Go into the fullness....

...the secret in the Name of the Divine, in the Name of God, is God Himself...if I chant the Name of Mahavatar Babaji, if I chant the Names of Krishna & Jesus, if I chant the Name of Allah, for sure They will come, because the Name of the Divine is the fullness of the Divine Himself.
So, in that way you will go into the fullness. The more you chant, the more you will go into the fullness of the sound within your Self and the more you will know the secret. You will enjoy the beauty that you have inside of you, because after some time of chanting in the outside, the chanting becomes silence within you. Even while you are sleeping, inside of you the chanting always goes on.

Devotion is to give yourself in fullness to Love.....

What is there, apart from God? There is nothing, no? So, what we want is we want Him. But yet we don´t want to surrender. We don´t surrender ourselves completely to Him. That´s why there is always incompleteness inside. But to surrender means to say to God, “Lord, I give myself, my body, mind and soul completely to You”. Isn´t that what spirituality is about? That doesn’t mean that you have to leave your family and renounce everything, but live in a detached way. Try to put God always first in your life. Like that, He can work through you. We all want to be somebody, we all want to Realise our Selves, we all want to know who we are in Reality, but with this mind, we will never be able to. We have to calm the mind. We need certain knowledge, yes, to achieve the Divine, to attain Him, but we need devotion, we need bhakti. When bhakti arises inside, we give ourselves completely. Bhakti – devotion is to give yourself in fullness to Love. Like I said in Algarve a few days ago, when you are in love, you always want to be with your beloved, no matter what. You will leave father, mother, everybody, you know. You will fight for your beloved, isn´t that so ? Yes or No? So you know it very well. The real Beloved is God, because He is the only one who is always fresh. His love always renews itself. Whereas all the other loves, they start very fresh, like a beautiful flower, and they, also, fade, the same as the other flowers. You know that. How many times in your life have you fallen in love? You have really fallen in love? And then to rise, it is a very difficult achievement to be made. About surrendering, there is a beautiful story about the flute of Krishna. You know Krishna always holds a flute in his hand, but there is a great story behind it. Everyday Krishna would go in the garden and say to all the plants, “I love you”. The plants were very happy and responded back and said “Krishna, we love You, too”. One day Krishna rushed quickly into the garden very alarmed. He went to the bamboo plant and the bamboo plant asked, “Krishna, what´s wrong with you?” Krishna said “I have something to ask you, but it is very difficult”. The bamboo said “Tell me: if I can, I will give it to you”. So Krishna said “I need your life. I need to cut you”. The bamboo thought for a while and then said “You don´t have any other choice. You don’t have any other way?” Krishna said, “No, no other way”. And it said “OK, I surrender to you”. So Krishna cut the bamboo, made holes in it, and each time, while he was doing that, the bamboo was crying with pain, because he was paining the bamboo so much. Krishna made a beautiful flute out of it. And this flute was with Krishna all the time. 24 hours a day, it was with Krishna. Even the Gopis were jealous of the flute. They said, “Look, Krishna is our Lord, but yet we get to spend only some time with him. He wakes up with you, He sleeps with you, all the time you are with him”. So one day they asked the bamboo, “Tell us the secret of it. What secret do you have, that the Lord treasures you so much?” And the bamboo said “The secret is that I´m empty inside. And the Lord does whatever he wants with me, whenever he wants with me and however he wants with me”. So this is complete surrender: where God can do whatever He wants with you, whenever He wants, as He wants. And for that you don’t need to be scared, you know, you have just to give yourself. And who is yourself in reality? It’s just Him! In the Gita, Krishna said: Everything is me. In the Bible, Christ said: Give what belongs to Caesar, to Caesar. And what belongs to God, to God. But what belongs to God? It is your spirit. It is your true Self. If you want to Realise your Self, be like the flute! Make your prayer like this, “Lord, do whatever you want with me, whenever you want with me, and however you want with me”. And in your mind don´t ask any questions. This is a poison, because the mind always doubts. The mind always thinks it knows best. And when you surrender this mind to the Divine, bhakti will arise, devotion will arise. And when devotion arises, the purity of Love will also arise together with it. It´s not a love where we just say “I love you, I love you”. It´s a Love where when we say “I love you”, there is no condition in it. It is not “I love you because of something. I love you because of your body. I love you because of your wealth. I love you because you are beautiful outside and if I pull the skin from your body, I don´t love you anymore”. But it’s because when you say “I love you” you love Him the way He is. And that´s the purity of Love, the Unconditional Love, the way God loves, the way your heart knows how to love. That´s why you do feel Love, but the moment you start to put conditions to that Love, it fades. But when you stick to this purity of Love, and make this Love grow, it will grow. Because Love is like a seed, which is inside the heart of man: the seed has to grow, has to blossom, also. It has to germinate and grow big; the seed can´t just stay like that. That´s what Christ said, also. There are so many similarities between Hinduism and Christianity. Christ said: If you plant a seed on a stone, it will never grow. But if you plant it in the heart of man it shall grow.” And this is the Love in the heart of man, when real Love is felt, when real Love starts to grow. It grows in six different stages, which are called: Sneha Prem, Pranaya Prem, Mana Prem, Raga Prem, Anuraga Prem, and Maha Bhav. These stages of Love - of course, I will now not go to detail about it - grow when this purity is there, which leads you to complete surrender to the Divine. But first, what is in regard to normal life, is to calm the mind and let Love itself start to grow inside of the heart. Only through this Love will you know who you are. And this is not up to me to tell you, it’s up to you to make the first step. The easiest way to calm the mind is to sing the Name of God, because you can sing the name of God anytime, wherever you are.

