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.

Hanuman is considered to be the model of bhakti, He is considered how one has to be in one’s spiritual path, and how devotional one has to be.....

Hanuman is an incarnation of Shiva. When Rama came down, all the Deities manifested themselves in the form of Monkeys – Vanara Sena. And Hanuman is Shiva Himself actually. That’s why it is said: when you pray to Hanuman, you receive the grace of Gauri Shankar. And, as I have explained during Ram Navami, the name Rama is a mixture of Om Namo Narayanaya and Om Namah Shivaya. The first word of Rama is: Om Namo Narayanaya, which is Ra, and Om Namah Shivaya, which is Ma. So the name of Rama is infused in Hanuman through His devotion. He was initiated in the name of Rama from childhood and His devotion had no limit. Even till now, it is said: wherever the name of Rama is being read, He is the first one to come and the last one to leave. Hanuman is immortal. He travelled the world around, protecting, giving His blessing to Rama devotees, to whoever prays to Lord Rama. Tulsidas knew that he would not be able to attain Ram by himself. He knew that his devotion was weak. He had to strengthen his devotion and the only way to strengthen His devotion to Lord Rama was to take Rama Bhakta, and become a devotee of Lord Rama. That’s what Krishna said in the Gita, “Whoever wants to come to me shall be devoted to my servants. The devotee of my servants is dearer to me”. So Tulsidas took the word of what is written also in Rama Charitra Manas. He surrendered to Hanuman and asked Hanumanji for His help and, of course, he didn’t know who Hanuman was. So through his penance of roaming around for days and days, he reached a spot, he heard a voice saying “Go to Varanasi. Go to the temple where the Rama Charitra Manas is being read”. Then he
asked “But how will I know Him?” Then the voice said “You will recognise Him, because He is an old man who will come. He will be the first one to come and the last one to leave”. So he went there and, when he went to the temple, he saw only one old man sitting. Then people filled up and, when everybody left, He was the only one left, the last one to leave. So he knew that He was Hanuman. He went and held the feet of the old man and said “Please, Prabhu, you are such a great devotee of the Lord, please guide me to Him. And bless me with a little bit of your devotion that you have to Lord Rama”. Hanuman at this moment, because He was in disguise, said “No, no, no, what are you doing?” You know, He wanted to test him. He rebuked him, pushed him away, but Tulsidas would not let go of His feet. And Hanuman was pleased with his devotion and said “I bless you that Lord Rama will come, but you will have to recognise Him”. So, when a few days later Tulsidas was on the bank of the Ganges, preparing pure sandal paste, two young men came
to him and said “We see that you are preparing some nice sandal paste. Can we have some?” Then Tulsidas said “Well, this sandal paste is for the king, for royalties. And I see that you are royalties, so you can have the sandal paste”. Of course he could not recognise who was in front of him. Then Hanuman was up on the tree where Tulsidas was sitting. He called Tulsidas and said “Tulsidas, this is your Lord in front of you”. When he now saw the Lord in front of him, Tulsidas left and took the chandan and held the feet of Rama.
This is how Hanuman helped the devotees of the Lord to find Him. So He is a model of devotion. So we can just pray that a little bit you can change like Him.

Let the Love of God completely take possession of you.....

When He’s taking something out, let Him take. What He takes out 

will be replaced by Divine Love. You will feel this Cosmic Love inside 

of you. You will feel this Great Love of God inside of you, and in 

this Love you will cry, you will laugh, you will not even understand 

it with the mind what is happening to you. Let it happen,   don’t 

question it, because you have to let the Love of God completely 

take possession of you. As long as there is the mind, you will never 

understand His Love. 

Only when you renounce the mind you can understand His 

Love. You can’t analyse, you can’t understand Him, because 

understanding is with the mind and with the mind there is no 

point in  understanding Him. You have to renounce, you have to 

surrender to Him. When you surrender, you don’t question Him. 

You don’t question why it is like that, why it is like this. You just 

accept it, because you know He’s with you.

