Menstruation is purification – and a great service to all.....

At every spiritual ceremony women, who are in their monthly cycle, are asked, not to touch any temple-items, not to offer flower petals and not to offer anything into a yagna fire. Here is a summary of explanations which Swamiji has given at different occasions, to help everyone to understand why it is like that: 
Once Swamiji explaining, that a woman is energetically receptive and during the month she collects a lot of negativity from her environment. In doing so she does a great service, as she purifies her environment. This impurities get removed from her during menstruation. At this year´s Bhu Devi yagna Guruji was quite clear, that women in their cycle should not participation in the yagna. He gave the following explanation: “Menstruation is purification. You are going through your personal purification. You should not even touch the person which is performing the puja. You should not even touch other people. When you are doing a ritual everything gets energetically intensified. In menstruation there is already a certain negativity inside. So it gets intensified in the ceremony. So you should keep a certain distance. You can participate with the mind. You see, the manas puja (puja in thoughts) is also very important.”  At another occasion he explained that normally the flow of energy in people is upwards, but during the time of menstruation, the flow of energy in the woman is downwards. In a spiritual ceremony the energy is going strongly upwards towards the Divine. That means, that the flow of energy in a woman is going in the opposite direction than the energy of the ceremony. This causes an energetic disturbance which can lead to not being well. So in telling women to stay at a distance it is also about protecting them from energetic disturbances. All together, it is not about portraying women as somehow impure. As Swamiji said just recently, women are the physical manifestation of the Divine Mother and menstruation is also given by the Divine for the purpose told above.
With so much explanation for sure it will be more easy to follow this call with a good feeling.

In simplicity you will find it, in the simplicity of your heart.....

Often people think “Why do we have to be spiritual? Why do we have to be ready for God?” Why not just sit down and say “God will give whenever He wants to give?” It’s true if you don’t make any effort, you will not know how to handle what God wants to give you. It’s only when you start making your effort and say “Yes God, I’m working on myself to be ready for You. I’m working on myself to be ready for this realisation and I’m trying to be ready also to help others”, then God will give it to you. Even if He has to give it on a silver plate or even on a diamond plate, He will do it, but the effort, you have to do it. That reminds me of a small story. I like to tell stories all the time, but I don’t even know from where they come. For sure up there’s a big store of stories. Once there was a prince. He went to the Queen – the Queen’s name was Madalassa – and said to the Queen “Mother, you have sent all my brothers away to become ascetics in the forest. Why?” The mother thought for a while and said “My son, of course they could have realised the Divine here also, but they went to work on this in the forest.” It’s like this, if there are two boats   – one boat, which is decorated very beautifully with a lot of beautiful lights and very shiny, but in this boat there is a hole and there is another boat, which is simple, very simple, but without a hole – which one would you take – the beautiful one or the simple one? You would take the simple one. This is the same thing the Queen was saying to her son. Spirituality is often like this boat that is decorated very beautifully; whoever goes into it sinks in the middle of the water,  whereas the one who takes the simplest form of life and leads a life in spirituality, lives in an ascetic way, he reaches his goal. In simplicity you will find it, in the simplicity of your heart. You see, the heart is not complicated. When you look at the heart, what the heart says is very simple. It’s like the boat, which is very simple. Whereas, when you look at the mind, it’s decorated with so many beautiful things that it traps people into it. To become spiritual is to divert this beauty of the mind to the heart, and go in the boat of the heart to reach the final destination, to reach the Oneness of God within you.All that you are practicing is good; whatever path you take is good. Know that the main thing is that you have to reach the goal, no matter which path you take.
Let God steal your heart.The more you say “Yes, take it. Steal it. It is yours already”, the more you will see how you float in your spiritual path, how you float in the hand of God.

Love is a word which has thousands of names because everything is Love.....

