A guided meditation by Sri Swami Vishwananda....

A guided meditation:

Take a few deep breaths and when you breath out, drop your shoulders; release all the pressure from your shoulders. Close your eyes. Focus your concentration on your third eye. And then, with the power of creation that God has given you, create the OM sign or any Divine symbol or aspect - the cross or any symbol you feel close with. And concentrate all your attention on this point, on this aspect. The mind will think; let it think. Don’t try to stop it; don’t use force to stop it. But don’t hang onto this thought. In the same way it comes let it go. Focus on this Divine aspect, and, with your ears, listen to your breathing. Listen to it carefully. You will hear, when you inhale - if you listen properly - you will be inhaling OM in and the same when you exhale, the sound will be OM. After some time, you will feel a pressure point where you are concentrating. Let it expand. Let this energy expand, covering your whole head. Let it expand to your upper part of your body - your arms, your chest, and your back. Let it expand to the upper part of your body - your legs, your feet. If you have any pain or illness, focus on that point. Let it vibrate. Now, focus on the heart. Let the OM vibrate in your heart. Let it vibrate more and more At the same time, choose the image that you created, that you like, and make it go inside your heart. So come back to yourself.

You see this form of visualisation is very simple for practicing anywhere you are. In place of thinking or talking of things, which are of no use, learn to sit quietly, keep the mind busy, but keep the mind focusing on positivity.

When you sing, if you want to make it more powerful, let it emerge from deep within you.....

When you sing the divine Name, let it come from deep within you, not just outside. This is the power of sound. And to make it more powerful, it has to emerge from deep within. That’s why when you say OM, you don’t just say OM from the throat, otherwise there is no vibration into it. When you chant OM, you chant from deep within you, from the microcosmos that you have inside of you. That’s what is said in the Vedas. They talk about the microcosmos, which is deep within humans, where the Divine is seated all the time. That’s why, also, when you sing, if you want to make it more powerful, let it emerge from deep within you, and you will have more power. That’s why when a lion roars, he roars from deep within. You never see a lion roaring very softly from the outside. That’s why he is the king of the animals. The roaring of the lion is so powerful that it sometimes shakes even the Divine! When Narasingha Dev appeared on Earth and roared, even the Heavens got scared of it. And it’s the same if you want to wake up the Divine, which is sleeping within your heart, call His name. Of course, one will say “We don’t really need to shout to call Him”, but He will enjoy your call. When He is lying down in your heart, He will enjoy your call. Why do we sing? Why do you think that people, when they sing, are in such a great joy? They forget about everything. Why is it? It’s because when we sing the power of mind is less in action. We are deeper into this Divine energy, because all the vibrations are cosmic energy. There is one technique called the Nada Yoga or Nada Kriya that explains the power of sound. And you will see that all the sounds emerge from the vibration OM and everything is vibration. Our life itself is a vibration.

Sri Swami Vishwananda sings OM.....

"If I have the complete realisation of God, will I really stay the same? Will I really see the world in the same way?”

