Teacher, is a mirror of yourself, so that you can learn something. But if you are stupid enough, you will never learn it because even if a Teacher can give you the lesson a hundred times, the stupidity in your mind can blind you completely. Such were the wonders that Christ did, so many, but yet the disciples were all blinded with pride and fear, to the point to deny Him, to the point to betray Him. But even when they came to collect Christ, He didn’t react. He knew that the Will of God is the most important thing. He surrendered to the Will of God. The Master surrendered to the Will of God and did what God told Him to do. Even if it was death, He accepted it happily, and he said “As I, the Shepherd, am being led for the sacrifice, the sheep will be scattered”. Already then He predicted it, but indirectly. He already said everything to them, but they were so blind to themselves, that they couldn’t hear it. Know one thing: a Master will not say directly “You are stupid. You, stupid man, do it like this, like this, like this.” Well, sometimes they will do it like that, but very often they give only hints. If you are clever enough, you will get it. If you are not clever enough, you will not get it. Like that, Christ had given many hints to the disciples. He had said to them so many times that the Son of men would be betrayed and would be lead to the crucifixion, but yet they didn’t understand anything.

It’s only you that I’m looking for....

2012-01-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Sri Krishna said in the Gita “Cast away all dogma. Cast away all that is from the mind and surrender to me.” Only then True Love can be Realised. The Jnanis, they stick only to the mind. I don’t say that it´s not good. It´s good, but it will lead you only to a certain level. It is very good to help, to do karma yoga, but if you are not helping with the right attitude, it will also bring you only to a certain level. Whereas with bhakti, like Sri Krishna said to Uddhava: Above all the yogas, I prefer bhakti yoga. I prefer the yoga of devotion, where the devotee and the Lord become One; where there is no difference left, whereas in all the other yoga, the difference stays. When I am talking about devotion, I don’t mean the kind of devotion that will fade after one month, but pure devotion that lasts forever. There are lots of people who have devotion in the beginning. When they start their spiritual path they are very excited but, after some time, their devotion fades. But real devotion is like the Lord said: If you surrender to me, open your heart and say “Lord, take complete possession of my heart. It’s only you that I’m looking for.”

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us today.....

2012-01-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

Once there was a farmer who was living in a small town and in this town there was a big drought; there was no rain. The farmer decided to make a canal from the river to his field, so that he could water his field, and the cows could have water to drink. He said to himself “I will make this canal and I will not take any rest or eat any food or drink anything until I have finished it” During the day his daughter came with food saying “Father, come and eat; it´s already lunchtime”, but he said to the daughter “No, go away. I have to finish this canal first; then I will eat.” The daughter went back home and told this to the mother. So the mother went to see him and told him “My dear Lord, you have been working the whole day, surely you can take 5 minutes rest and have your lunch.” Again, the man said “No!”, but the wife kept insisting. Finally he left the digging of the canal and started to run after his wife, shouting to her “Leave me alone! I told you: until I have finished the canal, I will not leave this place. Go away!” The wife saw that the husband was, really, very angry and that there was no point in changing his mind. So she stayed quiet and went home. The man carried on digging. Late in the evening he finished the canal and, as he finished it, the water from the river started to flow towards his field. Then he sat down with appreciation, hearing the beautiful sound of the water, looking at the water flowing to his field and he felt great satisfaction. Then he went home and called his wife “Come here and give me tobacco. I will smoke now.” Very happily, he smoked his tobacco then he took a shower, had his lunch and slept very peacefully. His neighbour also tried to build a canal from the river, but when his wife came and called him “My Lord, come and have your lunch.” He, also, said first “No”, but when the wife insisted, saying “Come, my dearest Lord, five minutes will not cost you anything”, he left his work, saying “As you have said it so sweetly, I’ll come!” So he went and sat and had his lunch and after the lunch, he would of course, have a small siesta. He had his siesta, but at the end of the evening he hadn’t done anything else than eating and sleeping. So he never succeeded in making the canal to his field. What lies behind this story is that one has to completely surrender to one´s path and, whatever obstructions or obstacles come on the way, one has to always say “No” to them. Your aim is to have God- Realisation, Self-Realisation. Until you have reached your aim, until you have come to the point of complete trust and faith in yourself and in God, keep trying! Don’t let anything come in the way!

"We say we have only one God, but we adore Him in His many forms until we reach a point to see this Oneness everywhere."

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

2012-01-22T01:51:00.000-08:00

The world, however we look at it, is always on the move. When we take time and calmly we look at ourselves; when we look at human beings, they are constantly on the move. Even sitting here, they are far away, somewhere else, you know. They are sitting here, they are listening, but the mind is somewhere else, doing something else. So, how can there be peace, when one is not in peace within oneself, when one can’t take five minutes to sit down here and bring the body, mind and spirit here, in the same spot? And yet, human beings are looking for peace. So, to have this peace, one has to learn to calm oneself. It’s like everything else. You see, if you want your child to study, what do you do? You make the child sit and then you make the child study, no? First you have to make the child sit down, then study. In the same way, without an effort from you, without disciplining yourself and sitting down and practising your sadhana, it’s difficult to find real peace. With everything else, today you have something, but you don’t know tomorrow if you will have it or not. It’s the same thing with real peace, you know: if you have attained real peace, once you have it, you will have it always. It’s the same thing with Love, real Love I’m talking about, pure Love. Once you have realised it, you will always have it with you.

"Only when you are wholly directed towards Him, He will turn wholly towards you."

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us a story .....

2012-01-21T00:18:00.000-08:00

It is said that Rama Himself didn´t know the power of His own Name. Once Rama was with Hanuman and all the monkeys and they tried to build a bridge between India and Sri Lanka. They did their best. They would go near the lake carrying big, big stones and they would throw them into the sea, thinking that it would fill up, and they could walk across. Every time that they did that, the stone would, of course, sink. Then Ram decided “Let me, also, go and put a stone.” So He went, took a stone and put it in the sea. He thought that if He put it in, it would float, but the moment the stone left His hand, it sank deep in the water. So He called Hanuman: “Hanuman, come here for one minute. You know, I don´t understand one thing. It is said that by singing my name the people will get liberation, but here, look, I can´t even make a stone float, because at the moment I put the stone on the water it sinks.” You know, Hanuman is considered as the Ocean of Wisdom, so He said to Rama “My Lord, with all my respect to You, I don´t want to offend You, but I will tell you something. It is not Your fault, because the point is, as long as the stone is in Your hand, the stone will float, it is in safety; but the moment the stone leaves Your hand, it will sink, of course!” That’s why, as a solution, Hanuman wrote on each stone the Name of Rama and so they floated.

What will please Him is to chant simple things.....

2012-01-20T04:48:00.000-08:00

All Holy Scriptures, all the Scriptures talk about the Love of God. We have many who discuss about how it has to be, but yet, in the simplest form, when you go inside your heart, you know what is Love. It’s not about me to say as words what is Love, because Love can’t be expressed as words. You can only feel Love. Yet, you see in the world how many wars have been happening for people expressing their views of how God loves people. One says, “My God loves better.” The other one says, “No, no, no, no, you are wrong. Mine is the best. Yet all are talking about only One God, you know? So try to find this Love. It’s like the Greeks said “First find yourself, then you will find your path.” First find what you are looking for, what is your aim in life, what your heart is really asking. Your mind will ask for many things and when it gets whatever it asks, it will ask for something else. But, if you go deep inside of you and take time for yourself everyday, when you introvert and find the Divine, find this Love, you will see that it was never far away from you. It’s just here all the time. It’s just we don’t want it to flow. We don’t want to let it go and as long as our mind comes in the way, chant, “Haribol, Hari Nam, Kevalam.” The only name is Sri Hari. The two syllables of Hari can even give liberation, can even get rid of all the karmic things in one’s life. It’s simple: Hari. We like to have big, big sadhana, but yet we don’t understand anything. We like to chant big, big mantras, but yet we don’t understand anything. What will please Him is to chant simple things, but with Love.

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us a story .....

2012-01-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

In India, there is a place called Puri, and there is a temple for Lord Krishna in the form of Jagannath. He is an aspect of Krishna, a funny one. Every year, there is a big festival where they bring the Deities out and carry them in the street. Millions of people gather there. All the people, even the King, would go and help to clean the street where they would be bringing the chariot of the Lord. It happened that one day, a very rich merchant came to Jagannath and, seeing the Lord together with his brother Balaram and sister Subhadra, he said to himself “This is just a mere wooden statue with big eyes and a big smile; it´s just a black statue.” Then he said, very proudly, “I will show how wealthy I am and I will give one hundred thousand rupees.” So he went to the priest and said, “Priest, I will donate one hundred thousand rupees to the temple to feed the Lord, but I have one condition: you have to use all this money for the food.” The priest thought, “How will I use one hundred thousand rupees only for the food? Even if I use the best ghee and all the best ingredients to make the prasad for the Lord, still the money will not be finished.” So, all the priests gathered together and started discussing “How could we finish one hundred thousand rupees for the prasad of the Lord?” Finally the high priest came to a conclusion: he said “OK, it seems that we can’t take any decision, but let Lord Jagannath Himself, Let Krishna Himself take the decision.” They went to the merchant and said “Listen, we haven´t come to a conclusion, but we will let the Lord Himself decide which kind of prasad He would like to have. Meanwhile, please stay with us until the Lord Himself tells us what kind of prasad He wants.” Three days went by and then the high priest had a dream. In this dream, Lord Jagannath appeared to him and told him what to say to the merchant. Of course, the Lord knew the pride which was inside the merchant and in which way he was offering the prasad to Him. So, finally, the priest went to the merchant and said to him “The Lord has come in my dream and said what kind of prasad He would like to have.” The merchant said very proudly “Yes, tell me.” The priest said “The Lord has demanded some betel leaves with some paste inside.” Then the merchant said “What? He wants only these leaves. But this is nothing.” So the priest said “Wait, I am not finished. The Lord has asked that inside these betel leaves there should be pearl powder. They should be smeared with the finest ground pearl powder.” And the merchant said, “Still, this is nothing for me.” But the priest said, “Yes, but the Lord said another thing also, these pearls that you will use should not be just ordinary pearls, they have to be pearls which come under the skin of the forehead of an elephant.” Then the arrogant merchant started to think “Yes, but how many elephants will I have to buy to be able to get just one pearl? I am offering one hundred thousand, but it will cost more than that.” He realised that he could not offer to Lord Jagannath what He was asking. At that moment he threw his very expensive turban at the feet of Jagannath, kneeled down and said to the Lord “Please, forgive me. Out of pride, I tried to bribe you. I know I can’t give you anything which is in the outside, but I offer you my heart.” And he changed completely. A few days later the Lord appeared to him in his dream and said “I am very pleased with your heart and this is the only thing that I want: a heart which is full of love and devotion.”

A burning sensation for the Lord....

2012-01-18T05:26:00.000-08:00

When Saint Theresa of Avila said, “The Lord has pierced my heart, my heart has been pierced by the Lord’s sword, by the Lord’s arrows”. It is this intensity of Love, not a Love that you can say, “Yes, I’m feeling very happy”. This is what everybody understands of Love, you know. No, it is not like that. It’s a Love that transcends happiness and transcends pain itself. And this intensity – it was the same thing as when they opened the heart of Saint Theresa of Avila. When Theresa of Avila died, they removed the heart - this was the culture in the 16th century - and when they opened the heart, they saw that her heart was pierced. It was the same as when they saw Jesus: when they showed His heart, it was pierced. So, this intensity, like I have explained many times before, is a burning sensation for the Lord. But sadly nowadays, people don’t know about this intense longing for God. They know only a little bit about how to long for God but then, the next moment, what passes through their mind, what they see is, “Oh, I need this…” They forget about the Lord. They run after the world. It’s so easy to run after the world because you run and the world is running after you. But you have to run after the Lord. I know, I’m talking, it doesn’t make much sense, anyway, what I’m saying, but it’s good to remind one’s self about that. It’s good to remind everybody that we are not here to run after the world. The world can run after you, but you have to run after the Lord. If you really want to realise yourself, the world will be always there for you. But you have firstly to gain the realisation, which is why you have incarnated. Once you have gotten this, you can run after the world as much as you want. That’s what 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.

The power of Ram Naam.....