While you are going through this purifcation, know that the Lord 

is near to you in whatever form you call Him. If you like Him in this 

Nrsinghadev form, He will come in this form. If you like Him in 

the form of Jesus, he will come in the form of Jesus. You see, God 

is not limited to one form. He’s unlimited. That’s why He is God. If 

God were limited, then He would not be God. Then He would be the 

fashion of one’s mind, but God is not that. Even if you give a form 

to Him, He’s not that. He’s beyond our creation. He’s beyond our 

mind’s creation.

 When we invoke the Lord, we have also to invoke Him inside our hearts.  

                                When He takes full possession of us, we become Him.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

We often talk about the mind. But God has given a heart to man, too. The heart is not just here to pump the blood in the whole body. It’s also to feel. Very often, when you get hurt, the heart has a lot of pain, doesn’t it? And when you feel happiness and joy, the heart is wide open. And to love God is... I can’t even express it in words actually, because it’s a mixture of everything in it. Sometimes you will fight with God, sometimes you will blame God, and sometimes you will just be completely in love with God. And at the end of all three, it’s just this pure love. And this is the freedom that all of you have. But you have to really express it, to really let it grow. Not with a ‘but’. So many times we say, “We try to open our heart, but there is always something in the way.” Try it, you will see. One day you will surrender completely, saying, “Open my heart. Here I am. I surrender to You – body, mind and soul is Yours! Do whatever you want to do.” 

He is inside of you.....

Seeing the beauty of the Lord, we ask ourselves how did all the people in His lifetime feel when they saw Him? What did they feel? What did the Gopis feel? How was it for the people of Vrindavan to be near Him? We have read several stories about that. We read how beautiful He was, how great He was, but yet we ask ourselves ”But why not now? Why, when we pray so much, nothing happens?” You, also, would like to feel and experience this Love. You, also, would like to be so much in love with Him, but yet you find it very difficult, don´t you? Why? If we look at ourselves and we look at the people in Vrindavan, there, whatever they would do throughout the day, Krishna was the main important thing in their lives. Their minds were so much into Him. Whatever they would do, wherever they were, it was just for Krishna. They would cook for their own family, but it was for Krishna. They would wash their clothes and, in their minds, it was for Krishna. Everything was for Him. They were so much surrendered, that every breath of them was Krishna. If every breath of them was the Lord Himself, of course, the Lord was present inside of them at all times. But nowadays, when you are working, how many times do you think of God? Only when you have time, because when you are working, you are fully concentrated on your work. And the little time that you have left, what do you do with it? You worry about how to make the work better. When you do your spiritual practice - let’s say, when you are doing your Atma Kriya - you concentrate so much on the breathing, you concentrate so much on reciting the Name of God. Why? All spiritual sadhana, why do we do it? It’s because we know that there is something greater that our soul wants. We want something, but yet, with the mind we don’t understand it too much. We try to understand. We always look at it with the mind and we always want it to be how we want it to be, our way. But what is our way, actually? It is His Will. We always think that we have a free will. The limitation of ourselves, the limitation that our mind creates. We could be free, but our mind doesn’t let us be free. We can see the Lord everywhere, but our pride always stops us. We can love Him, but our expectation is always there, too. When one lets go of these three things, one will be really, fully into Him. Above all, He is the manifestation of Love. He is the manifestation of who we are, all of us. In Him Love is manifested in the outside, in everything that He expresses, in every action of Him. But in humans it is manifested deep inside, because we don’t let it out. We are scared of it. We are scared of our true Self. We are scared of what we have inside, but yet we crave for that. We want it. We are always looking for it everywhere. In whatever we do, whoever we meet, we are looking for this Love. But it’s not on the outside. It’s inside of you. Then one will ask “But why do we have to concentrate on Him outside? Why cannot we concentrate on Him inside?” With all these things covering you, all these expectations, this anger and fear, it’s very difficult to concentrate on the unmanifested form of the Lord, on the Love of God inside of you. That’s why He has given His outer forms for us to concentrate on them. It’s like when someone learns to shoot. First they start to shoot at big things, no? And the more experienced and concentrated they become in shooting, the smaller things are given to them to shoot at. So it’s the same thing: as long as you have a mind, which is very active, always jumping around, you need something to focus on in the outside. When your mind is calm through your sadhana, then you will be able to concentrate easily on the Lord inside of your heart. So chant the Divine Name. Focus on His form first and through that, at the end, He can show you that He is inside of you.