Do you want to wake it up? Do you really want it or not? You think you are not sure about it? It’s when you really want something that you must have the power to say, “Yes, I want it!” Not only, “Maybe I want it, maybe I don’t want it.” Because then you are not sure about what you really want. In one way human beings want realisation, they want God. In another way they say, “If I have the complete realisation of God, will I really stay the same? Will I really see the world in the same way?” But with this way of thinking it will never happen. Try as much as you want. Let it be said: you can’t serve two masters at a time!You can’t have the complete realisation of God and at the same time say that you want the material world. I tell you something: in the completeness, in the Divine consciousness, everything is present. Where else than in the mere mind of man can one just see what these two eyes perceive? On one hand there is everything, everything means also the material part. On the other hand there is just the material part and illusion. You meet people, they try to see what is beautiful, and they get attached to it and keep it. It’s our own happiness that arises in our life, from deep within where we receive the goal. But something is missing; it is not complete.Whenever you read in any Holy book, the Bible, also the Bhagavad Gita, it is said that Lord Krishna or Jesus went far away in a desert corner or on a higher mountain to sit down and talk with God. However, each one of us, we can also go deep inside of ourselves and raise the vibration in our self, reach to the higher level, and open to the consciousness of God. Let the light flow through you and become the Self and realise it; and know that you are the Self, and that the Self is acting for you. And when the Self is acting for you, for sure everything will be perfect. There is no doubt – with the power of trust you have in the mind.When you have this power of trust, this willpower, then you can create in the mind what you really want! Imagine it. Make it a thought, and project this thought on whatever you want, and say by the power of word, “I want that!” See what happens! See what Jesus did, when some people came and said, “This person is ill. Can you please heal him?” What did he answer? He didn’t say much. He just said, “Be healed!” The person did heal – because in his consciousness, Jesus was always with the Divine, always with the Father. He didn’t have any doubt in his own word, he didn’t doubt himself. He didn’t say, “OK, let me heal.” With strong conviction, he said, “Be healed!” But it’s also true that the person has to have faith in Jesus.They already had developed this healing process inside and they came to Jesus to contact this higher frequency of energy. And they did get healed. Like Sri Yukteswar always said, “The power of the mind, it’s here to heal and to not heal. If we really want to be healed, change the thought. Make it become wisdom. Then you will be healed.” The wisdom that lies deep inside of each one of you knows, because you are all part of the Divine. If you remove the gross body outside, the body made of this fibre… you are just the pure light of God. And in this light the whole wisdom and knowledge is present. But sometimes you do need somebody to tell you, to remind you always of that.Don’t worry. I will always remind you that you are Divine! Even if my mouth gets tired, my heart will still say it, until you reach this level. So did Jesus Christ. Many of you think, “Jesus is so great. Why did he die? Why did his body die? Why did he go through the crucifixion?” Right now it’s Easter. Before the crucifixion, he knew that inside himself something great was happening, something that human minds can’t understand. He materialised his body into light, like he did when he transmuted himself on the mountain.How many people will really understand that? Not many. He did it to show that within our body lays the spiritual body. We all can get access to this spiritual body if we really want it.

The moment you close your eyes and call for the Lord....

All are searching for the Lotus Feet of the Lord. Name Him by whatever name you want, call Him by whatever name, picture Him by whatever form, but it’s the same Lord, you know. That’s why each one of you has your IshtaDev. It makes it easy for you concentrating on your IshtaDev, so that this longing for the Divine in that form may appear inside of you. May Lord Chaitanya for example embrace your heart also, and help you to love the Lord the way He loved the Lord, until at the end they became One. He could not live in this world. He could not bear the separation. It’s the same thing when our soul looks at the Lord. It has the same longing when we say, “I want to be One with you again. I long to go back to this state where I realise that I am One with You and You are One with me, all the time.” That’s what your sadhana is here for, you know. That’s why you are praying and you are meditating, which is very good; but try to do it in a selfless way, a not expecting way, because whenever you expect, it will take a longer time. Whenever you pray and you expect, saying, “Ok, I will pray to the Lord now. Probably He’s happy with me and He will come to me.” But He is happy with you, you know, whether you see Him or whether you don’t see Him. Whether you see Him or not, He is there! The moment you close your eyes and call for the Lord in any of His forms, He is there and He hears each prayer. Whether you see Him or not, He is there. This reminds me of what Christ said, “Blessed is the one who believes without seeing”. So, know that whenever you pray, He hears everything and, above all, He knows when to give you what you’re praying for and when you are ready. When you will be able to handle it, He will give it to you. But as long as you are not ready, make yourself ready. Long for Him, call for Him night and day, so that you have just a glimpse of this longing of the heart. And just a glimpse can make you go through a life of waiting very patiently.

The Yoga of devotion......