2012-01-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

It is said that through the mere chanting of Ram Naam, one can attain Moksha - liberation. One will be free from all karmic influences. Such is the power of Ram Naam! Such is the power of the Name of the Lord that it can instantly liberate you. But, there is one thing: to get the full benefit of chanting the Divine Name, one has to chant it sincerely. One has to chant it wholeheartedly. At first, the chanting is just mechanical but when you go deeper into it, you will lose yourself into the Divine Name and drink the cup of Divine Love. And, once you drink the cup of Divine Love, you will see the world completely differently, because this Love has nothing to do with how we understand love with our minds: This Love is pure nectar, and to understand it, one has to drink it. So, chant the Divine Names!

Learn to listen to your heart.....

2012-01-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

Learn to listen to your heart, because whatever people say, there is a certain degree of untruth in it, but whatever you hear from inside of you, there is certainly a degree of truth in it. That’s why it is said that following one’s intuition is very important on the spiritual path. Developing the capacity of intuitiveness inside your Self is very important and will lead you to your objective in life. In order to develop that quality, you need somebody who has already mastered this. You always need a teacher, you always need a Satguru. If you take the name of any Deity, take the name of Rama, take Krishna, they all have a Guru, they all have a teacher to guide them. They are the embodiment of the Divine fully. They could have said “OK, I don’t need one”, but yet, they showed that in life one needs the blessing of a Guru and the way to receive it is through satsang, through gathering. In general, why do people go to a master and receive what the master is giving? It is because, you see, the master carries the Amrit, the nectar. Even though you don’t perceive it with the mind, you do receive it. Through satsang, through gathering, you are receiving something and what you are receiving is contributing to your advancement. What you are receiving, even without knowing, is the Amrit. It’s this nectar that bees fly from far away to come and collect from the lotus flower or certain flowers. Not all the flowers have the same capacity of honey inside of them, not all the flowers have the same capacity of sweetness inside and who knows that? Only the bees know that; not the frog. The frogs are the stupidity that is always thinking they know everything. They will jump up and down on the flower, but they will not know what sweetness is inside. To know that, one has to dig deep inside oneself, dig deeper and deeper where one gets this Amrit. Through the help of the teacher, the Guru, you receive this Amrit so that - at the end of life - you can say “Yes, I have achieved the purpose of life”.

Surrender........

2012-01-15T02:27:00.000-08:00

When your body, mind and soul have become one and are offered to the altar of the Lord, He will happily give everything to you. He will give Himself to you. The king surrendered to the priest, who had understood that real teaching is within us, not in books. When you give yourself completely to God, God will also give Himself completely to you. So, call upon the Lord from your heart. When your heart calls Him fully, when your mind is completely centred on Him, you will see that He will also completely surrender to you. Then you will be in this bliss, in this Love, continuously. You will be continuously in love with God. You will be continuously in love with everybody and everything around you. This Love, you can’t understand it with your mind. It surpasses all the love that this world can say about love. You can attain this Divine Love, this Divine Ecstasy only when you surrender.

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

2012-01-14T00:26:00.000-08:00

We see how the world is nowadays. You see how the mind of man is working. I don’t say that there is just negativity or just positivity. There is a balance of both, but people who are spiritual have the grace of God, and when you are spiritual, you awake this Divine Love within you. You try to know who you are, because you know the mind is limited by something and the body is limited by something. But there is the greatest force, which governs everything, which is deep inside of you, and this greatest force can’t be satisfied by anything in the outside, only by Pure Love, only by complete devotion to the Divine.

“Help us to remove all the barriers”.......

2012-01-13T04:17:00.000-08:00

The mind has to be fully on the Divine. The mind has to
transcend the limitations and transform itself. This is, also, why we
pray to Lord Ganesha “Help us to remove all the barriers.” We ask
Him to help us, so that we can transcend the limitations, so that
we can be ourselves, because our true Self knows no judgment, no
difference, no pain, no hatred, no jealousy and no anger. Our true
Self is in constant Unity. He is each one of us. And that’s true Love.

Let go......

2012-01-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

We talk about God and we think about God, but still our mind
can’t comprehend Him, our mind can’t picture Him. Out of His
humbleness, He manifests Himself in different aspects, different
forms, so that we can focus our mind on these forms. And He has
different names, so that we can focus our intellect on these names.
But, we are so absorbed in our learning in order to feed the mind
that we forget about the Reality. By feeding our mind, we always
stay in the mind consciousness, in the mind level. And don’t think
that you will ever be able to understand and Realise your True Self
with your mind. It is only when you surrender your mind to the
Lotus Feet of God that you will really release yourself from this
bondage, from all this suffering. Then you can say “God, here I am.
I surrender to You without anything. Help me; pull me out of this
illusion.”
There is this beautiful story of Draupadi. She was married with
the five Pandavas and she regarded all five equally as her husband.
She loved all of them in the same way. One day they were playing
a dice game with their cousin, Duryodhan. The Pandavas had
put everything they had in this game and they lost everything,
because the dice that they were using were magic dice. So they lost
everything.
Seeing that, the other side, the Kauravas, said to them “What
else do you have? Now that you don’t have anything, we want you
to give also your wife, put in your wife, also.” And the Pandavas
agreed. So they even put their wife in, Draupadi, and they, also,
lost her. So to ridicule them, the Kauravas asked that Draupadi be
brought to the court and they tried to remove her sari. Of course,
when somebody is trying to remove your clothes, if you don’t want
this, what do you do? You hold onto them, no?
So Draupati was calling to Krishna “Govinda, come, where are
you?,” but at the same time, she was holding onto her clothes very
tightly. She kept calling Govinda, but He didn’t come, so she finally
felt tired and she let go. She lifted her hands up and again called
“Govinda.” In that moment, the Lord appeared and the sari started
to flow continuously. They pulled and pulled and pulled, metres
and metres of cloth were coming from her and still they were not
able to remove her clothes. So they renounced and let her go.
One day Draupati finally asked Krishna “Krishna, when I was in
the court, I was calling You. Why did you take so long to come?”
Krishna said “Well, my dear sister, when you called me and said my
name, Govinda, when you said, Go, I was leaving my palace to come
to you. When you said, vinda, I was already there. But when I was
there, I saw that you were hanging onto your clothes, so I didn’t
help you. And only when you let go of things, when you let go of
your clothes, did I help.”

Become an instrument of the Divine Love....

2012-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

When we talk about love, about finding this love inside of us, it’s actually to find His Love inside of us, to catch Him completely and when we catch Him, then we can say “Yes, I have Him.” Actually, all the Masters from all religions–not only Hinduism–Mohammed, Jesus, Krishna, all have come just to teach mankind to attain this Universal Love, to attain this Unconditional Love, because this is your true nature. Apart from that, there is nothing. All that you have you will leave here. You took it from here; you will leave it here. Once you have attained this Love, just give, because you will have become an instrument of the Divine Love, and let it flow always.

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us today.....

2012-01-09T02:57:00.000-08:00

There is this saying: “The wise one keeps quiet; the unwise one makes lots of noise.” The wise man knows the truth about himself and about everybody else. The unwise one doesn’t know much. That’s why He wants to have the attention of everybody.

It is very simple and easy to offer your heart to God.....

2012-01-08T04:07:00.000-08:00

We are so bound by our pride......

2012-01-07T02:01:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to talk about humility, but sometimes difficult to practice, because we are so bound by our pride, which makes ego perceive us to be above everybody else. If we really want to change something, if we really want to let go of this pride, it will happen, but first we have to want it. We have to say “Yes, I want it!” and not superficially. Many people say, “Yes, I want it, Swamiji. I don’t want to be proud. I try my best to get rid of it, but it’s not leaving me!” But it’s not that it is not leaving you, but you are not leaving it. This is the difference, you know? When one is humble, one will not even care about putting oneself completely down and regarding everybody else higher. This is the beginning of how to learn to be humble, to learn to put yourself down and say that everybody else knows better than you. Keep repeating to yourself, keep reminding yourself of that and you will learn from everything and from everyone. That’s true humility. Have you heard about the Baha’i faith and the prophet Baha’u’llah? He used to say to his disciples “If you find in some person nine bad vices and one good thing, forget about the nine bad ones and think about the good one.” But what do we do always–we judge. We have to cultivate love for all. Then we can really be humble and see it’s very easy to get rid of it, it’s easy to put pride away. But it all depends on your sincerity when you say “Yes, I want to change; yes, I want to be humble.” Don’t just say superficially that you want to be humble because you have read about it and, when you meet someone who offends you, you fire this person. No, learn! Learning will never finish. Like the great saints say, from day one until the end you will learn, because there are so many things in this world to learn about. And there are so many beautiful things. There is so much beauty around and inside of you, but you have to take time and see it. If your mind is always running forward and your body is running backward, you are missing a lot. So calm the mind. It is only in the stillness that you will find relief. That’s why you meditate, no? Why do you think you meditate? Why do you think you practise your spiritual practice? Tell me. Is it to get a note saying: I have practiced Kriya. I have practiced this meditation or that meditation? No, it’s not about that. It’s about Realising your Self, about becoming this true Self, and to become that true Self, the easiest way is to be humble and be loving to all.

When you centre yourself in your heart.....

2012-01-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

When you centre yourself in your heart and awaken this Divine Consciousness, Higher Consciousness inside, you will always flow. No matter what, you will enter into Divine Ecstasy and you will feel different energies flowing through you, but the mind cannot understand and then it will cry “I want to understand it, but I can’t!” When the power of the mind decreases, the power of the heart increases. It is so simple: the Lord has sent you here to Realise this, to develop bhakti and to attain Self-Realisation. Whenever we sing Radhe Shyam, of course we have in our mind the image of Radha and Krishna, but who are these Radha and Krishna? Krishna is Pure Love and Radha is Bhakti and one cannot exist without the other. That’s why we always see them together and we always mention their names together: Radhe Shyam, which means prema bhakti - love and devotion. If this True Love, if this true devotion arises inside of you, it will lead you to Self-Realisation. We have to put in our mind what is our aim. Life is like entering into a boat, which will guide you on the Ocean of Samsara. The boatman is the Satguru, but into which boat do you want to enter? You have to know the destination where the boat will lead you, don’t just enter any boat, without knowing its destination! Let devotion arise: it will lead you on your spiritual path. Let Pure Love guide you. When you Realise the Purity of Love, there will be no difference in your mind. The mind will see the Lord everywhere.

We should never let go of God´s Name....

2012-01-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

One has to have complete surrender to God, complete surrender to one´s path, complete surrender to the Deity, which one feels inside his heart. One should, also, know that God is beyond everything and that He loves everybody equally. It’s not upon anybody to go and try to change somebody’s mind, saying “My way is right, your way is wrong.” Thinking like this is completely wrong. We say we have only one God, but we adore Him in His many forms until we reach a point to see this Oneness everywhere. The life story of any Self-Realised saint is beyond the comprehension of the mind, because they live completely in God. And they are calling everybody to live completely in God, to live in the Love of God and to know that God is everywhere: God is present in everybody. First we see the duality, the separation, and through that separation, God unites us and makes us one with Him. He makes us Realise His Divinity, then we stop talking about Him and we become completely quiet. As long as we have not found God, as long as we have not come to the point of God-Realisation, Self-Realisation, we should never lose hope, we should never let go of God´s Name, we should never let go of whatever we are doing.

You have to approach closer and closer to the Divine....

2012-01-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

Inside of you there is an even greater thing and to realise that you have to
have faith. You have to have trust. And faith and trust together will
reveal this vastness, this greatness inside of you and then you will
realise that it’s only God, this greatness, you know. He’s the only
one that pervades everything, not this ‘I’, not this ego, this pride.
You will realise that only through His grace you are everything,
but you have to take the first step. Without developing your selfconfidence,
it’s difficult. You will develop the self-confidence by
doing your sadhana - your spiritual practices - by chanting the
Divine Names. The more you chant the Divine Names, the more
self-confidence and more joy and happiness will be inside of you.
So remember: this joy has to be spread. If you want to change, to
make change in this world, don’t close yourself. Open. Open your
heart to Love, unconditional Love and this is who you are. Don’t
forget that you have a soul and don’t limit yourself. You have a soul,
you have to realise your Self. You have to approach closer and closer
to the Divine. And the more you approach the Divine, the more you
will see the Divine will bring Himself much more near to you.