Don’t let the negativity of this world affect you....

Live in the world, do everything, but do it in the mind-set of surrendering. No matter what action you do, surrender it to the Divine. Know that whatever action you do, whether it is, positive or negative, it is a prayer for and in front of Him. If in this attitude you surrender every action to the Divine, it will be pure always. In the  Soundarya Lahari, Sri Adi Shankaracharya wrote about it. He said “Oh, Divine, I give you everything. Let my every action of surrender to You, be a prayer to your Feet. When I am lying down, sleeping, let it be a prostration to your Feet! Be it that every food that I am eating is an offering to Thee.” Like that, all the actions that you are doing in daily life, if you do them with the remembrance of the Divine, they will be pure, because the Divine is not limited half as much as we think of Him. We are limited. We are limited, because our mind, our pride, our ego is so huge, that we live in this world and we get attached to the world. We make our whole life depend on this world. Like the great Sages said “Live in the world, but don’t let the world live in you. If you let the world live in you, then God becomes far away.” Like the lotus. Have you seen the lotus flower? Where does the lotus flower grow? In mud – it comes out from mud. All the mud doesn’t affect it. Such is the Divine inside of you also. Such is who you are in reality. You live in this world. Don’t let the negativity of this world affect you. Be positive firstly. If you are positive, automatically you will be humble. Humility – this is a nice word. Humbleness means acceptance – to accept yourself how you are and to know that what you are looking for on the outside doesn’t reside on the outside. It resides here inside of you. 

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

Desire the Ultimate, and you shall have it. Surrender your body, mind and soul. Focus on any Divine aspect firstly, and then you realise your Divinity. Remember that whoever you are, even if your advancement is slow or fast, God loves you. He loves you even more than you can think about love, more than the mind of man can think about.So always trust in this love, always hang on this love, and never let go of Him. He is always  with you. Even if you do not feel Him, even if you do not see Him, He is there. 

He’s not limited to any time, He’s not limited to any place, He’s not limited to any form......

Surrender body, mind, and soul completely to God. Let go of your identity, let go of this ‘I’, this egoism that makes you focus only on the outer. When you let go of your identity, then the Divine will reveal itself to you. Then you will see the unlimited. You will feel the blissful happiness. So open up – if the mind is still troubling you, take any divine aspect, focus your mind on it and surrender to the divine aspect until you reach the formless. From the form to the formless. So, do you want God? Do you want realisation? (Audience: Yes!) Is it a “Yes” from the heart or from the mind? (Laughing… audience: From the heart!) Don’t tell it to me – tell it to yourself and be sincere to yourself. Say, “Yes, I want it!” When you say it, “Yes, I want realisation, I want God!“ with such a determination, with such strength, such willpower, He will reveal Himself to you. He is accessible twenty-four hours, seven days a week, you know – always. He’s not limited to any time, He’s not limited to any place, He’s not limited to any form. When you close your eyes and drop inside yourself, you access Him. Try it. Close your eyes. Sure, your mind will trouble you, but don’t give much importance to it. The mind is also doing its part to create illusion. Remove all the pressure from your shoulders and travel inwardly. Use your mind to imagine, see your heart, your physical heart. It’s a beautiful organ which is pumping the blood in all the parts of your body. Look at it how beautiful it is! You know this.Deep in this organ, there is the greatest thing that has been given to humans! With each beat of the heart it is saying, “Let me out!” The Divine is calling from deep within you, “Let me out!” But 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...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 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. 

We often hear people asking the question “Who is God?”....