What I have to say is all about Love and devotion. All that we do in our daily life, in our work, in our spiritual path, it´s all to attain one thing: the purity of Love, to become Self-Realised, but you cannot attain this purity, you cannot Realise the Self without devotion. It’s possible only through bhakti, through devotion. Without bhakti, it’s difficult. Like Sri Krishna said in the Gita “Cast away all dogma. Cast away all that is from the mind and surrender to me.” Only then True Love can be Realised. The Jnanis, they stick only to the mind. I don’t say that it´s not good. It´s good, but it will lead you only to a certain level. It is very good to help, to do karma yoga, but if you are not helping with the right attitude, it will also bring you only to a certain level. Whereas with bhakti, like Sri Krishna said to Uddhava: Above all the yogas, I prefer bhakti yoga. I prefer the yoga of devotion, where the devotee and the Lord become One; where there is no difference left, whereas in all the other yoga, the difference stays.” When I am talking about devotion, I don’t mean the kind of devotion that will fade after one month, but pure devotion that lasts forever. There are lots of people who have devotion in the beginning. When they start their spiritual path they are very excited but, after some time, their devotion fades. But real devotion is like the Lord said: If you surrender to me, open your heart and say “Lord, take complete possession of my heart. It’s only you that I’m looking for.” In reality, all the happiness that you are looking for - whatever you are doing in the outside - is to achieve Satchitananda. Wherever you look, whoever you look at, they are all running towards this. The priest is praying, but why do you think he is praying? He is praying for real happiness. People on their spiritual path are, also, looking for real happiness. Even people who are taking drugs: why do you think they do that? They are looking for real happiness. too. Of course, our mind doesn’t see it in the same way, but in the end, they are looking for real happiness. And this real happiness lies deep inside of you. Through devotion, through singing the glory of God, all the dogma will be removed and you will feel that He is continuously present with you. You will feel His Love continuously with you. The more you feel Him, the more you become part of Him. Like it is said, also, in the Gita: When one chants the name of God, the Lord takes full possession of that person. The more you lose yourself, the more you lose your ego and pride, the more you will Realise the Divine, but the more you hang onto pride, the more you hang onto identity, the less you will find real happiness. So the easiest way that the Lord has given to us is to sing His glory. Just sing any Divine Name and, when you sing, let yourself be drawn into it and don’t try to think with the mind. I know that, especially in the West, we like to use the mind a lot. We like to understand things with our mind, but our mind has a limit. Does the mind understand the heart? It will never understand it. The mind will understand things only when there is a limit to them. If there is a wall where you can bang yourself against, the mind will understand. And then, of course, you will complain about it, because it hurts. Whereas, 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.

The manifestation of the Lord Himself into Radharani is to show us.....

When we talk about Radha, we always put Her first, and then Krishna. We say “Radhe Krishna, Radhe

Shyam, because She is the Shakti of Krishna. She is the One who gives power to Krishna. One could say that Krishna is God, so why does He need power? But Love - which is Krishna, which is God - is useless without devotion. So in this form, in the form of Radha, He manifests Himself as Bhakti, which is pure devotion. What is this pure devotion? We all have devotion: we pray, we do our work every day and this is,

also, called devotion, but pure devotion is complete surrender. This pure devotion, which Radha had for Krishna, even though She was separated from Krishna, even though She was separated from the Oneness – it was just to teach us what it is to surrender. Actually, Radha represents all of us: the creation, the manifestation. She symbolizes the Love, the example. She symbolizes the Bhav, the complete surrender to the Will of God. It’s not about her own will, but the Will of God, the Will of Krishna. That’s why it is said that She is the only true Devotee and we all have to become like Her. The manifestation of the Lord Himself into Radharani is to show us how to love unconditionally, how to have such faith that even a storm will not uproot you.

Transcend the body into light.......

So, death, how many people are scared of it? It’s a part of life, isn’t it? Like I said during the Shivaratri night, 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.

A beautiful story about how service brings union of the mind, the heart, the spirit and makes you whole.....