Work for this reality.....

2012-01-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

Where is the Divinity? This great energy that makes the body work, that makes the body act, is the Spirit and it’s who you really are. If you were the body, would you still be alive even after death? Whereas being the Spirit, you continuously live till you become completely one with the Divine. Work for this reality. Work and love God. Whatever you do, every action, every thought, focus your mind on doing it for God. Love God in everybody and everything around you. And when you love, love one hundred percent. Try to not doubt this Love because when you doubt it, even a little bit of doubt, it stops your advancement.

Merry Christmas to all.....

2011-12-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

Firstly I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, a happy, joyful Christmas. This is the time when everybody is very happy. Wherever you go, there is a lot of happiness and joy vibrating in the air. But this joy should not be limited to this period of time, is it? People start very happily. They have big feasts happening and are joyful until New Year. Then, after some time, it fades again, until next year.

Jesus is not only born once a year. One really has to revive the birth of Christ within oneself. The reason why He incarnated is to remind us that we are not just a human being, not just what we see on outside. We are also children of God. We are also part of the Creator.

Of course, the creation – the Creator Himself is without any ego – is a formless God. That is what we are actually. Many times I have said that, if one thinks of oneself as being a mere human being, one will just be a normal human being. If one reminds the Self about its identity with the Spirit, one will reach the level of being the Spirit.

We celebrate that Jesus is born. We are all happy. Try to keep this happiness all the time. This is how you remind yourself of your Divinity, by taking the example of Jesus, Krishna, of all the Holy Ones and putting them into your life. You will live this life; you will realise that their life and your life are so similar. One aspect that Jesus really taught when He was… He still is with us… is love!

Every day say to yourself, “I am the Spirit, I’m the Christ”, and let it reflect outside.

A little Meditation:

Close your eyes and imagine – use your imagination, like a movie, like a film – see Mother Mary and Joseph. Mother Mary is pregnant, and they are walking to look for a place for her to have her baby. Everywhere they go they get refused. It is cold – but very bright.

Then they reach one place. They knock at the door. The man says, “Yes!” He offers them the stable. So they happily accept it and go to the stable. There they are sitting and waiting. At around midnight, Mary feels much pain and she delivers a beautiful baby boy.

When the child is born, there is great happiness in the air. The cold wind changes into a very warm atmosphere. There is much joy, and the animals around are happily enjoying the Lord in His human form. How great are these animals!

So with your inner eye, see the Lord inside you. See Baby Jesus inside your heart. How playful he is! Enjoy his presence deep inside your heart. Play with him! He is God – He’s inside you! He’s without limit – and he wants you to become the same. Play with him as you would play with your child. Play with him as you play with your brothers, as any child you have been playing with. Look at him and enjoy him.

Open your eyes. It was very relaxing – wasn’t it? How was it? Did you play with Baby Jesus inside you? What, nothing? He didn’t come? He didn’t show himself? Was he very shy? (Someone says Yes ) Ah…, He was running? That’s nice. And? Did he pull your hair? (Laughing) That’s nice, what else? That’s it? And what else? Sleeping? (Laughing)

Really, you should think about that. You had time to play with him. You see how beautiful it is when you can play with your imagination. In place of thinking negativity, better to think something creative and grow in it! Little by little, you have this quality. You don’t even need to make any effort. It will be natural. It will just come with practice of course, like with painting also.

With that we’ll sing some songs. Sing and express yourself! You are happy that Jesus is born! You’re playing with him, you’re flying with him, you cuddle him, so you are not sad, are you? You’re happy? So express the happiness – and sing!....Let Christ work through you!

Love everybody.......

2011-12-17T01:41:00.000-08:00

There are many ways of attaining Divine love. There are many ways of attaining this unity, this realisation of who we really are. Each person has their own way, but all paths are the same. At the end you will experience the same love, the same happiness. For sure, some ways are longer and some are shorter. Some people like taking a short way, and some people like taking a long way. Do you like the long way or the short way? Of course the shorter way is better (laughs)… The quickest way is just to love.

This word ‘love’ hides a lot of mystery, hides a lot of secrets given to mankind. This expression of Divine love, pure consciousness, is who you really are. So many times we forget about it. We try to be separate from it. We have to continuously remind ourselves that we are this love. No matter what comes on the way, remember that we are this love. We are here to give and to share this love… to realise it. So how do we realise this love? We meet someone and say to the person, “I love you”. Don’t we? How many times in your life have you said to somebody else, “I love you”? Many times. But have you ever said it to your own self? “I love myself!” When it comes to loving one’s own self, people say, “It is difficult.” It’s difficult because you see all the negative qualities of your outer self, forgetting that this true Self, who you really are, is just pure love. So to give love, first you should realise love with your own self. Start loving yourself. Not in an egoistic way – some people think loving oneself is very egoistic, but to love the Self is not to love the body. Loving oneself is transcending the physical aspect. Through love you will develop trust and patience. If you have these three: love, trust and patience, you have everything else.

This reminds me of a story. Krishna used to stay in Brindavan. He stayed there until the age of sixteen, and then he went away. So when he left, everybody in Brindavan was sad and always thinking of Krishna. They thought that Krishna had forgotten about them. So, one day, Krishna sent one of his devotees, Uddhava, to tell them that he does care for them. When he arrived there, he met the gopis and before he could start talking, the gopis started blaming Krishna, saying, “Oh, he forgot about us. He has left us. He has given us so much love and then he just withdrew everything and went away.” Uddhava was laughing and said, “No, Krishna has never forgotten about you. He thinks about all of you everyday. There is not one second that he doesn’t talk about all of you. The point is: He had other work to do, and that is why he went.”

But they could not accept it. So they keep on saying bad words about Krishna, but in a more loving way. There was so much love in it that it didn’t matter. Then Uddhava gave the gopis a message that Krishna had given to them. Krishna said, “All that is and all that you feel is just a game. I create, I protect and I destroy everything by my own will. And it all goes back to me. Maya, illusion, has created a veil of separation. With this veil, you can’t see that you are all a part of me.”

That is actually why you are all here… to remove this veil. There are many lifetimes that you keep on with the same game. And you repeat and repeat the same thing, forgetting that the Lord is here deep inside our heart. 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. Not just to say to somebody, “I love you”. But really to 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!

‘Spirituality starts when religion ends’.......

2011-12-16T19:27:00.000-08:00

You know there is a saying, ‘Spirituality starts when religion ends’.

Real spirituality is in each one of you, in each one of your hearts, whether you believe or not, it’s there. God is sitting permanently within you. But to achieve it, this is each one’s way, each one’s personal way. To discover the God without form, God without name, the eternal – to realise that you, all of you, are part of Him. This is the aim of man.

Open up your heart! Love, love unconditionally! Love without limit! Love without expecting anything! Realise this love is ever flowing, the more you give, the more you receive. Just give for the sake of giving. That is what you are here for. Not to receive anything, not to take anything from anybody. Because, what is the difference between you and me? Nothing. But one difference: I realise it, and you don’t realise it. But you can also reach the same level. You need to be continuously in love.

You know how beautiful it is? For sure you know... all of you have fallen in love, haven’t you? Haven’t you? (The audience laughs) But none of you have answered me. Have you really fallen in love? (Audience: “Yes, but it was terrible“…laughing) Yeah, you see, as long love is with expectation, it will always be terrible. But when you love, when you realise yourself being the source of love, it’s not terrible. It’s the most joyful thing, the most beautiful thing. Still, love is just a word that I say to you. It’s up to each one of you to experience it, like a small child. If a small child came walking into this room, he would just experience love; he wouldn’t bother about anything around.

Now about our mind. We think before acting. We always think. We think if we give love we will feel hurt. However, you see, in the mind you already create the hurt; you create the feeling of destruction, so you don’t put love first.

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. So when you free your mind, you realise the Divine everywhere in every aspect, 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. Never lose hope. The moment you lose hope, you lose everything. The moment you say, “No, I can’t do it, I can’t do this”, you will not be able to do it. Challenge your fear! Keep reminding yourself that you are part of God. You are in His Divine hands and He will never let go of you. Never! He will be always near to you, even nearer than the breath, the air you are breathing in.

You try to imagine a little bit with the mind, how close God is. It’s difficult, isn’t it? The mind will never let you imagine that, the mind will never let it. Only when you start thinking with the mind of the heart – then you can realise the Divinity completely.

It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? When your heart is pure......

2011-12-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

Jesus said, “There is no other way than me. I am truth, I am light, I am the way.” Do you think he meant himself as the body? No, he didn’t mean himself as the body. He meant himself as Christ who is living in each one of you. This Christ has to become alive by putting what Jesus gave to humanity into practice and by understanding it: “Blessed are all those pure in heart, for they shall see God!”

It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? When your heart is pure. When your heart is purified from all the negativity that we, ourselves, have created, we will shine the light of God! So meditate and sing the name of God, sing “I am love!” Always! If your mind or your heart is troubled, sing it loudly with your tongue. That will calm the mind. Recite it firstly with your mouth, then with the mind until it reaches the heart and it is recited continuously by itself.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda...

2011-12-14T22:13:00.000-08:00

"What I want for you is to achieve the finest and purest form of love, which is deep within your heart.You will realise that love can grow and love can become Divine. The same way God loves is the same way humans can learn to love.”

Our mind is like the mirror.....

2011-12-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

God created maya to blind his creation; for humans not to take it for granted and to make man to strive for enlightenment! But He Himself is doing it. It is His own play. You just need to be the spectator, nothing else. The moment you have learned how to be the spectator and just see the creation in front of you, you will see the same way God does, and how He thinks about us. Our mind is like the mirror.

The heart is like a mirror covered with grease. As long as there is grease over it, do you think you will see clearly? You will never see your reflection clearly. You will know there is a reflection, yes, but it will be very foggy. So, as long as you don’t clean it, it’s difficult to see the light, isn’t it? Since the thing closest to us is the body, first your body has to be clean. When your body is clean, the mind is clean; when the mind is clean, the heart is clean. And when the heart is clean, the Divine light will shine through you and everybody will see it so clearly.

So start every day by saying, “I’m God’s child and I have to be like the child of God!” Do this for yourself, for your own growth. You know what is good for you, so try your best to change. Take this strongly inside you; put it in your mind. Throughout the day keep remembering that you are love, you are trust, you are peace, you are unity, you are joy! There’s no greater mantra. Just sing, “I am love!” By singing, “I am love!” you will always remember that you are a part of God.

Each particle reflects the light of God – this is the Truth...

2011-12-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

Often when people use the intellect, the mind, to find the truth they become dogmatic. They close themselves in the tunnel where they don’t see anything else. They don’t see the beauty; they just see what the mind perceives to see. Whereas with the truth in your heart, when it opens up, one sees beyond what the physical eyes can see. There are so many beautiful flowers; it is so beautiful for the physical eyes, isn’t it? But it is much more beautiful to see with the inner eyes. The light that shines through all these flowers, all around you – this is the Truth.

Each particle reflects the light of God – this is the Truth. And this Truth is accessible for everybody. There is not any dogmatic thinking in it. It is free. The only thing is that you need to take a little bit of time to be able to see it. That is up to you. Nobody else can do it for you. You have the grace of the master; you have the grace of God. It is up to you if you want to let go of the power of your mind and gradually achieve the heart. You don’t need to do much; you don’t need to force yourself.

There are many people that say that they have to sit down to meditate. By saying this they already put pressure on themselves. They are already thinking of how the meditation will be, their expectation is great. They think that they ought to enjoy a few minutes of it, but they don’t enjoy it. You think this will help them? It doesn’t help. It’s only when you let go of all expectation that this inner truth will reveal itself.

You have to lose yourself......

2011-12-11T04:53:00.000-08:00

There are thousands of ways to meditate, but try to do what you feel calm and happy with. The main thing is that you have to lose yourself. Lose the identity that you have attached to your body. Remind yourself that you are just the spirit, just part of God. Certainly you will realise it through practice and discipline. Not many people like this word, ‘discipline’. It seems so. Discipline is not something which should scare you, but you should be disciplined with yourself. Because when you start enjoying the love of God within you, it is you who will enjoy it – it’s nobody else first. So it is the same with the discipline, you have to be disciplined yourself. You have to really want it! All right?