 .... I will ask you, now, “Who is God?” Well, it’s true, as long as you have not known Him, you can’t answer. Love is God, but how many Realise this Love? To which religion does God really belong? Is God Christian? Is God Hindu? Is God Muslim? Is God Buddhist? To which religion does He belong? Love… 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 are so busy with this material world that we forget about the Divine Love. We try to look for this Love in the outside world. 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. Even if you think you know it, because you have read about it or somebody has told you about it or Swami has said it, but 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. You were chanting the Mahamantra: Hare Ram Hare Ram, Ram Ram Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. It is said that just by chanting this mantra one can get liberation, but one has to chant it with faith. Mere chanting alone will not help, but chanting with the heart will help. And how is one to chant with the heart? How is one to train the mind to calm itself? It is by forcing it. When you discipline yourself and say “OK, today I will chant”, then you start by taking your japa mala or rosary and you chant your mantra so you are focusing yourself on it, you are dragging the mind and putting your focus on the mantra. The more you do it, the more you will see that, with time, you will not even need the japa mala. You will not need any rosary, because the mantra will automatically be chanted inside your heart. When you become the mantra, you reach a point of Realisation, you reach a point of elevation, but still it’s not the final one. There is still more to go. And how do you to get there? It’s only when you abandon yourself into the hands of God, when you say “Lord, I surrender to You. I surrender myself - my body, my mind and my soul - completely to You” [that you will get there] Don’t do it superficially, but sincerely. And how do you do it sincerely? Be sincere with yourself and say “Yes, God, I want You. I’m surrendering myself  to You”. When it’s comes sincerely from your heart, it will happen.

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.

Atma Kriya deals with devotion; it deals with the Love that you are....

Develop Bhakti; develop devotion. The first step that you have to make is to develop devotion. Don’t try to take a big jump. When I meet people, often I see that they want a big thing all at once. It´s fine, God will happily give you everything that you want, but the point is whether you will be able to handle it or not. Often, although you can only hold so much in your hand, when you look at things, you want to hold too much. It’s difficult. When you train yourself, with patience and with Love, you will grow little by little and you will be able to handle what God gives you.Keep reminding yourself of the Love of God and that whatever you do, wherever you are, He is with you all the time. There is no moment that He is not with you. Often we say God is not with us, but we forget that we are not with God, we don’t think about God all the time. Then we say He is not with us. It is easy to put the blame on Him, but anyway, like Christ said “I will bear your weight.” He is happy to carry it also, but we should not always put it on His shoulders. At the beginning of the year 2007, through His grace, Mahavatar Babaji instructed me to give Atma Kriya Yoga. Atma Kriya is similar to Kriya Yoga, which is considered one of the easiest ways to reach realisation, but still there is a difference, because Atma Kriya deals with devotion;  it deals with the Love that you are. People who have practiced it will know what I am talking about. Atma Kriya is for everybody, it’s not necessary that you be in Bhakti Marga to do Atma Kriya. Whoever wants to do Atma Kriya is most welcome. It will be good for all of you and it will be good for the people around you, but you have to want it. Like in all the paths, you have to want it; you have to really say “God, I want this; I want you!”

Spirituality is humility, is respect and is Love. Above all, we all love. All religions, all paths and all Masters

say to love and that is spirituality. It is so simple.

When a leaf falls on a river......

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. Life is not just a straight line. For sure this line will go up and will go down. Sometimes you come down. But this is just a game of yourself. Like a game, if you want to rise and rise, you can. But on this way – if ever you go down – know that there is the hand of God to pull you up! While you are falling, get hold of this hand and let this hand pull you up. See, this hand is so great. It will pull you even higher than you were before. Like it is said about children, you give a little bit of a finger, and they just try to get your hand or pull your whole arm. It’s the same with God. The moment you give your hand to Him, He will pull you higher. It’s up to you to make this effort of giving the hand. These past two days I’ve been hearing, “Yes, yes, yes!” It was sweet. The Divine really enjoys it – the ‘yes’. But the ‘Yes’ has not to be outside. It has to be truthful to yourself. Not to me, not to anybody around you, but to yourself you have to say ‘yes’. And the moment this ‘yes’ is without any doubt, without any ‘but’ – what will happen? You will see the Divine hand of God pulling you higher. And you will enjoy this bliss. You will enjoy this love of God every moment. And this is what you are looking for.

The Gayatri Mantra is considered to be one of the most powerful mantras......