In the life of Sri Ramakrishna there was a doctor in a certain village. Whenever Ramakrishna would see the

doctor, the doctor was always with a heavy face, sad. Ramakrishna said to him “Why are you sad, doctor?” He said “I don’t know. I come to you. Give me a solution to be happy. Give me a way that I can feel the Love of God and be happy.” Ramakrishna said “Look, doctor, I know every day you have hundreds of people, you charge them lots of money, but even that doesn’t make you happy. So do one thing: one day a week, give service for free.” After some time, the doctor came to Dakshineshwar again and Ramakrishna saw him; he was very joyful and very happy, radiating so much joy and happiness. Ramakrishna said “Doctor, you look different today. What is the secret of it?” Then he said to him “Well, I took your advice and I started to give one day a week, free of charge, service to everybody. The more I do it, the more I feel to do it more and more, because this brings me great joy inside and this great joy doesn’t finish.” Like that, there are many examples that can be given about how service brings the union of the mind, the heart and the spirit and makes you whole. Don’t be scared to serve, in whatever way you can, however you can, whenever you can, because you don’t know when God can come to you and in what form He can come to you. Feel blessed and feel the Love of God!

If you silence your mind completely, you will receive everything......

What do you think we can ask from God? If He said what He wants from you, would you be able to give it?

Actually, let’s ask Him one thing – to purify our thoughts, help us to go beyond the thoughts and help us to go beyond the mind. That’s it. When you have gone beyond it, it will be very easy. To go beyond it is the most difficult part where everybody gets stuck, because the mind is very active. We see it every day in whatever we do, our thoughts are always in front of us. At the beginning, when you were always with the Divine, how was your thought? It was always focused on God. There was not a second when it was diverted to limited things, like a Mercedes, but nowadays, how many people’s thoughts and minds are on God – only a few. If you consider the amount of people living on Earth, how many people do you suppose are thinking of God – very few, a handful. The rest are thinking how they will get a Mercedes, how they will get this and how they will get that. They will even pray “God, get me this.” As the Mataji said, God also says “Yes? What can I do for you?” We must be prepared to make only the appropriate request. It is through prayer, through japam, through meditation, that we learn to control our thoughts, but the best of all is through silence. Pray, chant your  mantra and silence yourself. Feel the mantra inside of you. When you chant the name of God, don’t just say, Narayana or Durga or Babaji. It’s not just the name. They are not simple names, you know? These names create a vibration and even when you are not aware, it’s still vibrating. The main thing is you have to be aware of that vibration inside of you. You have to feel that each part of your body is vibrating these Divine Names. You can really feel it and really know it only when you are in silence. Silence doesn’t mean that you have to stop your work and say “I sit in silence and that’s it – finished!” No, silence means that whatever you are doing, you stay calm and you control the tongue. The body is made of 206 bones and they say that wherever there are bones, we can control them, but the tongue is not made of bones, so we have to learn to control it. If this tongue can chant the Divine Names all the time, you will be able to control it. When you have controlled the tongue, you will be able to control your mind. 

If you silence your mind completely, you will receive everything. You will not even need to ask.

Make this deep ocean of love which you carry grow more and more....

Often spiritual people become very dogmatic on their way. When they have one guru they say, “This is the only way.” It’s true; one has to be dedicated to the guru. But to receive the blessing of all the masters, this is the best. People can see with their two eyes. With the physical eyes they see only the outside. But what is behind the guru is the same light. The guru will take your hand and bring you to a level where you can stand on your own feet. I don’t mean that you don’t need the guru. He will always be there, but he will put himself in the background. Then the inner guru will become more important. This is the greatness of a master. Let me tell you a story. Once there was a fight between the devotees of Shiva and Vishnu. The devotees of Shiva said, “Shiva is the greatest!”.And the devotees of Vishnu said, “Vishnu is the greatest!” So, God was just looking at the devotees, at what they were doing. This lasted for years and years, until finally the Lord Himself decided to come. Vishnu changed himself into Shiva, and went to the devotees of Shiva, and Shiva changed himself to Vishnu, and went to the devotees of Vishnu. So everybody was praising their master, saying “Oh, you are great. You are great!” After some time they noticed that Vishnu, who is normally the embodiment of calmness, was different. And this quality isn’t normally found in Shiva. The devotees of Shiva saw that this Shiva was a bit different, too. He’s so calm. And they started thinking, “There is something wrong here.” Then they said, “Lord, with all of our respect, which leader are you showing us? Which lesson are you giving us?” At that moment, Shiva changed to his normal form, to Vishnu. And the devotees of Vishnu, when they looked at Vishnu, he changed to Shiva. The devotees were very confused. They didn’t know what to do. So, finally, both Shiva and Vishnu came together, called all the devotees together, and they saw a big bright light. They could not even look at this light. And when the light was vanished, they saw Dattatreya, the Holy Trinity – Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwara – in one. So, our mind tries to separate things, but look behind what only your physical eyes can see. Look at the light. This light which you all reflect, which everybody in this world reflects; this is the reality. When you achieve this level, know that you have come to the point of complete realisation. Keep practicing everyday, make it your daily sadhana. Meditate, sing the name of God. There are many ways you can reach this light. Like all the rivers flow back to the same ocean, the same is within all of you. All of you flow back to the same ocean. Make this deep ocean of love which you carry grow more and more, and the Lord will reveal Himself deep inside you.