Christ talked about Love; many Masters have talked about Love, taught Love and experienced Love. But what is Love? It is a word which has thousands of names because everything is Love. If you perceive Love everywhere, the thing you perceive to be Love turns into Love. Two persons when they meet each other
they have a different kind of love. We recognise each other and we feel that there is something, then that love grows. In the same way there is motherly love for her child. For the child, there is love between friends, yet the fullness of Love stays always hidden. How many friends have you made in your life? How many people have you met in your life? Hundreds, maybe thousands. You meet them and feel a connection and then it disappears. Friends also come and after some time they go. When you are at school or college we have certain friends with the same goals, which is to study. You have certain friends and then they disappear and give place to other friends. That’s all included in the love that one emanates from oneself. The same on the spiritual path, on the path of searching, there is another kind of Love which awakens inside of you and in this Love it is not about letting go because this Love is always growing. So the question arises can we really love in this time that kind of Love? Well yes, it is possible because that kind of Love is unconditional Love which everybody carries through life from small, ‘til you reach your destination. You always carry this universal Love inside of you and whether you love in a different kind of love or the universal Love is determined by how you let it vibrate within you. So the question is, like I said, if it’s possible to love? Yes, it is possible to love this kind of Love. To be able to let it grow and awaken inside of you, you should learn first to accept. But accept what? There are so many things to accept. When you look around, everywhere is telling you to accept. Accept this because everybody says this is right or that is right, but it is not about accepting this or that; it’s about accepting yourself. Only by accepting yourself you develop this trust inside of you. When you have this trust inside of yourself, this Love will grow more and more. Of course I don’t say that doubt will not arise, but this is where you will learn to control doubt by controlling the pride. There is one thing which can be an obstacle in one’s path and that is spiritual pride. When you live in the world outside, you don’t bother about anybody. You do your things and people do their things. But on the spiritual path very often there is competition. Each one competing with each other thinking which one is the best. It’s like if this one is like that then I have to be like that, too. No; you are individual and your aim, your dharma is different from everybody. Often people say “Swamiji I am on the spiritual path but I am working on this and that, I am so busy. I can’t be there!” Well, God has put you there so you have to do your duty there and if He chooses to come to you in that way, He will come to you. He will awaken the cosmic Love inside of you wherever you are the moment you start to accept. Have acceptance of yourself and then control this pride because this pride will always stop somebody.

Bhu Devi yagna is a Vaishnava tradition to celebrate and pray to Mother Earth......

....Bhu Devi is actually Mother Earth. This yagna that we are doing is to show our gratitude and appreciation to Her, and also our understanding that She is going through a lot, not only now, but for centuries, actually. She has been taking a lot onto Herself, but people don´t see that this Mother is suffering. Its so easy to forget how important this Mother Earth is. We are here, we are born, yet we give Her so little attention. Mother Earth gives. She gives, gives, gives, not even expecting anything, nor taking. She is a manifestation of the compassionate, the ever-giving One and She is a manifestation of devotion also. One can pray to God but, you see, when you show your appreciation, when you show your thankfulness, you have to show it to the person, to the Deity. There is a temple in Hampi, in South India, where She is venerated as the Universal Mother, as the Mother of Brahma, Vishnu, even of Shiva. Because it’s only here on this physical plane that She manifests Herself - even all the Avatars manifest themselves. The Divine manifests Itself here, on Earth, because She is very special to Him. She’s considered to be the wife of Maha Vishnu. She’s considered to be the other part of Lakshmi. Whenever Maha Lakshmi takes aspect as, for example, Sita or Radha or Andal or a different manifestation of Maha Lakshmi, it is Bhu Devi who manifests Herself. In the Srimad Bhagavatam Maha Vishnu said to Bhu Devi (after He rescued Her from drowning in the big ocean) “You will be ever present on my chest. From now on, people will venerate You as my wife and whenever You are in distress, I shall manifest Myself on You, to save the world.” Everything is made with five elements. The whole Universe is bound by these five elements, but in the whole Universe, not everywhere has these five elements in action. The only place where you have the five elements in action is Bhu Devi. That’s why, among all the planets, the Earth is the most beautiful. We are very lucky. That’s why the Divine always manifests on Mother Earth.The prayer that we are going to do right now is called the Sudakshari Matri Puja. There will be sixteen invocations (into kalash), actually seventeen with the Bhu Devi, of all the forms of the Divine Mother. The sixteen aspects, forms and shakti of the Divine Mother, are actually the sixteen facets of the moon - called Nitya Kala - and also the sixteen qualities of Maha Vishnu. All these prayers which you will be chanting, all the mantras which you will be chanting, all of them will be transferred to the Mother Earth kalash, which in turn will be transferred to the whole world.We are going to chant the mantra Om Shrim Hreem Kreem Shreem Sri Devi Bhumavatiye Namaha. It is for Bhu Devi, Mother Earth. It is said that if someone chants this mantra 36 times daily one will, first of all, get rid of all the negativity inside oneself and, secondly, one will get peace in oneself and in the surroundings. Om is the king of all the mantras and it is actually also the root of Lakshmi mantra. The Om mantra is a primordial sound in itself. What happens when one chants Om, is that one is dissolving pride. The word Shrim, this bij mantra, is very powerful in itself as it destroys all the negativity and brings peace. Hrim is also a bij mantra of giving peace, but Krim is Kali, Aim is Saraswati, The bij mantra Shreem or Srim denotes Maha Lakshmi, the giver of boons, and the Sarva Shakti, the all-pervading Shakti. Maha Lakshmi creates also the balance. The balance in the elements, balance in yourself by purifying you, by cleansing all the negativity out of you, by uniting your body, mind and spirit, so that you can advance on your spiritual path.Then we have “Shree Devi Bhumavatiye Namaha”. This is the presiding Deity, Bhu Devi, Mother Earth Herself. When we chant the mantra, we invoke the Deity. Vibrationally the Deity is present. The Deities are vibrations. The moment you invoke them, call for them, they take their place and are present here with us. After that, they will be installed inside of each one of us because in reality we invoke them from deep within ourselves.