There was once a man in 1500. He was begging. He was a Brahmin. He was begging everywhere. You see, in the Hindu tradition, Brahmins are considered to be high class and to beg is considered something very bad for a Brahmin. One day the king was passing by. King Akbar and his counsellor Birbau were passing by. When the king saw a Brahmin was begging, he was aghast, saying “Oh, he’s a Brahmin. He considers himself as a very high class person, how can he beg?” He pushed him away. Then Birbau was talking to the king and the king was talking very badly about the Brahmin. You see, King Akbar, he was a very good king, but he was always on a search. Birbau thought to himself “It’s not good for a Brahmin to be on the

road, so let me go and help him.” He went to the Brahmin and said to the Brahmin “I don’t want you to go begging, but do one thing for me. I want you to chant five Gayatri Mantras for me every day and for each Gayatri Mantra that you chant every day I will give you a gold coin.” The Brahmin agreed to it and said “Well, five gold coins for five Gayatri Mantras, which is so simple, is good.” Every day what would he do, he would chant five Gayatri Mantras for the Prime Minister of the king, so at the end of the month he would

get his money. After some time of chanting the Divine Names, chanting Gayatri Mantra five times, he would sit merged into the mantra and he would feel great peace inside of him just by chanting five Gayatris.

He felt this peace and he went into this peace inside of him. After some time the Prime Minister came to visit him and saw him radiating, changed. He said to him “From now on I would like you to chant 108 times

Gayatri Mantra every day. I will give you more gold coins. The Brahmin said “OK, yes, I can do that.” So he started chanting 108 times Gayatri Mantra. The more he would chant, the more he would be

in the quiet state. He thought to himself and one day he said “Well, this mantra, I’m chanting

it and it is giving me so much peace and so much quietness that I completely see the world differently.” So he started chanting it more and more and he stopped going to see the Prime Minister for the monthly payment.

One day while he was chanting, Gayatri Devi appeared in front of him and said “I’m very pleased with your devotion, but all this time that you have been chanting you have been paid for your chanting, but I would like now, that you stop. I will provide everything for you” and likewise, Gayatri Devi promised him that She would look after his family. So he surrendered completely inside of him. By himself he surrendered to the Divine Mother, to Gayatri Devi. This made the Prime Minister start to think “Where is this man?”

He decided to come to search for him. He came to the house of the priest, the Brahmin man, and there he saw that the Brahmin was sitting in a very peaceful way, radiating lots of light. Lots of people were around him. Lots of people just being in his presence would feel peace, would feel that their worries and problems disappeared. When he saw the Prime Minister, he arose from his seat and fell down at the feet of the Prime Minister and said “Well, because of you I have received the Grace of Gayatri Devi. Because of you I have

had Her darshan, and because of you I have changed. I am a different person now.” Then the Prime Minister said, “But why is it you don’t come and get your money? This was our agreement, no?” The Brahmin replied “Well, before I was chanting it because of money or to gain something from it, but now I am chanting it because it brings me great peace and great happiness and my whole life has changed.”

This is the power of the mantra. The Gayatri Mantra is considered to be one of the most powerful mantras, but any mantra has the power to change mankind. It depends not only on the mantra, it depends also on your will. When you will it, God graces you with the strength, but as long as you don’t will it, it won’t happen. The earlier it is, the better it will be. The earlier you change, everything around you will also change. Then you will realise that the real happiness is not outside there. It’s within you. You carry it all the time.  It’s up to you to vibrate it in a higher frequency or in a lower frequency. It’s like with a radio, if you want to listen to loud music, what do you have to do? You have to raise the volume. Then you will hear only the music. Probably it’s not only the music you will hear. But if you lower it completely onto the lower frequency, you will vibrate in that way. So the first step is up to you and the faster you take the step, the faster you will grow.

“God, I have tried everything. Now I abandon myself with all my expectations, completely, to you.”

Only when you let yourself say, “God, I have tried everything. Now I abandon myself with all my expectations, completely, to you.” Then you’ll see the light. The light will reveal itself to you, because the light is yourself.

