That´s why God gave us a heart.....

You are all aware that human life is for something, and as you know, it is to realise the greatest goal, which is the True Self and which is Love. This Love, which seems far away with the mind and sometimes even inaccessible, actually, is closest. As you all know, you are an incarnation of Love, you are part of the Divine. We are all trying to become, to attain this Divine Love, to attain this bliss again, to become Satchitananda, that what in reality you are already. It’s just that you don’t let it out. You like the love on the outside. You think it’s easy, but after sometime, you say “Headache”. As you know, this Love is eternal. This Love is waiting to be awakened deep within you, this Love that you have been carrying for many lifetimes. Firstly, to have the chance, to have the grace of being spiritual, being on a spiritual path itself is an attribute to this Divine Love. Everybody is searching, but only when this Love comes to a point where it, firstly, starts to sprout out and grow and mature, then one realises one’s Self, realises this Love. The question comes to mind “Why every time, we come back, do we have to do the same thing over again? If we have already realised this Love, if we have already attained this Love, why don’t we have it?” For that, if you look at a child, a child just goes with the daily fow. He doesn’t bother to think how things have to be. But we older ones, I mean youngsters, we like questioning things, we like to doubt things, we like to put spice on it. So, when we have put too much spice on something, life has to change – it gets too hot! But this pure Love, this Divine Love is present at all times.

You will achieve it only when your mind is clear...

It doesn’t matter which path you follow or which sadhana you are doing. How you are doing it is the most important. When you love to do something, you are not disturbed by anything. When you love to do the work that you are doing – let’s say that someone, for example, loves to be a carpenter – you would see how much Love he projects into his work, because he would do it with a full focus. I love painting. I love to paint, because it brings you to such a focus that nothing will disturb you, not even people around you who are talking. Have you ever painted? How many among you paint? That’s nice. So you know what I am talking about. It’s not only about painting. Anything that you do, when you love what you are doing, you will come to that focus that nothing will disturb you. There can be lots of people, thousands of people around you, but you will always be in that focus. That’s what sadhana is – to discipline yourself with such an intensity. It’s not that you become narrow- minded – this has nothing to do with it – but it’s to find what you are looking for. Even if you don’t find it in one month, it doesn’t matter, or in one year, still it doesn’t matter. There are yogis who have been meditating hundreds of years. I will not say that they have not found it, but they are in this deepness with themselves, with the Lord inside of them. The Kingdom of God, Christ always talked about it, didn´t He? How many times He talked about it when He was here. He said “The Kingdom of God is near.” Yet people are waiting for the palace, the Kingdom to appear, but it is here, inside of you, this inner kingdom. You will achieve it only when your mind is clear, when you are clear with yourself, when the mind becomes pure and clear. Sadhana helps you to control your mind. There are many forms of sadhana. Each person has their own way, their own practice that they feel close with.

Imagine if everybody transcended the mind...

Imagine if everybody transcended the mind and transformed everything which is negative into Divine wisdom. This can be done only if you become positive. Lots of illnesses can be cured just by changing the way man thinks. If you think of yourself as being ill, strongly, you will get sick, but if make yourself strong and say “Yes, I want to transcend this illness, I want to transcend this mind,” you will get cured. How is this done? Of course, the grace of God is there, yes, but this also depends on you. When you say “Yes, I want to take the first step” then you will have the grace of the Divine. However, if you just sit around and say “Yes, OK, I will meditate, I will not do anything else, God will do it for me” then the nice food you want to eat will not come to you. Then you will always wait. Whereas when you make your effort, you will see that even with just a thought – you want to eat something – you just need to think about it and God will provide. So many times it happens in your life that when you are in a certain state you have so much connection with the Divine that you just think “Oh, you know, today I would like to eat this” and during the day somebody brings it and gives it to you. How do you think it’s possible? It’s coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidence, it’s you and the Divine Will together. In a light bulb you have two electrical charges – the positive and the negative. The negative charge is like the human being and the mind and the positive charge is like the Divine Will, the Divine Grace. When both of them join together, the light happens. So it’s the same way when you are attuned to the right frequency; He will know about it and He will send. So you see, my dears, that spirituality is very simple. Even when I talk about it, it seems so simple, but you have to take the first step. This is up to you to do.

One will develop this unconditional Love for the Divine...