Raise the frequency of vibration; raise it in your consciousness…

Forget about your body. Just concentrate on yourself and the Divine within you. If the mind is playing games with you, close your eyes and repeat inside, “I am the light. I am love. I am joy, I am peace!”

Recite it many times, until you become this light, this love, this joy, and this peace. See it. See it in the eyes of God that there is no difference; see it in the eyes of Jesus. You will see there is no difference. See it in the eyes of Krishna; you will see there is no difference. See in the eyes of any master, that there is no difference. But if you try to see it with the mind, you will just see difference, nothing else.  Every prayer, every thought, every action, vibrates on a certain level. Raise the frequency of vibration; raise it in your consciousness… You are an instrument of the Divine. Let us show that we are this instrument, not just by saying it, also by our actions, how we welcome everything…Keep reminding yourself. Now say it, “I am Divine!” Each breath that you’re taking, say inwardly to yourself, “I am Divine!”

Whatever is created from the Lord is real......but what is the Ultimate Reality?

The identity, which has been given to you when you were born, is that really you? It is to a certain degree. Whatever is created from the Lord is real, also, because He infuses Himself into everything. But

this is not the Ultimate Reality. Only when this minimum reality that you call reality and which the world itself looks at and says, “That´s real,” dissolves itself, the Ultimate Reality can reveal Itself inside of you. So, practice! In simple words: chant the name of God all the time. Remember the Divine, whatever you do, wherever you are, the Divine is with you.

Once you drink the cup of Divine Love, you will see the world completely differently. This Love is pure nectar, and to understand it, one has to drink it.

Swami Vishwananda and Faith

Swami Vishwananda says: "The more faith you have − towards yourself, towards the Divine within you − the more Love there will be. Then you will see how easy spirituality is. You don’t need to run very far. You run just from the mind to the heart. Mahavatar Babaji is always asking:“Why are people wasting time? 

Why don´t they just surrender to Love?” 

What is someone who is enlightened? We talk about enlightenment, no? Or self-realisation, what is that?.....

Look at the life of Saints, they were not knowledgeable people, but they had the grace of God with

them. Through that they have complete trust in the Divine that whatever the Divine is doing for them is for their own benefit and is for their own good. So if God has called you on to this way, if God or your soul has revealed your path to you and you feel this love, this unconditional love inside of you, then hold tight, no matter what, hold tight, be strong! When you make yourself strong, the Divine will give you more energy so that you become even stronger. But if you make yourself weak you will fall down completely. So never cease to practice, never cease to ask the Divine for help. Make yourself ready, and remind yourself always of the love for God – wherever you are, whatever you do. Like that you will become Love. What is someone who is enlightened? We talk about enlightenment, no? Or self-realisation, what is that? Can somebody tell me? Tell me please, don’t be shy! (someone: “Remembering who we are.”) Yes, remembering who you are. Not only remembering, realise who you are! What is this word “realising” who you are? Enlightenment, who is the light? The Divine, no? Enlightenment means you are radiating the Divine Light, when you start radiating the Divine Light, you become enlightened. When the mind is in a calm state, when the mind doesn’t bother you, and the pride is not there, you are like a white cloth, no? The Divine is like a golden cloth.  What happens when the white cloth is brought closer to the golden cloth? Automatically the white cloth will start to reflect the golden cloth, no? The golden colour, the same thing, the more you advance towards the Divine, the more you do your effort to advance towards the Divine, the more the Divine will move closer to you. The closer

