If we want to give Love, we have to become Love. Like Sri Krishna said in the Gita: A true yogi must first realise Me within himself, then, he realises Me as an extension of the Self everywhere. And also Christ said: Love your enemies, love everybody as you love yourself. To see the similarity of the teachings about Love and its importance
to each one’s life is very important.
Love is a language, which the limited words that we express, can’t express; it can be felt only. It’s a language that the mother understands. When a newborn baby comes on earth the baby doesn’t speak. It’s a heart-to-heart communication and this heart-to-heart communication is the true language. This is the language of love, the language of the soul. Life without this language, life without love is of no use. Even if someone doesn’t feel love, there is a degree of love, or otherwise nothing would exist. A life without love is like a land, which you can till as much as you want, but it will never be fertile. The life with a little bit of love, that’s what we call joy.
Don’t waste time! This is one thing that a lot of people do: waste time. They think that later in life they can do everything. Whenever they have time they can do everything. But you see, one thing is, if you do not make time now, you will never make time - later never comes. Like somebody was saying “Tomorrow never comes.” It‘s true. You have many excuses for not doing your sadhana, but know that what you are doing now is very important. And that contributes a lot. So, taking every opportunity to receive, to be near the master, to be near a teacher, to receive the grace is a must in life. Like I was just saying, you all are very lucky for Mahavatar has graced all of you. 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. There was once a criminal, somebody who killed people, a murderer. So he received a mantra from his Guru. The Guru gave him the mantra. He told him to chant, but he did not want to chant the name of God. He said “I don’t believe in any God, just give me something to chant so that I can make my head, my mind, calm”. So the Guru was very happy and said “Chant Maramaramara.” This murderer was very happy and he was chanting “Maramaramaramararamaramaramaram”. Can you hear? What is he chanting? “Rama, Rama Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama,Rama, Ram.” So, ignorantly, he had been chanting the name of Rama and, at the end of his life, he was fully realised. He attained God. He attained Rama. So when you go to satsang, when you go to pilgrimage places, it is always you who receives. It is your benefit always. So, surrender to the Guru’s feet! As it is said “When one meets one’s Guru, the world becomes the feet of the master.” And the Guru’s feet are everything. That is why, in the Hindu tradition, we worship Vishnu Padam. Why do we worship the Feet of Maha Vishnu? When we say ‘feet’, it is not the upper part, rather it is the down part. That is why when the Guru places the feet he does not put the upper part. He puts the down part of it, because under the soles of the Feet of the Master is the Vishnu Padam. Beneath the feet is all: They are the Feet of Maha Vishnu Himself. That is why in the Gita it is said: Guru Govinda. Krishna manifests Himself as the Guru and the Guru is Govinda, is Krishna. Service to the Feet of the Master is equal to thousands of pilgrimage places. So, do your service to the Feet of the Master and surrender. Adi Shankaracharya said “I received everything only by surrendering to the Feet of my Master” But, sadly, nowadays, when we say “Follow and do this”, what does the disciple say “Why should I do this?” It is normal, because the difference between the time before and now is that nowadays, the mind has taken over. And, when the mind takes over, of course, there will be lots of questions, lots of doubt, a lot of unreasonable thinking in the mind and, then, one loses certain opportunities. That’s why mankind always goes in the circle of birth and death, when mankind can achieve everything in one life - they can! Charanasparsha, which means surrender to the lotus feet. As 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. But nowadays, the first thing when one gets out of bed, one says “What will I do today?” In place of thinking of God, one thinks of everything else except the Divine. So make it a habit, the first thought when you rise in the morning, just think of any Divinity that you feel close with. If ever you know your Ishtadev, think of your Ishtadev. If you have your Guru mantra, just chant one time even your Guru mantra. And build up!