The more your heart is open, the more you are happy...

2011-12-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

If you want something, you do everything for it, don’t you? If you love somebody, you may write hundreds of letters to this person to express your love. You don’t lose hope. Why then lose hope on this journey towards one’s own Self? It is like losing hope in the middle of the way. It doesn’t mean you have gone backwards, it just means you stopped. The love is still there, still waiting and knocking at the door and saying, “Let me out!” But you have got the key for this door, and it’s up to you to open it. If you want to love, love without expecting anything, pull the door open. The moment you start to expect something, you stop the door from opening.

Then there is another factor that is coming in the way. The moment you start losing hope you will start suffering. You start to see everything as being negative. Then you forget your way. You forget the love that God has for you, the love that you have deep inside you. This is one thing that one should not forget: You are made in the image of God. In this way, you have to go back, back to this image, back to this complete love.

First, start your spiritual way with this, to find this love. Then the rest will be revealed to you. The rest will come to you.

We chant the holy names of God, Krishna, Narayana, Jesus, Allah and Babaji. All these names help us to open up more, open up our heart to love. Love cannot be only for oneself. You start it with yourself, you realise it, you know about it and let it expand and give it. This source is non-perishable. The more you give, the more you will feel that it is flowing, and the more you will want to give. The more you try to close it, the more you will make your own self unhappy. Then this unhappiness has to go somewhere – that is how many illnesses are created, because one does not want to open up.

The more your heart is open, the more you are happy. The more you see life in a different way, the more the illness will keep away from you and the more all of the worries around you will cease. God loves us, but we should also start loving. Whatever comes on your way, remind yourself of His love; remind yourself through His manifestation around you, through the manifestation of this body. God has created humankind and placed Himself in each person equally. It does not mean that I am superior to you all, because I’m sitting here in a big chair. In your mind, it may seem like that, but in the Divine all is one. We form part of one body.

Open up your heart and see the light that is inside you. This love you have, it’s everywhere, in all of you. This mind can’t stop it. Feel God’s love all the time – you may not succeed right now, but keep trying! You know, in India there are yogis who have been meditating for hundreds of years. That does not mean they don’t know this kind of love. They do know about it and they are enjoying it. This love of God that they are enjoying, you can enjoy it in the same way. Just want it!

Jai Gurudev!

2011-12-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

This year as well as every year it is the wish of Sri Swami Vishwananda to not give personal gifts to Him instead He prefers to donate for His international center Shree Peetha Nilaya.

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

2011-12-08T22:01:00.000-08:00

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. Once there was a lady in Switzerland. She was walking down the street, and a beggar asked her to give him something. Her only reaction was to just take some money and give it to him. The moment the money reached the hand of the beggar, he disappeared. When she looked in the eyes of this man, he was just light, and he disappeared on the spot. Very often she talked about this story. Maybe you have heard it from someone.

So like that, I can tell you many stories, many facts that many people have told. Through charity, through service, through love they have experienced so much. And if you really want to experience the same thing – open up your heart and let Jesus work through you, let Krishna work through you, let God work through you. Through that you will realise His love, realise that He is always with you, and realise how much He loves you, and how much you can love. Even the mind cannot comprehend this; even the word love is too small for that what you can give. You have to want to give it, only then it can flow. As long as you don’t want to give it, it’s difficult.

Why does man not say it’s enough?

2011-12-07T20:39:00.000-08:00

When you were a toddler, when you are still a baby, you are born full with light. When a baby is born, the father, the mother, and all the people around it say, “Oh the baby is so beautiful, so radiant.” Isn’t it? Then what happens afterwards? When the child is born, it reflects the light of God, but when the child grows up the light goes deep inside the heart. With the world being how it is outside, it creates a lot of shadows over this light, and the same people who twenty years ago maybe said, “This child is full of light”, they start saying the child is very bad.

Isn’t this interesting? How can the same child who reflected the light be the same old person in front of you, who now does not reflect the same light? If we look properly with our third eye, we will see that all of you reflect the same light, whether it is a small baby or an adult.

But our mind is busy judging. In this judging, our mind enjoys looking only at the negative parts of life. How this person is dressed or how this person behaves, we tend to see only the negative. But behind what we see with our two physical eyes is the reality. If we look with our eyes through the heart, we will be able to see the reality. First we’ll see the reality of our Self.

We incarnate time after time to attain one thing: liberation. This word “liberation” is present in all Holy Scriptures. Take the Bible, Jesus talks about it; in the Koran, the prophet Mohammed talks about it; take the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about it. So why does man not achieve it? Why does man not say it’s enough?

For many humans the door is now here. Don’t let the itching of the world get you. You want liberation? Make it strong in your mind; make it strong deep inside your heart. Let it reach fulfilment outside. You are this light. And you all can merge back in this light. You have to want it very, very strongly. It has to be the most important thing in your life. There are many divine incarnations. They all come, they all teach, they all go. People at different times assimilate it in their own way. But we are living in such an age right now that it is very easy to attain Self-realisation.

We just need to be simple with ourselves. Simple in the mind. When I say simple, I mean just to love. Make this love unconditional. This love that you have inside of you, the source of all things, let it flow. Don’t try to stop it; don’t put any barrier around it. Now you are putting up barriers. How long can these barriers hold this love? It will overflow one day. So let it overflow, let it flow right now. But at the end of life you will say, “Oh, I should have done this much more before. I wasted all my life in running after things that have a limit to them. .”

Close your eyes, drop inside your heart and feel this fullness. Feel the greatness of yourself. And this greatness is you. This greatness is who you really are. Without any egoism. Keep concentrating on this greatness inside you. This great love which is emanating from your heart. It passes through each cell of your body. Try to reflect it outside. Isn’t it beautiful to see each person as the full body of light? Let the eighty-fourth door of your heart open up.

And if your mind is troubling you, sing the name of God.

By knowing your own Self you will know God

2011-12-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

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.

When people say, “I want to know God”, I answer, “Know thyself!” By knowing your own Self you will know God. Because when we want to know God outside, we automatically create a barrier, we create a limited form. But we are this love. We are this Light. We are not separate from God, we are part of God. To achieve this, we must surrender. Surrender the mind which is always jumping around. Surrender the body, which is the temple of this light and love. And reflect this light always. Jai Gurudev!

Forget about the mind, just enter the heart........

2011-12-05T04:57:00.000-08:00

Look at the life of Jesus. It’s so beautiful. He has taught mankind how to transcend the ego into the Divine Self. When you go deeper into the mystery of it, you will see that Krishna has taught the same. He has shown it to mankind. We also have to continuously remind ourselves that we are the children of God. And we have to be children of God. Whenever we have a problem, we identify ourselves with the problem, and say, “Oh, God has turned His back on us”. But we don’t realise that we have turned our back on ourselves. If we look deeper within – if we turn our gaze inwardly – we would find the solution for every problem. Everything that you want to know, it’s just here.

Forget about the mind, just enter the heart and don’t be scared to let the heart open. You will say, “Oh, if I open my heart, I will get hurt!” No! Just let it open, don’t think about it. You are here to love. Just love, nothing else.

“I’m an instrument in your hands. Guide me, be with me!”

2011-12-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

The only desire that will ultimately fulfill you is God, because he is unlimited in everything. In addition, in this desire for God, you will never have a question, whereas with the other desires you always have questions.

For example, if you start a business, the desire is great. You are very happy, because the main thing is to get money. What happens then? The question arises, how to get the money. When you get the money, the desire is still not fulfilled, because you will think how to get more. Then there will be other things, like how you will pay the people who are working for you, or how will you buy other things for your business to grow more? So in this game, you will always ask the question, how will I do this? You will never really be satisfied and really happy with yourself.

That does not mean you should stop your business or should stop your work. It is important that you work, but it is also important that you work with non-attachment, a non-attached feeling. Work and surrender to the Divine. In the morning, praise the Lord and say: “I’m an instrument in your hands. Guide me, be with me!” At the end of the day, before you go to sleep, surrender everything, every action, even if it was not a good action. Analyse it and surrender it to the Divine. Be completely detached from whatever you do, and focus your mind on the Lord.

There was a great poet, Adi Shankaracharya who said,“Bhaja Govindam, Govindam Bhajam Muramate.” Meaning, if mankind would realise how foolish mankind is... We do not realise that the Ultimate of everything is Govinda, is God. If man would realise that everything comes from the source, which is God, why not take the source itself? Why just want something that will be finished after some time?

In the same way, do not waste your time in wanting things that you know have their limit. Desire the Ultimate, and you shall have it.

There is this beautiful parable from the Bible....

2011-12-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

Surrender your body, mind and soul. Focus on any Divine aspect firstly, and then you realise your Divinity. Remember that whoever you are, even if your advancement is slow or fast, God loves you. He loves you even more than you can think about love, more than the mind of man can think about.

So always trust in this love, always hang on this love, and never let go of Him. He is always with you. Even if you do not feel Him, even if you do not see Him, He is there.

There is this beautiful parable from the Bible where one man was walking on the beach... Do you know about it? A man was walking, and every time he looked behind himself, he saw two more footprints, so four prints in the sand. He was very happy, knowing God was always with him, and he did not have any fear. Once it happened in the life of this man, that he started having lots of problems. Then he noticed at that time, there were only two footprints, and that there were not four footprints in the sand. There were only two footprints. He started thinking, praying to God, saying, “Why, when in times of joy you are with me and I see your beautiful footprints behind me, but in times of pain, you are not with me?” God said, “Don’t misunderstand, my child. These footprints that you see behind you are not yours. They are mine, because in times of trouble, I was carrying you on my shoulders.”

So, God is always with all His children, even in times of the biggest trouble. The point is, when someone has trouble, he focuses so much on the trouble that he forgets about everything. Even if the solution is there, he doesn’t see it. The more you feed the trouble, the more you feed the problem, it will grow. This is your own creation, your own way of feeling it, and when it is finally too much, you say; “Enough is enough!” Then you realise that you can’t change it yourself. You turn to the Lord and say, “Here, I can’t deal with this anymore. Handle it yourself.” Of course, do you think He will not come to your rescue? Directly you will have the solution, and you will realise how easy it was. Then you will say to yourself, “Oh, if I knew it earlier, I would have changed it.” How many times has that happened in your life?

Therefore, when many troubles, many things, come along the way, try to analyse things before taking any casual decision. Try to do it with a calm mind, and not excited, because when your mind is excited, it’s already very hot, and you will not see anything clearly. You know this, yes? So, always remember the Divine love, the Divine help, the Divinity ultimately within yourself. You are an instrument of this love, an instrument of this joy and bliss and happiness. You have to reflect it, and for you to want to reflect it, you have to really want that reflection.

Enjoy this beautiful Song.....

The Self is everlasting giving!

2011-12-02T00:31:00.000-08:00

One aspect that Jesus really taught when He was… He still is with us… is love!

Wherever you look, he never talked about anything else. He talked about love and faith. In Hinduism, we call it bhakti: faith, devotion and love. In love, you don’t have expectations. You do not want anything from anybody. You are just here to give. Jesus never expected anything from anybody. Did he expect something from somebody? No, he was just here to give. He was always giving. You cannot say his life was a charitable one, but he gave it freely. He gave without any expectation, without even thinking or talking about it. He even taught to be quiet about whatever happens.

In one of the parables he said, when your right hand gives, your left hand should not know about it. That means, give and forget about it. In the same way, sometimes when you receive something, you are very happy about it for some time, but after some time you forget about it, isn’t it? So the same way you should also give and forget it. And when you give – give with love. Give it joyfully without any egoistic thinking, “Oh, I have done this.” So many times people do lots of good things and talk a lot about it. But this is not how it should be. You have to give and forget. Then it is not you who gave, it’s the Self. The Self is everlasting giving!

Keep reminding yourself of why you are here. All this that is around will pass and go. New things will come. But the Self can’t get old. The Self can’t die, so it will be eternal. It is better you realise it now, that you are eternal, rather than at the end when the time of departure comes and you say, “Oops, this was easy. I could have realised that a long time ago, but now it’s too late.” Therefore, you have already messed up the whole life in searching for things. It is here, right now with you! So try to make this the ultimate goal – of realising the Self. You know it in the mind. For sure it will not be quick and easy, that you will just think about it, and then here it is!