he moves to you, the more his reflection will be on you. Then you become also Divine, then you realise this Divinity – the Divinity which you are already. Then you start to radiate it, you start to reflect it, you start to let it go into action. So whenever tests come, don’t fall into them, be strong. Whenever you feel you are down,

know that you are not alone. The Divine is much closer than you think.                

Realising Eternal Bliss.....

God has sent you all here, not just to stay here, not only to work, He has put you here to Realise the Oneness with Him, to get rid of the shadow that has covered your soul.  When this shadow has gone away, the light will shine. The power of the mind will be less, but the power of the heart will be stronger. You will be more loving and calmer and the easiest way to do that is through meditation. It’s only when you take time for you, when you take time and look deep inside you, that you will Realise it. You can help, you can love, but without loving yourself first, without Realising this love within yourself, it’s difficult to really love. So, work first to start loving yourself, trusting in yourself, what you feel, in your intuition. By trusting in yourself you will trust in God. By loving yourself you will love God and you will love everybody without any conditions, without any judgement. It will just be pure Love. Sit down every day for 15 minutes and lose yourself in the Divine Bliss, which is deep inside you. Forget the world. Forget even your body, but concentrate on the Divine deep inside you. 

 Man is the incarnation of the Supreme Cosmic Eternal Bliss. If we think of ourselves as being this bliss and focus on it, we will become this bliss, but by our own effort.

Just give for the sake of giving......

The Divine is calling from deep within you “Let me out!” You are the one with the key. Open up this heart, make this heart of flesh become the Heart of light, a light that the mind can’t comprehend, a light without any form, a light without any colour, the complete beautiful and most majestic light, even brighter than the sun. Then see the light, that is who you really are. Once you see it, once you have it – don’t let go of it. Keep it always and radiate this light. At every moment Realise this Love is ever flowing, the more you give, the more you receive. Just give for the sake of giving. That is what you are here for. Wherever you are, just be the light. Through this light, healing will happen, through this light, pain will be healed. Through this light, realisation will be achieved.

The Soul is shy.......