Make the ultimate goal of your life Divine love, and surrender to it......

You know what God wants from you? Surrender your mind to Him, continuously. Surrender your mind to the lotus feet of God, to the feet of your Guru, to the feet of any Divine master, and free yourself. Free yourself from the mind, free yourself from all the misery that you created. When you free your mind, you realise the Divine everywhere, in every aspect, in every small thing. Even the clothes you are wearing are divine. Each atom is divine. If you have divine eyes to look at the world with, you will see that it 
is just the radiated light of God shining through everything, but as long as you don’t come to that realisation, keep trying. 

Excerpt of Sri Swami Vishwananda´s Satsang, Part 1, 17.05.2013

1. Equanimity is one of the 26 qualities of devotee. Do you think it is possible for an average person to attain it and how?
Yes, it is. Because the real nature of who you are, the soul, is not bound by anything – not by good, not by bad. Soul is ever free. Nothing to bind it. As how the soul looks at it is always looking in an equal way. 
But the soul receives all the information of the universal consciousness – God. But when this knowledge enters the mind, the mind has to interpret it in a certain way. So the mind automatically puts a limitation, a judgement, on anything. This is why we judge. Because of the judgment the mind can´t comprehend the knowledge. In the Gita Krishna says: hey Uddhava, don´t waste your time with good and bad in this world. If you want to attain me you have to go above these qualities. This means it is possible. In the Bible it says: if you want to attain the kingdom of God, you have to rise above all limitation. Yes, one can attain that level, if one really wants. This is the most important point. To attain equanimity is possible - but if you want it, this is the question. Until you are sincere, you can´t. Because the limitation, it is you who puts it. It is possible to attain that level even for a normal person. How much you focus on it, how much you desire for it. Desire in a right way – even to desire the Divine needs to be in a right way. Outside people desire the material things. But here, to desire you have to have a certain eagerness. We can say we love God, but do we have the eagerness for Him to manifest Himself? We can do japa, but to have this love you have to want it, you have to rise above limitation. You are on that path. That’s why God has called you. Through many lives of working. Its up to you. The teacher is here to remind you that´s up to you to follow it.

2. Should one learn to do everything with joy or only to do what brings joy?
Sometimes you do things which do not bring joy, but you should always try to do it with joy.

3.How do we be in contact all the time that He guides us?
The Divine is never far away from people. He is continuously close to you. How to become aware is through mantra japam. The more you chant the Divine name, the more the mind is in a subtle state and the more you will feel Him and you will feel Him in every action, in all that you do. From time to time He has to withdraw Himself, because the human nature is greedy. If the Divine gives everything in one go, how will you appreciate? But when you have to look for Him, you will feel that longing. Otherwise you will be ungrateful for it. You have to remind your mind through your japam. No matter, how you are, where you are, He is one step ahead. He is walking facing you. He is always in front of you, guiding your step, whether you want it or not.

4.How to help others through prayer? 
Pray, but don´t beg.