He gives in three forms. First, he gives as Sankalpa, which is through thought. Second, he gives as Drishti, which is through vision, sight. Third, he gives through Sparsha, which is touch. Through these three forms the Guru gives. The first one, Sankalpa, is like a turtle, a mother turtle. Through thought, you know, through the mind, through the transfer of the Shakti, this is like the mother turtle. The mother turtles lay their eggs into the sand, but the mother turtle does not need to sit on the eggs. She lays the eggs and, from far away, her thought is always like a wave of warmth towards the eggs, so that the eggs get hatched. This is done through waves, through thought. One who is an incarnation of that manifestation, one who has ever given blessings in this way is Shirdi Sai. The second, is Drishti, through sight. To give the blessing through sight is like a fish in the water who lays its eggs. Outside, the eggs are surrounded by some transparent bubble, you know, and their eggs are inside. But the mother fish always stays by and focuses on the eggs. Just by this mere focusing of vision the eggs get hatched, also. This is Drishti. And, the final form is Sparsha, which is through touch. You go to the master, you bow your head, you offer the sahasrara - crown chakra - and the teacher touches you on the head, no? He gives you the blessing that says not to worry, the Divine will look after. And, if you have faith, you receive the blessing. Even if you don’t have faith, you receive the blessing, but it takes longer to manifest. So, there are these three kinds of giving, you can say. The first one, as I said, is Shirdi Sai. The second one, who gave through Drishti, you can say through the sight, is Ramana Maharshi. He was giving His darshan through the sight. And Sri Ramakrishna gave His darshan through Sparsha. Through these three things the Master transmits this energy, this Divine energy, which is inside of Him, to the bhakta, to the disciple. Why did I say disciple and I didn’t say devotee? Because, after you have passed through all this purification you become a bhakta, you become a true disciple. You don’t stay only as a devotee, but you become a disciple. A disciple is the one who has received the grace of the Master. And the grace of the Master is the same as the Grace of God within. And this grace is like a teacher. Let’s say you grafted a small plant with another. You take two roses, two different kinds of roses, and you graft them together. But, when you water, you water only the main one, no? So the teacher is the main plant. Whatever passes through the teacher, which is grafted to the teacher, will receive everything. That is why I said yesterday you become the pot of Amrit, also. You don’t just stay as you are, but you attain the fulfilment of the goal of life. This is how the Grace of the Divine manifests Itself into the Guru. As we say “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. Guru Sakshath Parambrahma, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namaha”. The Vedas proclaim the Guru as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Even in the Gita, Krishna said “Whoever will need Me, I shall come, and I shall be manifested as the Guru”. So the greatness of a Master, the greatness of knowing one’s Master and receiving the Shiksha, receiving the blessing and grace from the master is rare. And, once one has it, one carries it with him. One carries this blessing always. It is not that one day you say “Ok, today I am with this Master and tomorrow I am with that Master”. There are many people who do ‘Guru hopping’, you know. Well, it’s normal, because one is on a search, you know. Until one feels this Love, this attraction, this pull, one will always search, no? And once you have felt it, you have to grow into it and then you know “Yes, I am at home. I belong there”. You don’t say “I go to this Guru” no, you say; “No, I am going home, I am going where I belong, where I long to be”. You go there where you feel the Love of God inside of yourself, and where you will achieve the purpose of your incarnation. So this is, in short, how the Guru works. Through this manifestation, through this incarnation, He gives through these three forms - through thought, through sight and through touch. He gives Himself fully to his disciple. He gives Himself fully to the devotee. What the devotee has to do is to be like an empty receptable and receive everything.You see, the rain falls everywhere, the rain does not have emnity toward anyone. It falls on the mountain, it falls on the hill slope. But, can the mountain hold the water? No it cannot: it flows. When can it hold the water? When there is a hole in it, then the mountain can hold this water. The outside people, who are not searching for the Divine, not searching for the purpose of life, they are like the mountain. That is, when the grace of God flows from the Divine to them, it just flows out. Whereas you all who have really the Grace of God - the blessing of God, I should say, not yet His Grace - but the blessing of God to have the urge of searching, the urge of looking for Him, the urge of practising your sadhana, the urge of feeling a Love greater than what the whole world thinks of as love.