However, the mind always covers it with perishable things, thinking this is the reality. So, abandon yourself completely – body, mind and soul. Just let go of it! Let go of this small egoism that says “I am this, I am that.” What is this ‘I’? Have you known this ‘I’? Have you realised this ‘I’? – No! As long as you have not realised this ‘I’, you can’t move forward. Why give much importance to something that you don’t know? What is so great about this egoistic ‘I’? Thinking this is the whole? It’s not. That’s what the cross stands for. Cut the ‘I’, and let only the Divine act. So when this egoistic ‘I’ disappears, what remains? The ‘I’ still stays, but this ‘I’ is a universal ‘I’, the ‘I’ without any identity of oneself. The ‘I’ which is equal in each one of you.

And this is the ‘I’ that Jesus spoke of: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the light.” It is the ‘I’ of the consciousness, the ‘I’ of the Christ consciousness that leads mankind. Yes, each one of you. This consciousness is in each one of you. It’s waiting to become active. It’s very good that you come for darshan, very good that you sit for meditation. But you should not only do it now, you have to do it always! By receiving the blessing – prana hooti, it’s called – you are receiving and activating the light within you. That’s what I can do for you; the rest is up to you. I can take the food, crush it to puree and put it in your mouth, but I can’t swallow it for you. I will be happy to do it for you, you know? But this part is up to each one of you. Your question will be, “We keep trying, yet nothing happens?” But what I said before, remember that – I said if you try with an expectation, it can never happen. You have to empty your mind completely. The thought will pass by, let it pass – don’t feed it. You are not the mind, you are not the thought; you are more than that.

You are the child of God. You are part of the Divine creation. So make this your achievement. Make this your goal in life. Wherever you are, remind yourself of this goal.

Out of Love for His devotee.....

 Out of Love for His devotee, the Lord forgets that He is the Lord. When Yudishtira made the great yagna, He served the people Himself. Krishna went and served everybody. Then He Himself picked up the leaves on which they were eating, showing that there is no difference between the Lord and the One inside of you; breaking all difference in the mind of Man, showing that He is bound with this Love, which is inside of you. He accepts, forgetting that He is the Lord. God accepts, forgetting that He is God and becomes the servant of His devotee. And such Love one has to cultivate; such Love, such devotion, such calling one has to have inside the heart. And when you have Him, you will have everything.

One could say that Krishna is God, so why does He need power?

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. Nowadays we talk about faith. But the moment something happens and doesn’t turn out the way people want, what happens? They are uprooted already. Faith is like this: you have to become like a huge tree. When a storm comes, the branches will blow, but the roots are so anchored into the earth, the tree does not come out. That’s how faith has to be. That is what Radharani teaches to us. In Her Life there were not only joyful times, but She transcended the joy and the pain. We all want bliss, don’t we? We all want to attain the Divine, but yet we hang onto things. We want to love and we want to do God’s will, but in our mind we always say “Yes, I want to do God’s will, but I want to always be happy”, because in our minds, we think that happiness is bliss. But the transcendental happiness that is real bliss is beyond the happiness like when you say with a big smile “I am happy”, because when one is in bliss, one doesn’t know happiness or sadness. It is difficult to understand it with the mind, because your brain can only understand whether you are happy or sad, or you are happy-sad, but transcending these two is Ananda. And that’s what our soul is longing for. There is one bhajan that I always sing, that says “For love, one can do anything.” Isn’t it like this? But Love is sacrifice, you know, isn’t it? Are you ready to sacrifice completely for that? How many of you are ready to sacrifice everything, completely? So, that’s what faith is: complete surrender. If you are completely surrendered to the Will of God and you remember the Divine–wherever you are, whatever you do, even in the smallest things–then you will transcend. Always people ask for something and, of course, God will always give. But there will come a point where there will be no need to ask the Divine for anything, because it will be given to you before you ask. The more you are surrendering to the Will of God, to the Divine–not surrendering only in your mind, but also surrendering here, in your heart – the more there will be no difference between you and Him. That’s what Radharani transcends, the difference between She and Krishna, to show that there is no difference between we humans and the Divine. The only difference is that we are limited with our mind. We see the difference, we see the duality, but in the higher realms they don’t see the same way we see. They have a hierarchy where they have their own jobs, their own duties to do, their dharma to do, but there is no judgement like we always have.

“If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.”