5. If I give myself up completely to the Divine, do I also give up my personality?
Why would you give up yourself but hang onto your personality? Better to not give anything. That’s how people are: they give a gift and want back half. If you give something, let go of it. But if you hold on one side and He is holding on other side… Even the personality, you have to let go. To transcend the personality into the Divine you have to let go. If you don´t let go, you have another life to let go and another and another.

6.Should I serve even when I get abused?
If one has taken a certain path, duty of serving, it does not matter if you get abused or not. But if you feel that despite giving all your service, to whom you are serving, there is not appreciation and there is not willingness to enjoy the service, you should bug away from that. Than you should reduce your service so that the person starts to appreciate it.

The Unique Love Relationship with God....

Human beings on the spiritual path or in the material, in the working field, they become envious. When envy enters the mind of man, man becomes blind and when man becomes blind, he doesn’t see the light anymore. Your true Self needs this light to survive, but the way the mind functions drags you into illusion. When this envy enters the mind, one steps away from this light, or the light starts to diminish within oneself. What happens is – it’s like you have a mirror, you clean the mirror, it is beautiful, you can look at yourself nicely, but after some time the mirror accumulates dust. What do you do? You clean it! All the qualities of the mind like envy, jealousy, pride, ego, when these arise, it is very difficult to clean them. It’s hard, even when you try your best, they are there. Like when you clean the mirror to look at yourself, you wipe it clean, you don’t leave it dirty. Yet, when humans clean the mind, they always leave a certain residue of darkness inside. They don’t really want to let go of all of it completely, because this is a sign of insecurity in oneself. You say “If I let go of everything, what is for tomorrow?” Hasn’t Christ said “If God is looking after everything, He will look after you, also?" It’s the same if you want to change, you have to let go of all this negativity. You have to let go of all this darkness. You can’t keep this darkness and say “Yes, I am changed.” It’s the same when envy enters the mind. It blinds you, because then you will always be jealous, you will always be angry about your neighbour. If you see that your neighbour is advancing spiritually or the neighbour, your friend or your colleague is progressing, what will happen inside of you?  You will try to be competitive. You will try to compete with your colleague to be the best. Are you concentrating on your spiritual path, or are you concentrating on his progress? You should be happy if somebody is progressing, because when you start to
progress on this spiritual path, you develop this Love. Know that God’s Love is the same for everybody. Whether you are a wicked person or whether you are a saintly person it is the same, but the reflection is different. How much you reflect towards Him, He will reflect back towards you the same. That doesn’t mean that for a saintly person the Love of God is more or that He doesn’t love a wicked person. No, He loves everybody the same. That’s why He graced so many people who were wicked to become Saints, so they
could reflect this Love. This Love is unique. The Love for God is unique, because each one has a personal relationship and this relationship to the Divine is between you and the Lord. There’s no other person in between. The uniqueness of this Love dissolves all.

What you do to others you are doing up to me......

Saint Bishoy from Egypt was a great ascetic who was doing lots of penance in the desert. One day there was an old man who was very filthy, very dirty who came to him and he said " Oh, please, for sure you have been walking in the desert for a long time. You must be very tired. Come let me give you hospitality. Let me look after you." So he, Bishoy, took this old man. He carried him back to his cave, or whatever, and there he started washing the feet of this man. As he was washing the feet of this man he was crying with Love. He felt so much Love, he was crying so bitterly that he was washing the feet with his tears. When he looked at the feet of the man, he didn´t see the feet of the man, he saw the feet of Christ with the Stigmata inside. Like that there are so many saints, you know. This shows that what Christ said "What you do to others you are doing up to me. What you do good - when I was in prison you visited me, when I was hungry, you gave me food. When I didn´t have clothes, you clothed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink." This fulfilled that what you do to others, you are doing it to Him. The same thing - when you do good, you are doing it to Him, but when you are doing bad, also, you are doing it up to Him. You are not doing it to the person. Don´t think only good things go to Him, but the bad things that you do, also, to other people come to Him. So this reflects this quality that God pervades everything inside of everybody.

Be like a child. Sit in the lap of the Mother and let the Mother do everything for you.....