When you manifest yourself and you have the urge of searching, the Divine manifests itself as Prereka Guru, which means the first thing that happens when you come across your Guru is that Love gets ignited inside. There is an urge to be near the teacher and it is like this: once you have tasted nectar, nothing else in the world tastes the same. In the same way, once you are near your Guru the world changes. That is why I was saying: when you become spiritual the world lets go of you, the world sees you differently. Some say you are crazy, because your actions don’t suit them, because, deep inside you, Love starts to awake. So, in that aspect the Guru takes form as Prereka Guru. The first meeting of the Guru is called Prereka, which is awaking of the Divine Love inside the heart of the disciple. This is how one knows who a Guru is, because there will be an irresistible pulling: it is like a magnet which attracts. Second, the Guru takes the aspect of Sachaka, which means the one who purifies and cleanses the bhakta, the devotee. And in that process you can say the Guru is wrong, you can say the Guru is bad. You can say all the bad words to the Guru, but know one thing: who will understand a Master? Until one becomes a Master, one will not understand a Master. That is why sometimes, when one looks at a Master and says “Oh, you know, this one is a bad one, or this one is a good one”. How do you know what is good and bad? You are just seeing the action on the outside, but you don´t know what lies behind it. So, this is the purification aspect of the Guru Sachaka, to purify, to cut down all the impurities. And in the cutting down, sometimes he can be very cruel, very tough. And like that you know a Guru is a Guru, because if a Guru is soft, soft, soft toward whatever you come with and he says “Ah yes, yes, yes”, it does not work. If you see diamond or gold in nature, diamond looks like a normal stone. But when the expert has seen it and takes it, takes the stone and starts polishing it, the polishing is not soft. The polishing is very, very, very, very difficult, but then you have a beautiful stone afterwards. It is the same thing with gold: when you receive gold with so much impurity. Gold has to go through fire and. when it goes through fire it is very cruel, because the gold is burning with thousand degrees to melt it, to purify it, so finally you can get beautiful jewellery. This is Sachaka. When this has happened and when this has manifested in the bhakta, in the devotee, and the strong faith and the determination is still there - because in that process many will go, because they cannot bear it - if one stays, one will shine. After that process, the Guru takes the aspect of Vachaka, which means that the Guru gives the glory of the Lord to the disciple. He reveals the stories of the Lord, the manifestation of the Lord, to the disciple. He tells them beautiful stories, so that inside the bhakta, when all impurity has gone away, it fills itself with the Divine, it fills itself with the glory and the shine of the Divine. Of course this is knowledge only. After some time the Guru takes the aspect of Bhodaka. Bhodaka means that he transforms this knowledge into wisdom, so that the bhakta, the devotee, can understand everything. Lots of people in the world have knowledge about many things, but the knowledge of the soul, the knowledge of who you are in reality, this is not called knowledge, it is called wisdom. When you have wisdom you see the world completely differently. This is called Bhodaka, Bhodaka Guru. When you have wisdom, what will manifest itself is pure Love. When you have wisdom you become wise. You are not ignorant anymore and, when you are wise, you realise that the Lord resides everywhere. Then the Guru takes the aspect of Darshaka. Darshaka means that the Guru manifests Himself into the Divine Form, the Guru reveals the Divine to the disciple. So, within this whole process, you see, you do not take quickly, quickly the five stages, the five steps, you know. The Guru tests you. You go through Sachaka, Vachaka, Bhodaka and Darshaka as the final one. When you reach Darshaka you see the manifestation of the Lord everywhere. You realise yourself fully. Whatever you are looking for is just at the feet of the Master. And He has given it to you. In the Shiva Purana, Shiva said to Parvati “One can attain all knowledge of this world, but if one is ignorant about the Teacher all the knowledge is meaningless”. The same thing Krishna said in the Gita “I clothed Myself in this human form and then the ignorant think I am just human, because they just see the outside”. Who will understand, who can understand a Satguru? No one! So, when the disciple is ready, the Satguru manifests Himself and He comes. The Satguru comes to the disciple. And the Satguru comes not to take anything, because the Guru already realised the Oneness with the Divine, you know. So what does the Satguru need in this world? Nothing! He comes to give, always to give, even if it seems that He takes, actually: what you are taking is just that what He is giving.