Keep practicing it. Every day say to yourself, “I am the Spirit, I’m the Christ”, and let it reflect outside. When you say, “I am a child of God. I’m part of the creator, I’m part of the Father”, and you do not reflect it to the outside, it does not help. What I mean by the reflection towards the outside is to let this vibrate within you at first.

Secondly, as much as possible, help! Help whoever comes to you. Help without even thinking of helping. If possible, once a week, go on the streets. If you live in a town, for sure there are so many people who live on the streets. You can go and talk to and be with them. It is not a big thing.

Listen, for sure, when you approach these people, they will feel that, “Oh, this one wants to make fun of me” or whatever. They will refuse you. But keep trying! This is how you will really find God in each person. Realise that you are doing it for Jesus, you are doing it for God. Remind yourself that he said, “What you do to the least of my brothers, you are doing it unto me.”

The same subject is found 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.

All spirituality starts here – in the mind

2011-12-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

What I would like to talk about with you today is meditation and thought. Lots of people meditate. Meditation is very good. Once you start the spiritual path, the first thing they tell you is to sit down and meditate. But you can’t meditate twenty-four hours. It’s quite difficult, isn’t it? For some yogis it is possible – but even they, after some time, do take a rest. Some yogis can stay in samadhi for days. For years! But after that they have to take a rest. I met a yogi in India who is about two hundred years old; even more than that. Of course, among all the yogis, the raj yogi Mahavatar Babaji is more than five thousand years old. Raj yogi means the king of all yogis, but even he walks around with people. So, we can’t meditate always – especially here in the West. But there is a substitute for it – the thought. The mind that God has placed in humans is very powerful. You can create or you can destroy with it. It’s up to each one of you how to control the thoughts. So the first thing in spirituality, the first, and the best thing you can do, is to control the thought. The more the thought is negative, it reflects outside. Very often these negative thoughts are about one’s own self, thinking “How bad I am, how negative I am.” You know you are negative, but you enjoy it. (Laughing) But why enjoy it? Why like it? First, we have to change the thoughts about ourselves. Then we can change the thoughts towards other people. As long as we judge ourselves, we only look at the negative part of our own self.

So there are different ways of controlling thought. I told you to stop it the moment you know it is negative. The next is to sing the name of God, to keep reciting it. God has taken a lot of forms, and in each form there is the energy for man to transcend from mere human to Divine. So as long you have not mastered the mind, you use namasmarana. Sing the name of God wherever you are. And when you sing, don’t close your eyes, leave them open. You see, when you close your eyes, you start thinking and you say, “Oh, I’m singing the name of God.” Yes, but the thinking is still here. Still the mind is jumping like a monkey. Leave them open. If you don’t want to focus on a form, concentrate on a white wall. Focus on it!

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us a story .....

2011-11-30T22:07:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me to ask Mahavatar Kriya Babaji to come and bless you all, and I said to him, “Do you want me to get beaten by him afterwards?” This reminds me of a story: Sri Lahiri Mahasaya didn’t believe too much in gurus and all that stuff in the beginning. After he met Babaji, his life changed completely. One day his friends were talking very badly about gurus and saints, saying all these gurus, all these saints are just always cheating people. Lahiri got a bit angry, thinking, “No, I know one real guru who is not like that. I can prove it to you!” Babaji had given him a special mantra so that whenever he was in need, he could call upon him, and he will come, even physically – but in need!

To prove that he was right, he asked to be closed in a room. Inside the room he was praying, crying, calling Babaji. Finally Babaji appeared and said, “Yes, what do you want?” He said, “You know, my friends don’t believe, so I want to prove it to them.” Then Babaji told him off by saying, “No, you should not do that. If they don’t believe, it’s their problem! You should never force anybody to believe anything.” Then he said to him, “OK, don’t do that. I will come to you whenever it’s needed. I myself, I will come to you.” Then Sri Lahiri Mahasaya was very clever, and he said, “As you are already here now, can you please bless all of them?” And he was so much filled with love, and so sincere, that Babaji could not refuse. Then he opened the door and everybody could see Mahavatar Babaji. And Babaji came out with them and he even ate and drank with them, and blessed all of them and then he disappeared again.

It is upon yourself to call for all devas, they can come if you really call from deep within your heart.

“From the form to the formless, from the name to the nameless.”

2011-11-29T04:48:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to talk about the mind – a big subject. Many people are scared of this subject. Actually, you don’t need to be scared of the mind. The mind of its own is a great gift of God – because it is through the mind that you can achieve the Divine. But what is wrong with thought? It is said, the way you think, that’s the way you are. If you think you are Divine, you will become Divine. But if you think you’re just a mere human being, you will stay always this mere human being. So this is the power of thought. So, to control the mind is to control how you think – to control the thoughts. If the thoughts are good, the result outside will be good. However, if the thoughts are wrong, do you expect anything good will come out of them?

This is how our thought, how our mind, how our thinking works. Whereas if you look at our mind as a gift that God has given us, how marvellous it is! Imagine: your brain can record eight hundred memories per second. Do you think a computer can do that? And it can last seventy-five years without getting exhausted – night and day. Imagine this storehouse that the mind has. Imagine the storage that the brain has, it’s so small, isn’t it? But it can store about ten billion to hundred billion memories in a life time. Even a computer can’t keep such memories.

So if scientists had to build a computer that could store that much – I think this building would be one of the biggest buildings in the world, storing so much information. But how marvellous is this creation of God! That such a small brain can keep so many things inside! But people let the mind control themselves. They let themselves become the slaves of their thoughts. And they enjoy it. To control the thought – the thought will pass by. You know inside your heart whether it is constructive or destructive. It’s up to you whether you want to feed the thought with the right food or deny it. If our thoughts are negative, we keep feeding them with negativity and we become miserable. We create misery with unhappiness and problems. If the thought would be more positive, the mind would be more constructive. Then happiness, joy and peace will enter. Start by thinking positive about yourself. You can’t think positive of others unless you are positive yourself.

Sit quietly and start the conversation with the Divine within yourself. Because it’s only in silence that you will be able to control the thought. Talk less – because people who keep talking and talking – they are just running away. They are just scared of seeing the truth, that’s why they talk and talk. They talk without knowing what they are talking about.

If you want to start the communication with the Divine within yourself, be as much silent as possible. But if you want to start the communication with man, then keep talking! You know how beautiful it is to listen to the Divine inside you? It’s the most beautiful thing; I can’t even express it with words, because words are still limited.

Like I said yesterday, “From the form to the formless, from the name to the nameless.” This is the Divine in each one of you. And to be always in this place, to be always in this awareness and find that you are not separate from the Divine…it’s so beautiful, it’s so filling! Whenever you do something there is always a gap, something that is unsatisfied. But whereas – when you have discovered the reality in you – whatever you do – the satisfaction will be complete!

Christmaspackage

2011-11-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

“Christ is born every day in the heart of man.”

- Sri Swami Vishwananda

To find the inner Christmas…

Every year, in all the world, we celebrate Christmas together, the birth of Jesus Christ, the One who came to redeem mankind, the great Master who is an example of humanness, compassion and devotion.

Swami says that in Mauritius, Christmas is not only a feast for Christians, but is celebrated by members of all religions: “The birth of Christ is something very mystical, because Christ renews his birth every year, whenever we celebrate it, in the heart of man.“

When we try to connect with God, Christ and the great Masters during Christmas time, we create a strong foundation for the New Year. Christ creates in our hearts a lasting landmark of love, so that we recognise that we are all children of the One God.

For this year’s Christmas we have put together a package, which is meant to help us, to find that inner Christmas in our hearts. The package contains a rose quartz heart and a bee’s wax peace candle, which have been blessed by Swami himself and are a reminder of Jesus’ light and love. With the light of the candle, blessed by Swami, we can light all candles of the coming year. The incense symbolises the gifts of frankincense and myrrh of the three Holy Kings. And on the new Christmas DVD, Swami shares his thoughts on Christmas and its meaning.

The proceeds of 29,-- Euros (plus postage) per packet go entirely into the renovation project of the Bhakti Marga Center “Shree Peetha Nilaya” in Springen. The Christmas package can be ordered online www.bhaktishop.de (If anyone can't order it online, they can order it also via email: daya@bhaktimarga.org)

We wish you a very Merry Christmas, much light and blessings!

Paartha and Naamdev

On behalf of the whole Bhakti Marga team.

PS: Friends of Bhakti Marga receive a discount of 10% ! If you are interested in joining Friends of Bhakti Marga , please send an email to tusti@bhaktimarga.org

The same way that God created the world – by the willpower, by the power of word – ......

2011-11-27T00:40:00.000-08:00

Picture in your mind a beautiful forest. This forest that you are picturing is your own creation, the creation of God within you. The same way that God created the world – by the willpower, by the power of word

– create this beautiful forest inside you. This forest will wear your name, each one. And in this forest there is just peace and love.

Each tree in this forest is your own reflection. It is your Self… This is the kingdom of the plant…

Picture in the mind the animal you love most – you can also see lots of animals. Be in the super-conscious. You are part of the creation of the animal kingdom. See yourself in all the animals you are creating… There you are also present in the animal kingdom…

Picture yourself as being in a mighty mountain. You are also present in it. Each stone on it is your creation… See yourself as being the mountain. Create the whole sky with lots of stars. Each one of the shining stars is your Self…

Picture yourself in any Divine form that you like very much and say to this form, “You and I, there is no difference. We are one.” And listen to this inner conversation – between the form you have created and your self. Listen to it. You will see He is laughing at it. Finally, you understand. Finally, you have come to this point of knowing that you and I are one. You and all the whole creation are just one…

And finally, see the merging of all in your body – that whatever you have imagined, whatever you have created in the power of the mind is present in you. Your body is just light – pure consciousness of God. You are the Christ consciousness, you are the Krishna consciousness, and you are the super-consciousness. Now, slowly open your eyes…

How was it, this small journey? Well, practice it! Keep reminding yourself that you are Divine. As you all remind yourself of being human, you will be just human. It’s so simple, if you can just always remind yourself of being love. Yes, we don’t really need to do big mantras, big japas, it’s just by reminding ourselves that we are love – we will be love. We will be in this world, but at the same time we will be Divine. When the awareness that you are Divine blossoms inside of you, there will be no fear, no doubt, nothing!

This complete trust within you of being Divine will project so much joy and so much peace. But what I said before, be an instrument of the Divine always. So keep reminding yourself. Exercise, if you can sit down for an hour or more – every day. In this hour just be with you, your own Self and enjoy it. Enjoy being with your Self, and talk. You will see, deep inside there will be a voice coming out, each thing that you ask, you’ll receive an answer. If you want, you can write it down and meditate on it. Enjoy it, love it, and cherish it! That’s when you’ll be closer to yourself, closer to know and understand everybody.

Understand the whole creation of God – because actually it’s your own creation, the way you wanted the world to be – the way it is. Some people want war, they have it, some people want God, they also have it. Some people want illness, they also have it. Some people want the cure of the illness, they also have it. The way you make this mind think, you create it. If you want love, you will have it, if you want God, you will have it. It’s just that you want it! Want it without any doubt. Want it with a heart that really is calling for God, “God, I want You!” Because God is always with you.

You all know Shiva and Parvati.......