What´s the use of having great knowledge if you can´t even comprehend yourself? If knowledge can´t bring you to understand yourself fully, hold tight to the devotion, to the faith that you have inside of you. 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?"  If animals can do that, humans can do it also and better. You all know how to love, don´t you? Who doesn´t know to love? Everybody knows. Once your mind is calm, you will feel it. You should stop trying to understand the Divine with your mind; let Him reveal Himself to you. During Navaratri, I was saying " Be like a child. Sit in the lap of the Mother and let the Mother do everything for you." Well, we are all babies, you know. That´s what Christ said " To enter the Kingdom of God, you have to be like a child," and He is perfectly right. When you are in the state of a child, you surrender to the Divine will, you surrender to the Mother´s will. The Mother will hold you, she will carry and feed you, but you have to swallow. The same is true with the Master. Everybody follows different Masters, different paths. All paths are right. All paths are good, but the Master will not walk for you. He will show you the way, but you have to walk. Sometimes the Master will carry you - it depends on how much you have surrendered - but the Mother will always carry you. That´s the Love of the Mother. So, let the Divine Love awaken and sincerely, with pure Love, ask God for Himself or Herself.

Self- discipline is something that you have to work for......

When you meditate, when you do your  sadhana, you can achieve this state where nothing can disturb you. No left and right, no hearing, no seeing, because in the deepness of meditation, in the deepness of your practice, you have to be fully focused. If you are not disciplined with yourself, do you think you will have this focus? No, this is where everything gets uncertain. You will do prayer, but you will be really superficial and then not be satisfied with yourself. Self- discipline is something that you have to work for. It’s purification of the mind and of the senses. When the mind gets purified, when the mind becomes positive, you will see how easy it is in your sadhana also. It doesn’t matter if you don’t succeed in one go. I know that people when they start practicing, they would like to have quick results, like in one month. They want it very fast. Know one thing, if you go  in fast, you will go out fast also. You see, it’s like cooking. If a Mataji would like to make syrup, but she just took the fruits and threw them into a pot of water and then removed them quickly, would the sweetness go out from the fruit and into the water? It would not. You have to leave the fruits inside for some time. It is the same with your sadhana. If you just go inside and then quickly out of it, being impatient with yourself, it will be the same. It will not be sweet. The sweetness that you have inside of you is waiting to be awakened. 

“Let your thoughts be in hell, but you rejoice in the Divine.....”

On the spiritual path, the utmost thing that we have to do is to control our mind. We say to watch our thoughts. What is a thought? A thought is an image. A thought is a creation.  Why is it said that we have to watch our thoughts; because most of the time our thoughts make us negative. We have to watch them and have them under control – very often it’s quite difficult. Our thoughts make us who we are, because we always run behind them. A few days ago there was a reading in the chapel where there was a saying from St. Silouan of Mount Athos that said “Let your thoughts be in hell, but you rejoice in the Divine.” I will comment a little bit on that. Nowadays, the moment you see your thoughts running to hell, you are all running with the thoughts to hell. Your thoughts are jumping, jumping and jumping and then boom – there they go. You are also jumping behind them and doing the same, throwing yourself after them. When we watch ourselves, we see that very often we like to speak out what we have in our minds. We like to tell  everybody how great we are. We like to publicise ourselves and say “Oh, I have seen that light, I have seen this and I have seen that. I have felt this and I have felt that.” Why? It is to feed that thought, so that the thought can become bigger. It’s like when you analyse a reptile. A reptile can be very soft, very easy, going its way, but the moment it falls in a pit, it will try it’s best to come out. The moment the reptile comes out of that pit, it will be more aggressive than ever. This is how our thoughts are also. The moment we let it out, it’s infamed with this vigorous power, saying “Yes, I am out.” Like Christ said “It’s not what goes inside the person that makes them polluted, but what comes out of the person.” In the Gita it says “A controlled mind is your best friend, but an uncontrolled mind is your worst enemy.” Like I said, the way we think is the way we are. We have to control our thoughts. Prayer and continuous remembering of the Divine help us to control our mind. They help us to bring our mind, which is always running, into calm, into silence. Through silence, the thoughts will disappear. If your thought is negative and you let it out, all around you everything becomes negative. There will be nothing positive. But if you keep this thought inside, through prayer and through inner silence, it will dissolve. But no, we like so much to express ourselves, to express our thoughts. You can;  I won’t say “No, don’t do it”, but  first, master it, then you can express it. If you silence yourself completely, if you silence your mind, you will receive everything. You will not even need to ask. You will receive, because God is merciful. He is the all-knowing, so do you think you really have to ask Him?