When you are in love you always forget about yourself. Look, everybody has been in love. Do you think of yourself, when you are in love or do you think of the other person? So, the soul can always be in love with the Divine, no? So, you can always think of God. If we love God that way, then we will be detached, also, from whatever is attaching us to this world. We will be detached from whatever is stopping us from our advancement. We want Self-Realisation, we want God-Realisation, yet we don’t want to let go of everything. That doesn’t mean that you should renounce everything and become sannyas, no, but be in the world and know that everything comes from Him. Everything is Him. It’s only Him who gives and everything will go back to Him. As long as we stay in the circle of birth and death we will enjoy this play, meaning not only the enjoyment of being happy, but meaning enjoyment that is also painful, which you always complain about. So, if one wants to always stay in the circle, one will always be in the circle. But if one wants really to go out of the circle, one will develop this unconditional Love for the Divine, unconditional Love for everybody, unconditional Love for all His creation, because the unconditional Love of God knows no limit, knows no “I love this one; I hate this one,” and there is no judgment. It’s like a mother’s love.

Often we approach the Divine with........

Often we approach the Divine with such pride and in an egoistic way. We think that we can give Him everything, forgetting that everything belongs to Him already, and that the only thing that we can give to Him is our heart. And that’s the only thing He wants: this heart full of love and humility.

We are the consciousness of God......

In the Shivapurana, is said that Shakti always resides with Shiva. The upper part is Shiva and the lower part is Shakti, referring to the kundalini together with shesha, the snake. It is the perfect combination of the two aspects which are in each one of us, the male and the female. It’s also the day and the night. This reminds us that we are not just the body. We are the consciousness of God, whom we will find by surrendering completely to Him. We will find Him when our heart is completely open, without any doubt, without any “buts”.

Surrender everything and be assured that God is always with you! If He has put you here on earth, He will not let you go just like that! A beggar on the road will always have his food, because God will always provide him with what he needs. For sure he doesn’t need much. We are children of God. Jesus has taught us, “Don’t beg, but ask. Ask our Father. Ask, and you will receive.”

To realise our true immortality, we must got deeper within, rising above all material things, and become whatever God really wants us to be. We are God’s children and we will have to keep realising it. We have to keep it in mind all the time.

Your mind has to be always busy with the Lord......

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. Your mind has to be always busy with the Lord, you know, with God. This is how you will find peace. So try to find this inner happiness, this inner freedom. And it’s not far away, you know, it’s here inside of you. When you make your first step through prayer, through chanting, the Divine will run to you. And, it is possible to attain Him. Open up the mind, surrender it to Him, and let the Love which you have inside of you flow.

You have to cross over everything......

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.

Drink the cup of Divine Love.....

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. Until you have reached that point of drinking the Cup of Love, don´t renounce. No matter how beautiful and how tempting the outside could be, drink the Cup of Love! See, there is another Reality in this world. A Reality that these physical eyes will never permit you to see! Krishna said in the Gita, that a true yogi is the “one who sees Me everywhere - in the animals, in the trees, everywhere”, but you can´t just see it like that. Even if you know it in your mind, “Yes, the Lord is present everywhere,” do you see it? No, not many people see it. To come to the point of seeing that, first there is the base of chanting the Divine Names. Whichever name you feel close to, chant it! Chant until you become the Divine Name yourself. And it is possible, I tell you! It is not something that is not possible, you just have to try it!

It’s like He is the dearest one......

The Gopis had such Love for Krishna, which is not comparable to any other kind of love. It’s amazing the love relationship that the people have for Krishna. It’s really one to one. It’s like He is the dearest one. They will tell Him anything. They will scold Him even. Once something goes wrong, they will scold Him. They know that He is God, but yet the Love that they feel inside their hearts is even stronger. When do you really feel you can, you are free to tell somebody something? When you are close with that person, isn’t it? Or when you are not? When you are not, you don’t bother about it. But, when you are close with someone, you will feel free to express whatever, even if it is anger, but this closeness, this relationship, this Love, that’s what is the most important thing. It’s how our relationship to the Divine is. This kind of Love our soul has for the Paramatma and if we awaken this relationship, it will come.

In the relationship to the Divine you forget about yourself completely. You forget about your own Realisation, you forget about what will make you happy. Like it is said in the Bible: The greatest happiness is when you can give your life for your friend, isn’t it? True relationship is when one can give oneself completely

and when you are in love you always forget about yourself.

You will realise the Cosmic You!

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.

A guided meditation

We will do now a simple exercise. I love to do this little meditation.

• I ask you to take your hand and place it in front of your heart chakra - not on, but in front.