When one knows one´s path, one goes directly. Take this path and just go and Realise your Self!....

When you are centred, when you concentrate, when you pray, when you chant the Name of God, that moment is between you and God. Christ said: If you want to pray, don’t make it as a show. Run to the darkest corner where you and your Father, you and God are alone, where you converse with the Divine. And this corner where you can be quiet is your heart. The mind is never quiet. The mind is always thinking and you will make it quiet by chanting. When through chanting you train the mind to go inside your heart, in that deep quietness, you will Realise that God is sitting there and not because you know it in the mind, not because you have read about it, but because you have Realised it, because you feel it. We are all on the search. Of course, people will go left and right, looking for the truth. As long as one hasn´t found the spiritual path, one is never satisfied. It’s like a train which is going, but without knowing the destination. Like this train, people go left and right, but when one knows the destination, one goes directly to this destination. When one knows one´s path, one goes directly. Take this path and just go and Realise your Self! There was once a saint in India who lived as a hermit in a small hut made with grass. Once a couple came to him and said “Guruji, we love you so much that we would like to make you a nicer and stronger hut. Please come with us.” The saint answered “No, no, no, I’m happy where I am. I don’t want to come.” But after some time, he called the couple again and said “Yes, I will come with you, but can you do me one favour?” The couple were very happy and said “If you are asking, we will do anything for you.” The saint said to the couple “Let me come and live in your toilet.” The couple were wondering “We want to build a nice hut for you, so why do you want to come and live in our toilet?” The saint said “I would rather stay in your toilet than among devotees or people who are only looking for fame and glory. These people come to me and they are only looking for how to end their misery, but they are not really looking for God. If I stay in the toilet, I would rather bear the smell of the toilet than the insincerity of those people and, also, the smell of the toilet will keep them away!” This made the couple realise how people are. People are searching, yes, but they are not sincere towards themselves. Only when you are sincere towards yourself, you will find your path. When you accept yourself, when you accept the Will of God and whatever He gives you as right, you surrender to His Will, you surrender to His Love and then you say “Yes, God, I believe in You and I trust in whatever You are doing for me. I trust in Your Love and I don’t doubt You.” But when we doubt Him and question Him, we are not truthful. Then we say “God, You have made a mistake.” But how could God make a mistake when He is so perfect? How could Love, which is the purity of your True Self, make a mistake? It can’t. It can be a mistake only when there is doubt, when there is fear. But when all these things are cleared-up, when all of these things are put away by the Holy Names of God - which are thousands of Names - then you will see His glory, you will feel His Love. While singing, some people were dancing. When you are dancing for God, you are doing, also, a kind of dancing yoga. You are forgetting about your body, you are forgetting about your mind, you are just singing the glory of God, singing the Name of God. In this way, you are decreasing the power of the mind. You will notice that after moving, when you sit down and relax, your concentration is much better than if you just sit down. When you just sit, your mind is jumping left and right. When you dance in the right way, you are energising yourself; you are calling upon this inner Self to reveal Itself. And when you lift your hand up, you are calling to the Lord, to God “I’m in this illusion. I’m drowning in this illusion. Here, I’m lifting my hand up to You. Pull me out of this illusion. I’m surrendering.” You will notice that in all the Holy Scriptures, there is this phrase, which says: Lord, I’m lifting my hand up to You. Come to rescue me. You will find it in the Psalms, you will find it in the Koran and you will find it, also, in the Gita. So singing the glory of God transcends all religions, transcends all cultures, transcends all races, transcends all what the mind can create and you will find God inside of you.