We have a difference between a Siksha Guru, which is a teacher from the school, and a spiritual teacher. They are two different types. The teacher from the school gives you a certain kind of knowledge, which will make you a better person, which will make you understand how to live here. But a spiritual teacher, a Guru, a Satguru, gives you not only the purpose of life, but also the purpose of direction in life: how and where one sets life. That’s the difference. We say, also, that the first Guru in one’s life is the mother; the second is the father. It is very true. The Vedas talk about the Guru being the mother and the father, but yet the Vedas proclaim that the mother and the father give only the physical to the child, so they give the body to the child. But the Guru gives spiritual life, which is a second birth. And how does this happen? If you remove certain qualities from humans, people who are not on the spiritual path, like pride if you remove the sense of living in the material world, if you remove wealth from them, you remove enjoyment from them – they are finished! They become zero! Whereas, from a spiritual person it is impossible to remove qualities, because spirituality is endless, knowledge is endless. You have knowledge, but knowledge should not just stay as knowledge. It should transcend to wisdom! All this happens through grace, actually, long before you incarnate on Earth. We can say that, yes, we can do certain things, but, long before you come here, it’s already said where you have to be, who will be your guide and when it will be that God makes everything possible for you to achieve Him. Actually, you can say it is you, but it is not you at all. It is only Him, because in the core of everything your Atma is only Him. So, in this process, we want to attain the grace of God, we want to attain the Love of God and we want to purify ourselves. For mankind to do this on its own is very difficult. It’s only when the urge of these spiritual qualities awakens inside of mankind that God will provide everything and prepare one to receive His Grace. It is like this: there is a Saint, a Sufi Saint, who said “When I was enlightened, I realised I had made three mistakes in life. The first mistake I made was that I always thought that I was making the first step towards God but, actually, after I had enlightenment, I realised that it was not me who had made the first step. God, long before I had made that first step, had already made more than one step towards me. The second mistake was that I had ever thought that I loved Him immensely. But, afterwards, I realised that when I thought that I loved Him immensely, my love was just a drop compared to His ocean of Love. And the third was when I attained Him and Realised Him, actually, it was He that had Realised Himself”. So, try to understand these three things. In these three it shows that all is the grace of God. And, of course, to attain this grace one can’t just sit around. You do your sadhana, you try to prove yourself, to make yourself ready. One may say “Well, I don’t need to have a teacher. I don’t need to have a Guru”. But you see one thing: you can receive knowledge in books, but you will not receive wisdom in books. The knowledge will transform itself into wisdom only when the Grace is flowing through the teacher to the disciple. So, when you are ready, you manifest yourself as a human being here. And, of course, just to stay a human being, a mere human being, is a bit boring, no? But how do you know it is boring? You don’t know more than that. You see, you do feel it, because you feel this dissatisfaction. Whatever you do, you don’t feel happy. So there is an urge of searching, an urge of looking for something that will make you really happy, not just a happiness like this, but pure happiness, shuddha happiness, inside of you. When this urge arises, of course, the Guru comes. And it can take lifetimes, you know, it is not only one life, it can take several, several lives. Don’t think that in every life one will have the same urge. It is not like that. It can take thousands of lives. It can take thousands of years.
I show you a very simple meditation that you can give to anybody.
A guided meditation:
Try to sit straight. Your spine should be straight First of all, I will ask you to take a normal breath, breathe normally, a few times. Now that you have breathed, concentrate yourself. Focus on the third eye. Close your eyes. Use your creative power now, because, as I said, you are a child of God. As God is the Creator, you are the creator also. With your creative power, the power of creation that God has given to mankind, to all of you, create the Om sign, or any divine Sign, the Cross, the Crescent, any sign that you feel close with. Create it on the third eye. And with your hearing, with your ears, listen deeply to your breathing. Listen to it. And breathe Om. Take your time. Do it in a relaxed way. Breathe slowly Om in and breathe slowly Om out. But keep your focus on your Ajna Chakra, on your third eye. After some time you will feel that on the third eye it is a bit ticklish, like something is working. Go deep into it. Let this vibration go down the spine from your head to the base chakra. Let it flow. With your breathing, breathe Om. Let it vibrate. Let the Om sound vibrate on all parts of your body. Now, reduce the size of the Om. Bring it back to your third eye. Bring it to your heart. Let it stay in your heart. Let it vibrate in your heart. Chant with me: “Om” By chanting Om or meditating on Om, you reap the vibration of peace, joy and happiness. This vibration helps humans to achieve their Real Self, let´s say, to realise the pure Consciousness of God within oneself. You can feel it, even when you say it. When it vibrates, when you say Om, let it vibrate on the solar plexus. All the power of creation, all the whole universe is present deep inside you. Let it vibrate in each cell of your body. Every time you have a little spare time, sit down and just breathe Om in and Om out.