 When we say we want to do God’s Will, we have really to do His Will, not our will. To know how the Will of God is, this will be the question, you know? When you pray there is always a feeling that awakens. If you are praying sincerely, and you are sincerely chanting the Name of God, there is this great longing and the great peace and calm that awakens. When this awakens inside of you, there is also the inner voice that

will start awakening. When you hear this inner voice, it is even greater than what you have in the mind, because even if you want to do what your mind wants you to do, this one will be greater. You will know that. Your heart will pull you towards that voice.When you chant the Name of God, it’s not just mere chanting

when you recite the sweet Name. It’s not just chanting it like that, but what it creates inside of you, what it awakens inside of you, because you see, it is said that the Name of God, and God, are one. There is no difference between the Name of God and God. So when you chant the Name, He is next to you.

It is said that when you chant, first your Guru has to be in your mind. From the Master, the Lord will show Himself. So always,when you chant, always place the Master first. In that way, it will be like what Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.”

It brings me great joy to see this surrender, you know...

Yesterday, during darshan, I was holding a little baby. It was so sweet to look at how the child was. She

came to me, she had the candy, and the moment she turned to the mother and looked at the mother,

she didn’t even want the candy, you know. She wanted to go to the mother. It brings me great joy to see this surrender, you know. Then I said to the people: Imagine if the whole world would be like that, if they saw the Reality. If they knew about God and they knew the illusion, you know, they would let go of the illusion and

run towards God-Realisation. It was really great. The child didn’t bother about the sweet, or the chocolate, nothing! No toys even mattered to the child, because the mother was the most important. That’s why whenever we do things, it comes to a point where we lose this satisfaction, because whatever we do on the outside, which is just material-centred, has a limit and it is finished after some time. When we do something with our heart, the simple things that we do will give us joy. So, be always simple and loving.

“Lord, do whatever you want with me, whenever you want with me, and however you want with me”.

“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.

We ask ourselves if we are changing, in which way we are changing?

We ask ourselves if we are changing, in which way we are changing? Outside there are lots of changes: all the time new things come, and also inside, there are always new things; there are always ups and downs. It’s a time when you have to really say, “Yes I want to move forward. I want to move up in my spirituality”. And you will realise this great change within yourself, this great change that you will bring to the world. It’s not a change outside, but a change inside, because, like I said, with changes on the outside, new things always come and new things always go. If we focus on the outside, very often we find that it will bring pain. To focus on the outside brings expectation, and expectation brings misery and pain. All kinds of expectation bring pain, because the real expectation, the real things 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 up to 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 God, you will always be searching. You will always be putting one foot in one place and the other foot in another. To find this real Love and really realise this deep connection to God within oneself, it begins only through bhakti, through devotion. When you surrender yourself full-heartedly, with full love from your heart, and say, “God I want you, reveal Yourself to me”, God will reveal Himself. God can’t say: “No” to you, because your Self can’t hide from yourself. This higher consciousness, which you have deep inside you, can be revealed when your mind is centred on God. So, yearn for God, call from deep within your heart, from inside, “God reveal yourself to me. I know you are deep inside somewhere. From time to time I do feel you. I know you are here, but I would like to feel you constantly, all the time”. Each one of you wants to feel the Love of God all the time, so why is it so difficult? So, why is it so difficult to love unconditionally? Is the mind too busy with the world outside? How long will you look for love in the world outside? As long as you look, you will get trapped in it, because you have to realise true Love here [Swamiji points at his heart] and feel it first here. If you realise God first and then step in the world, how joyful and peaceful it will be…But people choose the opposite. They like to step in the world first, then they want to realise God. Once you step in the world, you get trapped in the grip of Maya and it’s quite difficult to get out of Her grip. Her grip is so strong: once She grabs you, it’s only by chanting the name of God that you can get yourself released; only by saying, truly from your heart: “God I want you, I surrender completely to you. Do what you have to do with me”. Then She will let go of you. Don’t think that Maya only acts on normal people. She acts on spiritual people also. I think there are more attacks on them than on anybody else, but if the spiritual people are aware of it, they know whenever She is playing Her game and they know how to go out of it. And each one of you does know.