2011-11-26T01:02:00.000-08:00

You all know Shiva and Parvati. Shiva is a renunciate. He renounced the world and He lived like a beggar, going around begging for His food. He was just wearing a tiger skin. And, of course, Parvati wanted so much to marry Shiva. To marry Him was quite difficult, but She did so much penance. Through her tapo shakti, which means the shakti of the tapasya, the penance that she did, she won Shiva. So when she won Shiva, She said to Him “Lord, let me always be with You. Whenever You meditate, I will sit next to You. I will just look at You.” Hearing that, Shiva just smiled. Time passed. Shiva was still in meditation and She was just sitting near Him. But after some time, even the thing that you love starts losing its quality, because it becomes so normal and because we always want to experience the same longing and feeling that we had in the beginning. So the same thing happened with Parvati. There She was just sitting, in the Himalayas, in the cold. And, as time passed, it became a bit boring for Parvati just to sit there in the cold. So one day She approached Shiva and said to Him “My Lord, I have been here for so long now. I would like so much to go into the world to see your bhaktas, to see your devotees.” Shiva didn´t say much, He just listened. So Parvati sat there again for another month. You know very well with matajis, when they have something in their minds, it is very difficult to get it out. And that is not a bad thing. It´s a good thing, because if you want God no matter what, you will get Him! So one month passed and Parvati said again to Shiva “My Lord, can I go into the world? I would love so much to see your devotees, to see your bhaktas.” Then Shiva said “Okay, fine. You go.” And Parvati was very happy. She came down from the Himalayas and, when She was down, She saw so many bhaktas who welcomed Her happily. They were so happy and made big parties and feasts for Her. So She started travelling and many years passed like that. Finally, She arrived in South India and for that great occasion they had built a huge temple for Her. But, as She entered the temple, even though they welcomed her with all these grand things, all of a sudden She became very sad. She started to feel the longing for Her Beloved. But during all Her traveling, what had happened? She had lost her way back. She searched for it again, but could not find it. Finally, Parvati turned to the Lord and said “Through all this travelling I blinded myself, so that now I cannot find even the way back home. How will I find You? The only way to get back home with You is if You come and find me.” So She cried and cried and cried. Shiva was pleased with it and He came to Her and took Her back to the Himalayas. In the same way, if you sit down quietly and empty your mind completely through meditation, through chanting, controlling the mind and, especially, knowing that all is One, the Lord will come, because He is sitting always in your heart. We look for Him outside and it’s good; outside is very good. We go to the temple and we pray to Him until He reveals Himself from inside of us. We say we want God, but yet, in our minds, God has to be our way. Of course, we all have a personal relationship towards the Divine and He will always come according to how we call Him. He is not limited, He has millions of forms, but we have to let Him do His Will. That’s the meaning of the word surrender. But, very often, we pretend to know better. This is the mistake that humans always make, to think that they know better than anybody else. There is this saying: “The wise one keeps quiet; the unwise one makes lots of noise.” The wise man knows the truth about himself and about everybody else. The unwise one doesn’t know much. That’s why He wants to have the attention of everybody. Have you ever sat quietly with yourself? How many of you have sat quietly? I’m not talking about meditation–meditation is something else – but just to sit and enjoy the moment quietly with an empty mind, without thinking of what the husband or the wife is doing or what the children are doing.You all know that we live in the world of energy. Whatever we do is made up of energy. If we don’t eat, our body will be weak. We need energy and this energy is always flowing, but there is also a greater energy that we always need. And what is that energy? That’s it–Love. And this energy is always flowing. Whatever we do is just to attain Love, nothing else; because in Love you will have peace, in Love you will find what you are looking for. But to attain this Love you have to make an effort, also. You can’t just sit around saying “OK, I have some love inside of me,” and that’s it. It’s there, but it can get more intensified. So, you can utilise this energy also to awaken yourself.

You can remember Him every day....

2011-11-25T04:35:00.000-08:00

Humans are hanging onto the outside and not much onto the inside, because you don’t know about the inside. You know only what is in the outside, what you can see and what you can touch. From these two things, you think you will be happy, but you have one thing, which is not seen, and that is your Atma. You can talk about the Atma, you can say “Yes, we have the spirit inside of us, you know, we have the soul inside of us”, but how many really know about the Atma? Whenever you talk about death, people get scared. They don’t want to mention death. Well, you were born and you will die. This is not something that you will escape. You will have to go through that, but you, not your body, but your True Self is permanent. So, in realising the Atma, letting the Atma reveal itself to you, you will have the greatest joy, actually. You will always be happy. Even when problems come, you will be happy, because you will have attained the purpose of life, of lives! You will have attained the purpose not only of one life, but of lives. So, try your best to do your sadhana. Try your best to remember God in whatever you do, even if you don’t consider it as seva, but in whatever action you do in life, try to think of God. If you have five minutes during the day, try to sit down quietly. For these five minutes forget about husband, wife, children, everybody. When you sit in your prayer room, just sit - you and God. If you don’t have five minutes, then even two minutes are fine, because He is the One. Whenever you have problems you say “Oh, my God!” No? Then you look for God, but when you are happy, well, you don’t say “Oh, my God, I’m happy!” So, why do you have to wait for a problem to come to remember God? You can remember Him every day. I will not say all day, because you will not, but at least morning and evening, for one minute in the morning and one minute in the evening, you can remember Him. He has a multitude of forms that He appears in, you know. Each one feels close to a certain form of divinity, though it’s only one. It’s like when you look at a tree: there are many leaves, many branches, but all of them came from one seed only. Imagine from a small seed a huge tree can come out, with thousands of leaves, hundreds of branches, but yet, the seed is one. So, try to realise this unity and build up this relationship with the Divine. The more your relationship with the Divine becomes intense, the more He will reveal Himself to you. It’s like when you’re in love. At the beginning you say “Yes, I have a feeling for that person”, but yet, you don’t know that person. How do you know the person? By being close to that person, by being near to that person, you will start to know the person, no? So, the more you become close to that person, the more you know the person, the more the love grows, more and more. So, it’s the same thing with Bhagavan, you know. The more you remember Him, the more you chant His name the more He will reveal Himself to you. So, little by little you will start to feel Him. Little by little you will start to realise Him and that He’s next to you. Sometimes you will see Him in dreams and sometimes you will see Him manifested in front of you. Then, as time goes on, the objects wherein He manifested start to disappear, only He stays. So wherever you go, you will just see Him only. So, the more your Love grows, you will see Him inside of you, you will see Him outside of you and soon you will realise that it’s just Him. We’re just doing a big play. He’s just playing with all of us. He’s acting through all of us. He’s doing what He has to do through each one of us.

Love is the only thing that binds the Lord

2011-11-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

See, we have to awaken the Love that we have treasured so much and keep always for ourselves. When you are in love, what do you like to do? To give, right? You like to spread this love. In the same way, when you are Awake, His grace will flow through you. You will come out of this dreaming state one always puts oneself into. This reminds me of a story. There was once a woodcutter. One day, after finishing working, he came home, sat down and fell asleep. In his sleep he was dreaming that he was a king who had seven wives and many children. He was enjoying the dream very much. Then, all of a sudden, a friend of his came–not in the dream, but in reality– and said “Wake up!” The woodcutter came out of his dream and started shouting at his friend, saying “I was a king and you came and disturbed me!” Then the friend said “But it was just a dream.” But the woodcutter was very annoyed and said “For you it was just a dream, but for me it was reality.” It’s the same for us; we are living in a dreaming state. When we become Awakened, we will see the Reality. But this Reality is not to be understood with the mind. It’s different. And that’s what human beings are here for, to attain this Reality of who they are, to see that they are not just this, as we call it, bag of bones. We will attain this Reality only through Love, Unconditional Love; only by loving in the same way that He loves us. Do you think His Love is bound by any limitation of what we understand of Him or how we dress Him? The Love of God is not bound by anything, except by the love of His devotees. When we look at the life of Krishna, what was binding Him? He was always free, ever free. He was born free. The only thing that binds Him, that limits him, is the Love of His devotees. There was a Swami from Vrindavan last week in the ashram in Germany. He told this beautiful story, which is, also, in the Srimad Bhagavatam, of when Krishna was small. You know He was very naughty, always breaking all the makan and butter pots, trying to annoy everybody, because He wanted all the attention to be on Him, only, and on nothing else. One day Yashoda had Him on her lap and she had some milk on the fire. Then the milk started to boil and to spill in the fire. This Swami was explaining how great was this milk. It was crying, because even when the Lord was so near to it, it couldn’t come to Him. Seeing the milk boiling, Yashoda put Krishna down and rushed to remove the milk. There are many great yogis who try to attain the Lord through meditation and penance, but they cannot. And there He was playing on the lap of Yashoda, but yet she let Herself be distracted to the outside, forgetting about the Lord. So He went and broke the pots of buttermilk and gave the butter to the monkeys, starting to feed them. When Yashoda came and saw the broken pots and monkeys all around, she knew that it was Krishna. Then she started to look for Krishna and to run after Him everywhere. Of course, Krishna with His little, little legs started, also, to run around and she couldn’t catch Him. Then, finally, He let Himself be caught by Yashoda. So she tried to tie Krishna with a rope, but every time She tried to tie Him, the rope was short by two inches. Then she would go and get some more rope, but again it was short. And she tried again, but again it was short. Finally, Yashoda became really, really tired. Then Krishna was looking at how much Love she had at that moment, He thought “OK, I succeeded in getting Her attention fully on me.” So He let Himself be tied. So Love is the only thing that binds the Lord. When we talk about love, about finding this love inside of us, it’s actually to find His Love inside of us, to catch Him completely and when we catch Him, then we can say “Yes, I have Him.”

When I am talking about devotion....

2011-11-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

What I have to say is all about Love and devotion. All that we do in our daily life, in our work, in our spiritual path, it´s all to attain one thing: the purity of Love, to become Self-Realised, but you cannot attain this purity, you cannot Realise the Self without devotion. It’s possible only through bhakti, through devotion. Without bhakti, it’s difficult. Like Sri Krishna said in the Gita “Cast away all dogma. Cast away all that is from the mind and surrender to me.” Only then True Love can be Realised. The Jnanis, they stick only to the mind. I don’t say that it´s not good. It´s good, but it will lead you only to a certain level. It is very good to help, to do karma yoga, but if you are not helping with the right attitude, it will also bring you only to a certain level. Whereas with bhakti, like Sri Krishna said to Uddhava: Above all the yogas, I prefer bhakti yoga. I prefer the yoga of devotion, where the devotee and the Lord become One; where there is no difference left, whereas in all the other yoga, the difference stays.” When I am talking about devotion, I don’t mean the kind of devotion that will fade after one month, but pure devotion that lasts forever. There are lots of people who have devotion in the beginning. When they start their spiritual path they are very excited but, after some time, their devotion fades. But real devotion is like the Lord said: If you surrender to me, open your heart and say “Lord, take complete possession of my heart. It’s only you that I’m looking for.” In reality, all the happiness that you are looking for - whatever you are doing in the outside - is to achieve Satcitananda. Wherever you look, whoever you look at, they are all running towards this. The priest is praying, but why do you think he is praying? He is praying for real happiness. People on their spiritual path are, also, looking for real happiness. Even people who are taking drugs: why do you think they do that? They are looking for real happiness. too. Of course, our mind doesn’t see it in the same way, but in the end, they are looking for real happiness. And this real happiness lies deep inside of you. Through devotion, through singing the glory of God, all the dogma will be removed and you will feel that He is continuously present with you. You will feel His Love continuously with you. The more you feel Him, the more you become part of Him. Like it is said, also, in the Gita: When one chants the name of God, the Lord takes full possession of that person. The more you lose yourself, the more you lose your ego and pride, the more you will Realise the Divine, but the more you hang onto pride, the more you hang onto identity, the less you will find real happiness. So the easiest way that the Lord has given to us is to sing His glory. Just sing any Divine Name and, when you sing, let yourself be drawn into it and don’t try to think with the mind.

Sing with your heart.....

2011-11-22T04:34:00.000-08:00

When you need something, especially when you are in an emergency, you have the courage and you forcefully call “Hey you, Tom, bring me this. I need that.” Here you are singing the name of God. You desperately want Self-Realisation. You desperately want liberation, so you are calling to God. So let the strength from deep within come out and sing loudly. You’ll see the more you sing loudly, the less there will be thoughts in your mind. So, the more you sing loudly, the more your heart will be open. So, don’t be scared of singing and be happy. Don’t be depressed. When you call God, you know, you don’t say “OK, God, I’m calling you, come.” He’ll look at your face and get so scared, that in the bliss of coming, He’ll run away. As He is sitting in the middle of your heart, deep inside your heart, when you’re calling Him to come, if you say “Come” like this, He’ll say, “Oh, my goodness, he says come, but he doesn’t really want me.” So in the bliss of opening your heart you will close it. So, sing with your heart.

Sri Swami Vishwananda singing Bala Mukunda....

Everybody wants to be close to the Divine....

