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

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......

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....

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....

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.......

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.....

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........

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....

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.....

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........

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 .....

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.....

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 .....

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....

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.....

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.....

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........

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........

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”.......

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......

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....

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.....

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.....

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 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. 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.

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

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.....

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....

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....

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.