Very often we love God, no? Because He is the creator, we love Him, but we love the world also. Right? That’s the difference. That’s why I said urge, longing. We say superficially to make ourselves be happy, that we love God, but in reality what do we love? Tell me. What is this Love? If you have not yet known what Love is in itself, how can you say you love God? If you have not yet known your Self, you have not yet realised the Love inside of you, how can you say you love God? It’s easy to say, because scriptures talk about it. You come here; Swami said, “Yeah, love God” isn’t it? But what is this? Man is created, in a way, with three things; firstly the body, secondly, the mind and, thirdly, the soul. Let’s put it like that; the mind, body and the intellect, that’s what makes Man human. If we look at the combination of these three things, they are three things that dwell towards the outside. The body, which is bound by the senses, enslaves man. The mind is very difficult to control, because the mind always runs in the outside. And the intellect – what is the intellect? Not being too intellectual, but what is the intellect? The intellect is the search for the truth. It’s not in the mind, but rather it is in the consciousness. All three of these combined together dwell only in the outside, because these things need an object – the object of the outside.How will one know how to surrender? We talk about surrender, but the outside makes a lot of pressure. The easy way is to first, before the senses, mind and the intellect enjoy the object, to offer it to the Divine. Like that, in the mind there will be no question what one has to choose, because if it is already offered to the Divine, only what will benefit you will arise inside of you. The lower quality can’t access something which is in the higher level. In the same way, when we say we love God, until we discover the Love inside of us, we still have to search. We still have to dig deep inside, not outside. We all start here (pointing to the head). If you can’t calm your mind, if you can’t calm yourself, it’s very difficult. The first step is to try to calm yourself. Then what happens inside is that you will feel a little calmer. You will feel a little joy, but that’s not everything. Many people, they feel this and say “Yes, I have reached there” and then, one month later you ask, “How are you?” and they say “Well, I felt this Love only for two weeks and after two weeks it’s gone.” Or you come here and you feel it, then after two weeks it’s finished. Actually, this Love never finishes. It is there, but the mind covers it. What must happen to keep this love burning inside of you? Interact always with people. Usually when I say interact with people, what you will do? You will sit and gossip. That’s what interaction is nowadays, no? Talk about spiritual things, talk about what you feel, talk about God. The more you talk about God, the more this Love inside of you will grow more and more. Not only for two weeks, but it will always be with you. You will always feel it. That’s what Christ said: If two or three are gathered in my name, I shall be among them. This ‘two or three’ is this mutual Love – not in gossiping things, but in awakening the Divine Love within one’s Self. When this Love gets awakened, the longing, it’s like when you give a nice cake to somebody. You will always want this cake again. It’s the same thing once you discover the Love of God in you and around you, you will always long for more and more and this longing crosses over the body, mind and intellect. Then the soul reveals itself. Very often when people talk about the soul, it’s just mere words, because the soul in itself is very shy, in the same way that God is very shy. That’s why He shows Himself from time to time only. Until Love reaches a certain degree inside of you, the soul doesn’t reveal itself. That’s why when you do your sadhana, be sincere. When you do your work – any kind of work – be sincere about it. Do it with Love. You know this proverb I say: Work is worship, no? You know about it? That means, wherever you are, whatever you do, God is present with you. If you do it with the awareness that you are serving the Divine, He will reveal Himself. There is a saint who was a road cleaner who received the darshan of God where Krishna appeared in front of him, even Rama appeared. This is about how much Love you put in what you do. Often Love varies. When you sit in meditation, you are full of Love. When you sit for prayer, you are full of Love and then, when you go out, where is that Love? You left it inside the prayer room or you left it only in meditation. Be aware that, even if you don’t feel it, the Divine is always with you. As you long for Him, He longs more for you.

He knows what is best for us, no? So, why don´t we trust Him?.....

It is said, “If you take a bath in the Ganges, or other holy rivers, you get purified of one birth”. But, when you are bathed in the divine name, whatever name, whatever deity you feel close with – the name of Jesus, Muhammad, Rama, Krishna, Devi -, if you get bathed in that divine name, you are released from many births. Misery is removed just by chanting the divine name. Liberation is granted just by realising the connection that you have with the Divine within you. This is where Kriya comes from. When you do Kriya, what you experience is through sound within your body, which, later on, gradually, will reveal itself as light also. Very often, when we talk about the spirit, when we talk about the atma, we have an image of a light. Where does this light reside? It resides within our Self. So in all our spiritual practice, we need to do that only, even if we take many lives, we will attain the lotus feet of the Lord. When praying, what do we pray for? We pray, we ask, and the Divine is not deaf. The Divine always hears the prayer of everybody. If He can hear even the small anklets on the feet of an ant, of course, He can hear our prayer also. But very often we expect, if we pray, that we have to have it very quickly. We are not patient. But the Lord has created us. He knows what is best for us, no? So, why don´t we trust Him? Why don`t we trust in His will? Christ has said, “Let Thy will be done, not my will be done”. This is a great statement that He Himself, being part of the Divine, teaches us to be patient and trust in the will of God. Of the whole of our search, the basis, actually, is trust. To trust what? To trust in whom? To trust in God. But yet, some will say, “I don`t know Him”. But it doesn`t matter; even if we don`t know Him, know that He knows us. When we start trusting in ourselves, trusting in the inner voice, trusting in the light within us, trusting in the inner sound inside of us, then He will start to reveal Himself.

How will you really find God in each person?

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.