What is the spirit? That is the purpose of life, to Realise who you are. When you have realised that you are a drop in the unlimited ocean of love, life’s purpose will be fulfilled; because in life’s ocean, a drop is not the same as you understand, but it’s One with the Oneness. And that’s the evolution of the soul. It’s like I said before: Love thy neighbour. Until one realises this love within oneself, it’s difficult. You can say, “Swamiji, you are talking about love, but yet I don’t know what love is.” Yes, you don’t know it with the mind, you can’t understand it with the mind, but deep inside of you, all of you know it. You are here to realise this through your daily practice. You practise daily, I hope, eh? Well, what is practice? It’s to remind yourself of the Divine continuously in whatever you are doing. That’s yoga. If somebody just meditates and just prays in the outside only, without realising that the Lord that they are praying to is seated inside of the heart of each being, then it’s of no use. Realising first, through meditation and through your prayer, that the Lord is not on the outside, but is inside of you, you will see Him shining in everybody; because, until you realise the non-difference, you will always see the limitation. You know about Mahavatar Babaji. How many of you know Him? Oh, OK. Babaji is a Master in India. Actually He is about 5,000 years old, still alive. Because He is my Satguru, I can tell you something; of course here is just a picture, a drawing, and He looks very strict, actually. But I tell you, He is such an expression of love that it’s difficult with words to express it. Even the word love is limited to express this Love. And as He said to me once, if He achieved that, everybody can.
Once there was a doctor who took his job very seriously. And he was very satisfied whenever people came to him to get healed, he was very happy about it. But his happiness had always only a short duration, so he was always wondering “Why I can be happy, but yet, it lasts a very short while. You know about this kind of happiness, no? Then the doctor went to Ramakrishna, an Indian Saint who lived in the last century, and told him “Ramakrishnaji, tell me how you love. I feel this love, but it doesn’t last for long.” Ramakrishna answered to him “My dear doctor, I know that you help people, and that you feel this love, but know one thing: your love is based on how much you get as payment. So, go and help people. It’s not that you should not take money, take it, but once a week give free consultation. You will see that this love inside of you will grow more and more.” And, of course, the doctor practised what Ramakrishna told him. After a few months, he came back to Sri Ramakrishna and fell down at his feet, saying “My Lord, I have done what you have told me and I’m the most happy person. Now, I don’t do this selfless service only one time a week, but I do it two or three times a week!” That’s what I said: Love always sounds selfish. Firstly, you give to yourself then you always give it to the others. Then it becomes selfless, unconditional. Because as long as there is expectation in it, as long as there is want in it, there will always be limitation in it. So find this Love inside of you. Feel inside of you this Divine Love. Feel it in the plant kingdom and feel it in the animals. Then you will see that there is perfect unity, there is unity and that you can make, also, unity. But, firstly, you have to push yourself.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Often people talk about liberation or freedom. When we talk about freedom, what are the things we think of at first? Freedom of country, political freedom, economic freedom… But the inner freedom is the most important among all the different kinds of freedom, and that is what mankind really wants to achieve. This is the reason why each soul has come on earth. They come to achieve this freedom, this love of God.
Let me try to interpret this kind of freedom: If you want something you shall have it. But you can also detach from the desire by your own will. You see, mankind desires many things, but when they have them they get attached to them. This attachment brings unhappiness. The more you are attached to things which are limited or not eternal, the more you feel miserable. You lose this inner freedom. You become limited in the mind. You become limited with your body, which in turn makes your soul limited. So, to free one’s self, one must surrender the body, mind and soul to God, to the Unlimited.
It’s true that everybody can’t renounce the world and live only for God, but you can continuously try to remember God wherever you are. Remember that the soul inside you is the light of God. The more you think of yourself being part of this light of God, this great love, the more you will reflect this love. But the more you think that you are just a normal human being, the more you will just be a normal human being with all of its limited qualities and you cover all of your divine qualities. Take time every day, just five minutes, to be with your Self. Forget about the world outside, forget everything. Forget about your husband or wife; forget about all your relationships with the outside. Only think of the relationship with your Self.
Do you know what treasure you will find? You will find the biggest treasure of all, a treasure that nobody can steal from you. And that is love. Love is such a big gift. We feel it with our heart, we know it with our mind, but to realise it, to become one with this love, to spread this love, unconditionally – this is the aim of mankind. The more you spread it, the more you reflect it, the more you will discover your Self.
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!