2011-11-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

All the practices that you are doing, your meditation, your Kriya, all you are doing is for what? It’s to Realise your Self, no? But many people think they are Realised and they become very arrogant and they are the ones who judge everybody. They are the ones who say “Oh, this is right; this is wrong.” He said it. It is part of the Gospel. Jesus said: The Father is present everywhere, in everything. It is not up to me to say it, but you will know about it. If you just take this part of the Gospel and you meditate only on that, you will have a whole truth in it – especially about Love. I always talk about love, love, love, always, you know. It is true that the world doesn’t yet know about it. And yet, you are working for that, all of you who are spiritual, all of you who are searching for the truth. It is not outside, it is here inside of you, but you have to want to change. You have to really say “Yes, I want to change.” Like He said: Even if you want to change, the world will be against you. It’s perfectly true! Ask yourself in your life, in your own life itself, when you took the spiritual path, how many people became against you–firstly in your own family? So, it is normal. The more you advance towards the light, the others will be jealous, because inside everybody wants that. Everybody wants to be with the Father. Everybody wants to be close to the Divine, but, yet, they don’t want to make any effort. They don’t want to make any change to their life. They want to get everything happily and for free. So, if you want this really and sincerely, then be sincere towards yourself and ask the Father. Ask God and you will have it. It’s simple. If you are sincere towards yourself, you are more free and you will enjoy whenever you pray. Whenever you sit for meditation, whenever you chant, you’ll be more free, because you are not bound by any guilt. The guilt is symbolised in the Holy Gospel as Peter. He was very guilty for so many things. So here, with the guilt that weamass on ourselves we limit ourselves. We constantly see, actually, our own mistakes. We speak very big, big words, because it is so beautiful for the mind. We have read about it being close to the Divine in books. It is a beautiful experience. We know it through books, yes, but experience this firsthand. It’s for everybody to experience and it is not limited. If you really want it, you will experience it. You will see very much that in this small piece we read right now, there is so much similarity to Hinduism. The washing of the feet, actually, is not a Jewish tradition. This is a very Hindu tradition – to wash the feet to show the humbleness. Also, like Jesus said, it is not about washing the body outside, but it’s inside that you have to wash. But the washing of the feet is symbolic. As you know very well, everything is present in the feet. All the organs that are inside the body are present in the feet. So, by washing the feet, you will wash the inside also. But the feet, you see how important they are. When you go to the Hindu Temple, the first things you see are the feet of the Deity. The first thing that you do is to bow down to the feet. When you go to the Master, you bow down to the feet. So, you bow down to the greatness, you bow down to the Divine inside, you bow down to the Father within the Teacher. And that is what Christ said. He said it word for word. I don’t even need to say anything about it. I don’t even need to comment on it. It’s just very clear about this non-duality of God within man and, also, very clear on the way of God-Realisation, the way of Self-Realisation, or whatever you want to call it. But you will not reach God-Realisation, Self-Realisation, with pride. You will not reach it being very arrogant. You will reach it only when you are humble, and He said: People will be against me. You know where you are going and you know why. So, meditate on that. Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Let us build one family!!

2011-11-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

When we look at humans, the way they are reacting is even worse than unpleasing to see. It’s about time to change one’s mind; the way we see things. It’s about time to look at ourselves and say “What can I change? What am I willing to change?” And I said: “If you really want the Love of God” because many people put the tag, ‘I love God’, but really they don’t. They only want the quality of God. They want only to get and get and get from God, but they don’t really want to receive and manifest the Lord inside, the Divine within themselves. And I tell you: if one doesn’t want to change, Mother Nature will make them change. Sometimes, if they don’t want to change in a certain way, Nature reacts in another way - sometimes painful, but there is a change.

Let us learn to become humble like Christ. Let us learn sincerely to love one another. Let us learn to be in unity with each another. Let us build one family. Like we say in Sanskrit: Vasudeva Kutumbakam, which means: “the whole world is one whole family”. And the peace can come firstly within you and

through you to everybody, only when you are in unity together. When you work together with each another, you will be stronger.But if you work against the others, you will be the weak one.

O God,Grace me with Love of You,and to love those who love you,and to love whatever brings me nearer to You.

That moment is between you and God......

2011-11-19T23:28:00.000-08:00

We often hear people asking the question “Who is God?” I will ask you, now, “Who is God?” Well, it’s true, as long as you have not known Him, you can’t answer. Love is God, but how many Realise this Love? To which religion does God really belong? Is God Christian? Is God Hindu? Is God Muslim? Is God Buddhist? To which religion does He belong? Love….. Wherever you go, you will see that there is only one God and He is the Love in each one´s heart, but how to Realise this Love? We are so busy with this material world that we forget about the Divine Love. We try to look for this Love in the outside world. We try to look for this Love in other people. We try to look for this Love by travelling around the world, but we forget that we have to travel not outside, we have not to try to find this Love in other people, but we have to find this Love in our Selves. We have to Realise the closeness to this Divine Love which is here, inside our hearts. Some people will say that it is very difficult to reach this point, but I say that it is very easy. You just need to want it! People try to find an easy way and if they could buy Love, they would do it. But Love can’t be bought. Somebody might come and tell you “Listen, I will make you Realise this Divine Love”, but only the Guru can do that. Only by the grace of the Master can you do that.

This Divine Love, which is seated deep inside your heart, is like gold. And when gold is found in nature, it is with all the dust. Both gold and diamonds in nature are full of impurities. To get a beautiful jewel, a beautiful stone from a rough diamond, what do you do? You polish it. The same with gold: to get pure gold, you have to purify it, to remove all the impurities from it. It is the same with man. As long as you are stuck in the mind and don’t purify the mind, this Love will never shine. You will never Realise this Love. Even if you think you know it, because you have read about it or somebody has told you about it or Swami has said it, but as long as you don’t purify your mind, as long as you don´t purify yourself, it will be difficult to Realise this Love. And how is one to purify the mind? The easiest way to purify the mind is to chant, to chant continuously the Name of God. You were chanting the Mahamantra: Hare Ram Hare Ram, Ram Ram Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. It is said that just by chanting this mantra one can get liberation, but one has to chant it with faith. Mere chanting alone will not help, but chanting with the heart will help. And how is one to chant with the heart? How is one to train the mind to calm itself? It is by forcing it. When you discipline yourself and say “OK, today I will chant”, then you start by taking your japa mala or rosary and you chant your mantra so you are focusing yourself on it, you are dragging the mind and putting your focus on the mantra. The more you do it, the more you will see that, with time, you will not even need the japa mala. You will not need any rosary, because the mantra will automatically be chanted inside your heart. When you become the mantra, you reach a point of Realisation, you reach a point of elevation, but still it’s not the final one. There is still more to go. And how do you to get there? It’s only when you abandon yourself into the hands of God, when you say “Lord, I surrender to You. I surrender myself - my body, my mind and my soul - completely to You” [that you will get there] Don’t do it superficially, but sincerely. And how do you do it sincerely? Be sincere with yourself and say “Yes, God, I want You. I’m surrendering myself to You”. When it’s comes sincerely from your heart, it will happen.

When you are centred, when you concentrate, when you pray, when you chant the Name of God, that moment is between you and God.

“God Thy will be done!”

2011-11-18T05:10:00.000-08:00

The moment you stop looking for fault in others, you will start truly loving everybody. And for that, you have to start looking within yourself, looking for what you have to change in your life. I’m not saying to judge yourself, but to look at the negative part of you and face it. But by looking at the negativity only, you will see that you create this negativity. To understand Love, it’s simple, it is just…absence of fear. You can’t understand Unconditional Love out of fear. But if people really want to understand Love, really want to understand who they are…they will. But often, the fear is so great that it makes a barrier, and then you ask the question, “If I realise who I am, what is then?” The fear of the Unknown stops the want of realising. But if you accept, whatever, as the will of God and say “God Thy will be done!” and Christ has shown it, by saying, “Thy will be done – God’s will!” you will realise that the will of God is also your will without egoism. The will of God is one’s own will; it is the will of the soul, the will of the true identity, which is without any egoism; the purity is in the Self, it is one’s Self. So, to open the heart: the yogis knew that it would be difficult in this age for man to really open up the heart because of how the world would be. Today, I put the TV on, just for a short while – looking at the war, it is never finished. So I was thinking: mankind is looking for security but, looking at the world, what security will the world give? Each one has to be secure with one’s self. And this security is only in the trust of God. Trust in yourself!

He is the personification of calmness....

2011-11-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

Often there is a question that we all ask: who is our Satguru? Isn’t it a good question? Some lucky people know and some, who are to be lucky, they are waiting to know. This search actually is not only in one life, but has been for many lives. We search for our Satguru always, because it’s only the Satguru that will lead us out of this illusion. Only the Satguru can give us a blessing and guide us and make us Realise our True Self. But to find the Satguru is very often difficult. We go through many ups and downs. We keep searching, thinking we will find the Satguru. We pray to God “God, send my Satguru.” But yet, very often, when the Satguru is in front of somebody, they don’t know it, because in the people’s minds, how they fashion a Guru is completely different to how the Satguru is in reality. It’s the same when we look at Mahavatar Babaji. We have a beautiful murti, a beautiful Deity here. In our mind we have an image of the Jagat Guru, but yet I tell you, He is not like that. When we look at Him, He is strict. He is strict, when He has to be strict, but He is the personification of calmness. At all times, no matter what, He is always calm. And this is the quality of a Satguru.

The quality of calmness is very important. How can a master guide if he is not calm? And this is the greatness of a Satguru. No matter what happens, he will always stay calm. So now, you will all go and test your Satguru? Like I said during Guru Purnima, the best way is to ask the Satguru directly or the Guru directly. So, the search is to see this quality of calmness. When you have found your Satguru, surrender and stop asking questions. The mind, like I always say, is always full of doubt. If you don’t give the Satguru a chance to hold your hand and guide you out of it, you will move away from this. You will lose a chance. So, let the Satguru hold your hand and guide you. The feeling that you have, the joy when the Satguru is in front of you, the same feeling is reflected back to you. The Satguru will never show the feeling, but you will feel it. He knows it, but he wants you to know

it.

A guided meditation:

2011-11-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

So, I would like to do a small meditation with you. This meditation is not really a meditation, but you can, wherever you are sitting, just try to centre yourself inside.

So, what we will do, we’ll chant Om Namo Narayanaya. You see, this mantra is a very powerful mantra. By chanting this mantra, one gets calmness of the mind. The mind becomes calm and it lets go of all the worries removing all the pain. And it also bestows on you a lot of wealth. It doesn’t look after only your spiritual advancement. It also helps you to advance materially, because I know not everybody likes only to centre themselves on the spiritual path, you know, they like also the material path; both are important. Do you like it also? So don´t be shy. Chant Om Namo Narayanaya. What we will do now, we will chant out loud Om Namo Narayanaya. Even if you’re standing – you don’t need to sit down - just stand and let’s do it! So you will chant Om Namo Narayanaya.

Close your eyes and visualise a lotus flower in your third eye. Chant it loud and then we will hum it. So, you will just say for the second and, for the third, you will go into complete silence, but hear the inner sound of Om Namo Narayanaya inside of you. So, first is loud and second is humming. First I will say, “You chant” then, after a time, I will say “Hum” and you will feel the vibration inside of you. By doing the humming, you will feel every part of you vibrate inside. And then, when I say “Silence”, you all stop at once and you go inside. You will hear the sound that you have been making; you will hear it inside of you. You won’t make any sound, but your mind is focused always on the lotus. So what will happen is that you visualise the lotus, a closed lotus. While you are chanting, the lotus is still closed. When you’re humming, the lotus opens, fully opens, like these beautiful flowers here. And when you are in silence, see the cosmic OM inside of the lotus or see the Feet of God inside of the lotus, the Feet of Narayana, inside of the lotus. We are doing the Om Namo Narayanaya in that way. Are you ready? Visualise a closed lotus flower in your third eye and chant Om Namo Narayanaya. Hum Om Namo Narayanaya and see the lotus opening fully.

Silence.

See the Cosmic OM or the Feet of Narayana in the open lotus. Now slowly open your eyes. But stay still in the calm. Just open your eyes and, with open eyes, enjoy the calmness. If you practice this meditation for 15 minutes: 5 minutes chanting, 5 minutes humming and 5 minutes in silence, you will have peace. The point of chanting is to control your mind and to make your mind positive. The humming is to vibrate the cosmic energy inside your body. And the calmness is to attain the inner calm where the Divine reveals Itself to you. It’s only for 15 minutes.