• Feel each beat of your heart.

• Focus your attention on your breathing. Listen. God has given you ears, so listen to your inhaling and exhaling. The more you listen to your inhaling and exhaling, the more the mind will get calmer and calmer.

• And, at the same time, really feel the vibration emanating from your heart to your hand and from your hand to your heart.

• Relax yourself. Concentrate on your breathing and you will feel it.

• When you are inhaling and exhaling, just inhale and exhale, don’t have a pause in between.

• Now, place your hand on your heart, without any pressure. You can feel the millions of thrills going through your heart.

You can come out of this meditation. If you felt it, this is what I am talking about. That’s Life. If you have not felt it, keep practicing it. Once you have felt it inside of you, touch a plant, touch a tree and you will see how Life flows. Hold an animal and feel what is going through that animal. Then you will know what Life is and you will Realise your Self not in a limited way, but in an unlimited way. You will realise the Cosmic You!

We have to be centred in our heart.......

Hold the hand of God within you any moment, during any time of trouble, any happiness – always think of the Divine, that God is with you in every moment – all the time! So it’s up to you to hold the hand and let yourself be guided. When a leaf falls on a river – do you think the leaf knows where the flow of the river is carrying it? No. Just let go! The wind is blowing the leaf. In the same way, we have to be in the hand of God. We have to be centred in our heart, that – wherever our heart is carrying us – we just open up and let ourselves flow.

Be as much silent as possible....

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!

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

God is everywhere, God is ever-present, any moment, any time wherever we are, whenever we need Him, He is here. He’s just here! We are looking for Him everywhere, but look inside of you, look in your heart, feel it, feel yourself. By knowing yourself you will know God – because He is no different from you! Start by loving yourself! It’s so simple.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.......

"Only by Love one will reach Him. Only when one has selfless Love, will one Realise Him. Only when one has selfless Love, that one will become One with Him. Develop such Love and He will be always with you”.

It’s about time to change one’s mind......

When we look at nature, Mother Nature is reacting in such a way that it’s not pleasing to see. But 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.

Isn’t that what each one of you wants, to feel the Love of God all the time?

“All kinds of expectations bring pain because the one real expectation, the real thing that our soul wants, is the True Love of God. And this ‘True Love of God’, we can only find through devotion within our heart. You can go to a Master and the Master can show you the way. But it’s upon each one of you to really desire God, to really yearn for God. Because as long as you don’t yearn for God, as long as you don’t really want Him, you will always be searching. You will always put one foot in one place and the other foot in another place. To find this real Love and realize this deep connection with God within oneself, one must practice Bhakti- devotion. When you surrender yourself full-heartedly and say, “God I want You. Reveal Yourself to me!” then God will reveal Himself. He cannot say, “No,” to you, because your Self cannot hide from yourself. This higher consciousness, that you have deep inside of you, can be revealed when your mind is centred on God. So yearn for God. Call from deep inside your heart, ‘God reveal Yourself to me! I know You are somewhere deep inside. From time to time, I do feel You. I know You are here. But I would like to feel You constantly, all the time. Isn’t that what each one of you wants, to feel the Love of God all the time?”

He is the Love in each one´s heart.......

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 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. 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.

We are here to transcend death.....

We are here to transcend death, to become the light that we truely are. But who really wants to become this light? Many people try it, and then they say, “It’s too long. It’s too much.” This is lack of patience. It is the goal of your Self. It’s true that we should not be attached to the body, but the body itself is divine, the mind itself is divine, so the spirit itself is divine. They are all one. And there is no difference. So, transcend the body into light.

Of course there is lots of purification on the way. At the beginning we say, “Yes – there is a God. We believe in Him. But where is He?” We try to exteriorize the Divine, we try to make God something apart from us. But God can be realised only within yourself. When we talk about God, very often we say, “God? Where – outside from us – is this person?” We think, He is there, we are here. We are different.

Whenever we talk about God, we have also to know that it is our own Self! We are actually talking about us, about each individual person. Because we are a part of God. Even if we all look different, when we remove the veil of illusion we are one light. Like this beautiful chandelier, it has many different bulbs, but the electricity is one! If you put a small bulb in it, of course we’ll have a small light, but the electricity will still be the same. It’s the same for you: all of you can shine the same light, the same divine light, more and more. You just need to let go. To really shine, you have to clean out all of the negativity.

Surrender happily everything that stands in between to Lord Shiva!

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.