You didn’t want to stop singing bhajans, eh? Often one comes to a point where one wants truth. Everybody asks the question, “What is the true way, the true path that I should follow?” All paths have beautiful truth in them. All religions have beautiful truth. Truth is when we believe, but it does not mean that one has to be dogmatic. Actually, the greatest truth is in each one of you. And this truth is that you are all a part of God. This truth is above all the religions and all colours and casts. You are a part of God. You are the child of God. And you can reflect the light of God. It is beyond all conceptions of the mind. In this truth everyone is free, and this is the truth that mankind has always to remember.
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.
As you all may know, the ultimate goal of life is to realise the Self. The soul, the Divine, whatever name you want to call it, is your own Self. In this daily life, with our daily occupations, the mind becomes very busy. We read lots of books, and talk about spiritual things.
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 Vrindavan. He stayed there until the age of sixteen, and then he went away. So when he left, everybody in Vrindavan 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!
When you say, “I don’t love this person…” I don’t love means… you love this person, but in a different way. The mind of man can’t think ‘no’. In words we can say ‘no’, but our mind thinks in pictures, and in pictures, ‘no’ doesn’t exist. It is only how we talk about it on the outside.
So let go of the power of the mind that makes yourself feel separate from the Divine, and be one with it. There are different practices to help with this. You can sing the name of God. Recite any mantra. Sing the name of Jesus, sing the name of Rama, Krishna, or Allah, it is all equal. All are His names. Become one with this Divine name. That’s what the word mantra really means: to merge and become one. Let your life itself reflect who you really are.
We’ll talk about prayer, about love. Unity is God. We always come to the same point, where we talk about God. We talk about His love for all of us – this love that He has without condition.
We start our spiritual way because there is something missing in our life, something that this world can’t give. This thing which is missing, you can only discover inside of you. Yet there is a saying – approach Him with love, reach Him in that love, meet Him in love, embrace Him with love and merge with Him and become Eternal Love! I find it so beautiful.
So we start our journey to approach the Divine. Our first step is searching for Him. This is when in our life we feel the need to pray. Prayer is this essence of realising that there is something greater – whether you call it God, Light, Spirit… The search starts with prayer, and prayer makes the link, prayer makes the first step to this union.
Then one will reach the next step by meeting and reaching that love. By prayer the heart opens up, firstly towards the outside, then towards the inside. We meet Him in love. Through the reciting and singing of God’s names, like you are doing, you reach the point where love is, where everybody is sharing one goal: the achievement of that love.
Then there comes the point of meeting Him in love. This is happening in meditation, when you sit down and have the connection with your true Self. You meet the love within yourself and start this discussion, start this communication with the Self, about knowing who you really are. In this meeting we embrace that love, we become one with it and realise it more and more.
You grow more and more each day. And with this Divine love you will realise that there is no difference between the love that you knew at the beginning and now. And with this love there is no difference between you, me – anybody. But this Eternal Love, this Eternal Light resides in everything. It’s so easy, isn’t it?
I always repeat the same: spirituality is very easy! It’s simply that you want it! It’s given to you already – inside of your heart. The moment you want it, you will receive it. But –
humans like complicated things – the more something is complicated, the more they like it.
You come to Swami and Swami says, “Don’t worry, just love!” You are not satisfied, are you? But if Swami said, “Do a mantra ten thousand times,” you would be happy with it! These ten thousand times while you were doing this mantra, you would lose the consciousness of the mind. You would merge into the consciousness of the Divine. You would become love. The same thing I would give you much easier – I would give it to you on a plate and you would refuse it! The same thing God is giving you: Love. The realisation of love is already in your heart. The moment you are born, it’s already there. It’s up to each one of you to let it out.
Leave the problems apart, leave your worries apart – be this love, be this Eternal Love, and enjoy it! Love is simple, if you have it inside your heart. Is it difficult? What a simple word. Let it flow! Everything is in it, everything – even the cosmic float itself is present in it. So make this your goal: Wanting love! Want it! First thing in the morning when you wake up, say it, “I want love, I am love!” During the day recite, “I am love.” And at night, when you are going to bed, recite, “I am love.” First you start by reciting it outside to conquer the power of the mind. Then you say it inwardly, quietly, within yourself, “I am love.” Then you say it with all parts of your body, “I am love.” And at the end – just be love! Nothing else, just love.
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