Work towards knowing the Oneness of God.....

2011-11-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

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. When you love somebody, you are not scared of anything. In the same way, when you love God, you should not be scared of anything. When you love somebody, you will do anything to please that person. In the same way, when you love God, try your best always to please Him. When He sees that you are trying your best to please Him, He will run to you and He will give you liberation, He will give you Self-Realisation. Work always towards Self-Realisation, towards God-Realisation, and make this the aim of your life. He will provide you with everything. Whatever you need, He will give you. In the Bible, Christ said: If the Lord is giving the birds their food, is giving the ants their shelter, in His eyes don’t you need more? God is ever looking after everybody. You have just to trust that He is looking after you, to trust that He is with you all the time. Whatever you do–good or bad–He is there. His Love pervades everything. If one-percent of your heart opens up to this Divine Love, it’s enough. Work towards this opening of your heart. Work towards Self-Realisation. Work towards knowing the Oneness of God, beyond all limitations that human beings put in place. We place limitations. We say “God is only this; God is only that.” But, when we place our limitations on God, then is this really God? This is not God. He becomes only the limited concept that we have of Him. Limitation is ignorance in man and knowledge is what removes ignorance. I mean the knowledge of the Divine, the inner knowledge, this knowledge that you have inside of you. When you have certain knowledge one day you will have to let go even of it, because you don’t Realise God either with ignorance or with knowledge. Knowledge will bring you only to a certain point of Realising the Divine, but to Realise God, to truly know the Divine, you have to cross over everything, go beyond all limitations.

To Realise God you have to cross over all the barriers that the mind puts in place. And, as I said before, the easiest way to do that is to chant the Name of God. Then the mind will merge completely into the Divine Name and become Divine.

Listen to this beautiful Song *I give you my heart*...

The Divine has graced all of you......

2011-11-10T04:36:00.000-08:00

The Divine has graced all of you, God has graced all of you, so that you may search, you may look for the greater purpose in life. And I am sure you will achieve it. I am sure you will get what you are looking for. One thing only that I ask is: just be sincere with yourself, open your heart sincerely to yourself and let the Divine do the rest. You will see that this nectar, which we call Love, you are full with it, even if your mind does not feel it. If you are looking at yourself, you do not feel it like that, but actually, each part of your body is full of this. You are sitting here, you are receiving the grace, you are chanting the Divine Names, you are singing the glory of God, and you are receiving the blessing. Even though you do not know about it, but yet you are receiving it. The Divine resides in all of your hearts, may the Divine put His Lotus Feet in your hearts. And, as all the saints and all the masters and all the spiritual seekers, may you always be in the Love of the Divine. May you always feel the Divine. Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, know that God is close to you as ever. You know, in the Hindu tradition we have a prayer, we say:

Karaagre vasate lakshmi, karamadhye sarasvati karamuule tu govinda,

prabhaate karadarshanam samudravasane devi parvatastanamandale,

vishhnupatni namastubhyam paadasparsham kshamasva me.

[Oh! Mother Earth, who has the ocean as clothes and mountains and forests on her body, who is the wife of Lord Vishnu, I bow to you. Please forgive me for touching you with my feet]

Do you know this prayer? This prayer is a prayer which one does before getting out of bed. One puts one hand like this [with fingers] touching the upper part, saying Goddess Lakshmi is there, the middle is Goddess Saraswati and down is Govinda - Maha Vishnu. This is the first thing people used to do before getting out of bed. They would remind themselves that in their palm there are Lakshmi, Saraswati and Govinda. So, like that, they would never forget that the Divine is always with them.

He is just sitting inside your heart....

2011-11-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

When you surrender the 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. The easiest way to calm the mind is to sing the Name of God, because you can sing the name of God anytime, wherever you are. So, I would like to chant Om Namo Narayanaya, because Om Namo Narayanaya, this mantra is so powerful that it raises you, it raises your spiritual consciousness to a very high state. Also, it helps you in your material life and it gives you calmness in the mind. This is one name of God. Of course, there are many names of God that

you can chant, you know, that create the same happiness. So, chant it every day, wherever you are, whatever happens to you, just chant Om Namo Narayanaya. You will see how close the Divine is. He is just sitting inside your heart, you know. You just need to bring Him out and let the Divine Love awaken inside of you.

You have to come to the point of complete trust and faith in yourself ...

2011-11-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

Know that God is beyond everything and that He loves everybody equally. It’s not upon anybody to go and try to change somebody’s mind, saying “My way is right, your way is wrong.” Thinking like this is completely wrong. We say we have only one God, but we adore Him in His many forms until we reach a point to see this Oneness everywhere. The life story of Tulsidas or any Self-Realised saint is beyond the comprehension of the mind, because they live completely in God. And they are calling everybody to live completely in God, to live in the Love of God and to know that God is everywhere: God is present in everybody. First we see the duality, the separation, and through that separation, God unites us and makes us one with Him. He makes us Realise His Divinity, then we stop talking about Him and we become completely quiet. As long as we have not found God, as long as we have not come to the point of God-Realisation, Self-Realisation, we should never lose hope, we should never let go of God´s Name, we should never let go of whatever we are doing. One has to completely surrender to one´s path and, whatever obstructions or obstacles come on the way, one has to always say “No” to them. Your aim is to have God-Realisation, Self-Realisation. Until you have reached your aim, until you have come to the point of complete trust and faith in yourself and in God, keep trying! Don’t let anything come in the way!

The secret in the Name of the Divine.....

2011-11-07T05:34:00.000-08:00

The secret in the Name of the Divine, in the Name of God, is God Himself, whereas the name of a person is not the person. Whereas, if I chant the name of Mahavatar Babaji, if I chant the names of Krishna and Jesus, chant the name of Allah, for sure They will come, because the Name of the Divine is the fullness of the Divine Himself. So, in that way, you will go into the fullness. The more you chant, the more you will go into the fullness of the sound within yourself and the more you will know the secret. You will enjoy the beauty that you have inside of you, because after some time of chanting in the outside, the chanting becomes silence within you. Even while you are sleeping, inside of you the chanting always goes on.

Just by chanting, you know, you are making use of these two instruments, the first of which is the tongue, in a proper way by reciting the name of God; and you are utilising the hearing, which will become finer until you realise the vibration within yourself. So, this will lead you to Self-Realisation or God-Realisation or to attain the Love of God completely. Love is not just to say, “I love you”, because you see when two people meet and when they like each other, what do they say? “I love you.”

For example, this happens very often in movies: Two people meet, you know, the guy says to the girl “I love you.” The girl looks at the guy and says “Do you love me? But we just met only a few hours ago, how do you love me? You don’t know me. I don’t know you. How can you love me?” We feel something in the heart, when we recognise the other, you know, when we recognise “Yes I know that person, there is something here.” But real Love develops only when you start to know that person. The more you know the person, the more you love that person. It’s the same thing with the Divine, also; the more you start knowing God, the more your Love for God will become greater and greater. When you look at the lives of the Saints, they realise the Divine completely and for them the ultimate is to love Him only. Until they find this True Love within themselves, until they find their Self, until they realise their Self, they just love. So, knowing it is very important. To know the Divine, the easiest way, like I just told you, is to sing, to chant His name. And He has given so many Names, you know? He is like a mother who loves all her children the same, but the mother knows what each child needs. So, she gives according to each child, what the child needs. And there is no special time or place, just chant the name of God. Whatever you are doing, you can always chant. You can always recite the Divine Names and know that He is with you. The moment you chant His Name, He is there. Like Babaji said, just by merely chanting His name three times He will be there. Whether you see Him or you feel Him or not, He is there. It’s like that with all the Divine aspects, all the Divine names that you chant, the Divine in that form is present next to you.

The Wish Fulfilling Tree....

2011-11-06T01:59:00.000-07:00

There was once a man. He was walking in the forest. He was going home, but his house was far away. On the way, he felt tired and he saw a beautiful tree and he lay down under this tree. And, as he was lying under the tree, inside his mind he wished “Oh, how wonderful it would be if I had a beautiful bed”, not knowing that he was under the Wish Fulfilling Tree. Suddenly, next to him there was a beautiful bed; it just appeared there. When he saw the bed, he ran and jumped on the bed, enjoying the softness of the bed. The next thought that passed through his mind was “Oh, how wonderful it would be if there was a beautiful lady pressing my feet.” Even this wish was fulfilled. The moment the wish came to his mind, he saw a young lady there pressing his feet and he was very happy. Then he started to think and he said “Oh, oh, all my wishes have been fulfilled, so what about some food, I’m feeling hungry.” And the moment he wished it, he thought about it and there was a lot of food all around him. He was very happy eating the fruit, all the food, and while he was eating he said “Oh, all my wishes are fulfilled, so what about if, while I’m sitting in this forest, a lion jumps on me and eats me?” So what happened? Eventually, a lion appeared and jumped on him and ate him! This is the same with man. We are being eaten every day by these lions, but yet we like it, eh? So, if we say to the Divine, “We want to realise You. We want to be free from all the pain. We want to be free from all the worry,” is it so or not? So ask, ask for it. And really try your maximum. Try your best to achieve it! Only when you try your best, then God will give you His grace and blessing. He will say “Look, this one is trying very hard, you know, let me go to him.” And for being sure you have the grace of God, try your best always. Let it not be that a small wind passes by and you drop. You have to be strong. Know that God is always with you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whether you’re positive or negative, He is with you. When you go in the quietness of your heart, through meditation, through yoga, you experience this quietness. All of you have meditated, no? So, in this quietness, what do you feel? You feel peace and harmony. And for sure, you can always be in this peace and harmony only by the controlling of the mind. The weakest point is our mind. Our mind always wants to understand things. But in meditation, in prayers, in yoga, what do you do? You calm the mind. You don’t want to understand anything; you just want to know yourself. And you will know that not by the mind, but by utilising the mind and transcending the mind, itself, and by transcending the physical body. So, when you have transcended the mind and the body, what is left? It’s the spirit.

Close your eyes and drop inside.....

2011-11-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

You are the child of God. You are part of the Divine creation. So make this your achievement. Make this your goal in life. Wherever you are, remind yourself of this goal. Whenever you think that you are doing something wrong or you’re acting in the wrong way, close your eyes, drop inside, deep inside your heart and ask the Self and then listen to it. Only when your mind is quiet will you hear the heart talking to you. So keep practicing, I always say it, and I will keep saying it – maybe every time you come for darshan you will hear the same thing. As long as you don’t practice it properly I will keep saying it, I will bore you with it, because I would love all of you to reach Divinity. I want all of you to realise the love of God that is inside you, not only that – I want all of you to become an instrument of this love, you know, and share it around. Bring it to everybody.

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us today.....

2011-11-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

When we do something with our heart, the simple things that we do will give us joy. So, be always simple and loving.

When you fall at the feet of Babaji.....

2011-11-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

We do not realise that the Ultimate of everything is Govinda, is God. If man would realise that everything comes from the source, which is God, why not take the source itself? Why just want something that will be finished after some time?

Even Lahiri Mahasaya, who was a very great yogi, in one of his previous lives when he used to live with Mahavatar Babaji, he had the desire to have a golden palace, and this desire for this golden palace made him incarnate again on earth. Because of the grace of Mahavatar Babaji, his love, and really his compassion for everybody, Babaji guided him and fulfilled his wish during this life. When Babaji appeared to him, he materialised a very huge golden palace, with lots of diamonds and all the precious stones that you can imagine inside. He was very amazed with everything, and then Babaji de-materialized it. Just the same way he made it appear, he also made it disappear.

When you fall at the feet of Babaji, think of Babaji and pray to him, “If You could create this big palace, if You are the source of everything, why will I need just a palace? Isn’t it better that I take you completely? You are the ultimate. You are the goal of all life. Let me have you!”

In the same way, do not waste your time in wanting things that you know have their limit. Desire the Ultimate, and you shall have it. Surrender your body, mind and soul. Focus on any Divine aspect firstly, and then you realise your Divinity. Remember that whoever you are, even if your advancement is slow or fast, God loves you. He loves you even more than you can think about love, more than the mind of man can think about.

So always trust in this love, always hang on this love, and never let go of Him. He is always with you. Even if you do not feel Him, even if you do not see Him, He is there.