What will give you real joy is hanging onto the Eternal Lord....

Last time somebody asked me a question "Does whatever we do in this life, whether it is in our sadhana or in our daily life depend on this life or our previous lifetime?" Well it depends on both, actually. The majority of whatever you do in this life depends on what you have done in your past life. Sometimes you have a great plan, but when you have such a plan it doesn’t turn out the way you planned it. How many of you have a plan in life? Has it turned out the same way as you have planned? No, it doesn’t turn out the same way, because in this life your mind functions in a certain way to create what you perceive you need to be happy, but still, there is karma from the past that you have to burn. So, that’s why, very often, when you have a plan, it doesn’t turn out the way you wanted because of these past karmas. When you look at this world, what is permanent in this world? Nothing! With time, everything changes. With time, everything gets destroyed, but, yet, one hangs onto these perishable things, forgetting the eternal. So, as long as one hangs onto perishable things, there will be suffering, because what will give you real joy is hanging onto the Eternal Lord. Only when you are wholly directed towards Him, He will turn wholly towards you. And you can do that through your sadhana. You do japam, chant the name of the Lord, you do your spiritual practices, and you do service. Through service, you realise that you are serving not out of ego, not out of pride, but you’re serving through your heart. Of course, when you start to serve, you know, there’s always the pride in it. You are proud of how much you are doing. You say "Look how much I am doing." I, the big I is always there, and you are forgetting that it’s only Him who is doing through you. The more you serve the more it comes to a point where it is transcended. Then you start to realise that whatever way you are serving, you are serving only Him, and it’s only Him who is serving. So then you have peace, because if you look for peace in this world, if you look for joy, you will not find it. Everybody is looking for peace. Who doesn’t want to be peaceful? Is there among you somebody who doesn’t want to be peaceful? So, all of you, you are just looking for one thing: to be peaceful. But looking at the world itself: in Sanskrit we call it Jagad. If you translate Jagad, it means ceaseless motion. It’s always on the move, you know. 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 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. You see, in this world, people like to hang onto their Problems and onto their worries. You see, whenever a problem arises, the solution is also there, but mankind is so easily focusing on the problem rather than on the solution. Do you like problems? No. So then, why do you let yourself be drawn towards your worry? Because it doesn’t give you peace, eh? So, the more you hang onto the problems, the more problems you will have; the more you hang onto the worry, the more you will not see the solution. But if you take a little bit of time, sit in your prayer room, and sincerely surrender to the Divine, the problem will get solved. Whenever there is a problem, what do you do? You run to the temple, no? Then you pray "Oh God, I have this problem," or "I have that problem," because you know deep inside of you that He’s the only one that can solve your problem, nobody else. You can tell your problem to a hundred people and what will they do? They will say "Oh, poor you, you have a problem." Very often they say "Poor you" outside, but inside they are saying "Good for you." So, who is your best friend? Who is the real one looking after you? Who is the one really listening to you? It’s only Him. It’s only the Lord Himself. You see that, as long as there is happiness in life, people give very little importance to their spiritual practice. They say "When I become very old, then I will have time to do that." But that’s why often there are problems on the path, why there are problems in life, so that continuously we can remember God. It’s like the Pandava’s mother said. After the Mahabharat war finished, Krishna went to His aunty to take her blessing and He asked His aunty "What can I do for you?" She said "One thing You can do is You can give me enough problems that I will never forget You." This was how much Love she had for the Lord that she asked the Lord "Give me many problems that I can always remember you." This is how it is, also, in this life. Things happen in life so that we can always remember God. But we don’t like to continuously remember God, you know; we like to continuously remember the problem. We like to focus our mind, all our attention, all our energy, on the problem, thinking that we will get the solution. But you will not, because you have a certain limitation. You are limited with your mind. Your mind is limited to only matter. So, like that, if we concentrate on God, no matter what comes in our lives, we will accept it, we will take it in a positive way. We will not let the mind become negative, because when the mind becomes negative, we start to think negatively, and out of this negativity whatever you do in life will be negative. But if your mind is positive, then, whatever you do in life, the fruit of your labour will be positive. And it will get better and better all the time, but this is when your mind is focused on the Divine. So, like you are laughing and being happy hearing a joke, you have to be happy by chanting, by doing your prayer to the Lord, because He’s always with you. Your parents, your mum and dad, will be with you for some time, but He will always be with you. He was with you from the beginning and He will always be with you until the end, until you realise your Self and until you attain Him. He’s your best friend, He’s the only one that you can really trust, and He’s the only one that gives you solutions for everything. This is not true about human beings, because whoever gives you a solution, any human being that gives you a solution, any friends of yours who give you a solution, they will always have an expectation behind it: they will give this, but you have to do that for them. Do you know about that, no? Yes, because each human does this, you know. It’s a human reaction. So, don’t forget that within this human self you are also divine, you have part of God inside of you. I said part, remember this word, ‘part’. You are not fully God, because you hang so much onto your humanness that the Divine part gets covered. That’s why the karma of the past can affect you. But when you realise your Self, realise that the Lord is within you and you have come to a certain realisation; that your Atma is part of the Paramatma, you will transcend this human quality. It’s the same thing when you do japam. Why is it that you do japam? You do japam to realise the Divine. You do japam so that your mind continuously thinks of and chants the Name of God. So the more you chant the Divine Names, the more His qualities will reflect on you. The qualities of goodness, love, compassion, joy, all these qualities will start reflecting on you, but this will be when you chant sincerely.

Throughout the day keep remembering that you are love, you are trust, you are peace, you are unity, you are joy! ...

The main desire of humans is: to want God! But you have to let go of this want and the moment you let go of this want, you will see the light! We call it antahkarana, “the light within”. Everybody wants to see the light. In order to see the light, stop looking outside. Whenever you sit down quietly, go inward, go deeper and deeper till you find yourself – complete stillness! In this stillness you can hear the voice of God within you, then you can hear your own inner voice and this is the voice of God. And when you hear it, don’t doubt it. Don’t say it’s your imagination. It’s true. Though, it will not happen today. Tomorrow you will come and tell me, “Yeah, I have heard the voice of God”. God will not tell you, “OK, do such and such a thing”. You also have the mind. The mind is maya; the mind is illusion. But the illusion is also part of God. God created maya to blind his creation; for humans not to take it for granted and to make man to strive for enlightenment! But He Himself is doing it. It is His own play. You just need to be the spectator, nothing else. The moment you have learned how to be the spectator and just see the creation in front of you, you will see the same way God does, and how He thinks about us. Our mind is like the mirror. The heart is like a mirror covered with grease. As long as there is grease over it, do you think you will see clearly? You will never see your reflection clearly. You will know there is a reflection, yes, but it will be very foggy. So, as long as you don’t clean it, it’s difficult to see the light, isn’t it? Since the thing closest to us is the body, first your body has to be clean. When your body is clean, the mind is clean; when the mind is clean, the heart is clean. And when the heart is clean, the Divine light will shine through you and everybody will see it so clearly. So start every day by saying, “I’m God’s child and I have to be like the child of God!” Do this for yourself, for your own growth. You know what is good for you, so try your best to change. Take this strongly inside you; put it in your mind. Throughout the day keep remembering that you are love, you are trust, you are peace, you are unity, you are joy! There’s no greater mantra. Just sing, “I am love!” By singing, “I am love!” you will always remember that you are a part of God. There is no big, big mantra that you have to do thousands of times to make you realised. One, only one simple mantra from your heart – that’s enough. Like I’ve said before, don’t make your prayer in quantity but in quality. The quality that comes from the heart is the highest. And that’s what all the masters, all the divine aspects want from humans also, that we become the quality of God and to realise this quality in oneself. For that one has to pass through the level of the child of God. Jesus said, “There is no other way than me. I am truth, I am light, I am the way.” Do you think he meant himself as the body? No, he didn’t mean himself as the body. He meant himself as Christ who is living in each one of you. This Christ has to become alive by putting what Jesus gave to humanity into practice and by understanding it: “Blessed are all those pure in heart, for they shall see God!”