Do we have a free will ? ....

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. Once somebody asked a saint “Do we have a free will?” The saint said “Well, you have a will, but it’s not free.” It’s like a cow: the cow is tied with a rope and is given only a certain radius to turn around. The cow is free, but it is free only in a certain radius. And such is so, also, with the will of man. And the rest is His will only. But in this little radius with things which seem so big, we like to make ourselves feel greater than anybody else, don´t we? We like to make ourselves even greater than the Lord Himself. This reminds me of Narad Muni, the messenger of God, who was cursed by Maha Vishnu, who had said to him “Narad Muni, go to Hell! You are doomed! Go away.” Narad Muni became very quiet and said “My dear Lord, as you have told me to go to Hell, can You please tell me where it is?” Maha Vishnu said “OK.” With His Shakti, He manifested a chalk and He started to draw. He said “Here is Heaven” and then He drew Heaven “And here is Hell” and He drew Hell. Seeing that, Narad Muni became very happy. He approached the drawing, jumped into the drawing and started to roll in the place where Hell was. Maha Vishnu was very amused and said “Narad, what are you doing?” Narad Muni answered to Him “Well, You told me to go to Hell, didn´t You? Here I am. I’m rolling myself in Hell.” Then Narad Muni continued, saying “You are the Lord of everything. When you say ‘This is Heaven’, of course, it becomes Heaven. When you say ‘This is Hell’, of course, it course it becomes Hell. When you sent me there, I went there. Even if it is just a drawing, it is Hell for me, I can feel it.” Maha Vishnu was very pleased with him and He blessed him. This shows us, also, 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. 

Remove the veil of Illusion......

Krishna said, “All that is and all that you feel is just a game. I create, I protect and I destroy everything by my own will. And it all goes back to me. Maya, illusion, has created a veil of separation. With this veil, you can’t see that you are all a part of me.”

That is actually why you are all here… to remove this veil. There are many lifetimes that you keep on with the same game. And you repeat and repeat the same thing, forgetting that the Lord is here deep inside our heart. We are looking for Him on the outside. We are looking for Him in this world, but we can just drop deep inside ourselves and find Him. Let go of the mind which is always busy looking on the outside. If we just drop ourselves deep in our heart, we can feel this peace and happiness and enjoy it.

Deep inside in the inner cosmic mind, there lies also the Divine......

You can’t have the complete realisation of God and at the same time say that you want the material world. I tell you something: in the completeness, in the Divine consciousness, everything is present. Where else than in the mere mind of man can one just see what these two eyes perceive? On one hand there is everything, everything means also the material part. On the other hand there is just the material part and illusion. You meet people, they try to see what is beautiful, and they get attached to it and keep it. It’s our own happiness that arises in our life, from deep within where we receive the goal. But something is missing; it is not complete. You think, “Now I have got this beautiful thing that I desired so much. Now I got it, I don’t have the same love for it. I don’t have the same enthusiasm about it.” What does the mind do? The mind tries to find something else to hold onto, but as long as man tries to hold onto a material thing, he will always stay on the material level. If you turn inward and focus on the Divine within the Self you will feel great happiness and great joy. But for that you should deadlock your faith. Faith. Like I always say, have faith in your own Self. Have faith that what you are hearing within your heart is true. So many times you hear your heart, but you doubt it. You ask yourself, “Oh, is this really true or not?” You always have doubt like that. As long as you don’t believe in what the Divine wants to show you, you will not advance. The moment you really have faith in what you feel inside your heart, it will manifest on the outside. Like I said, God gave man the power to create, to have the power over everything, to have the willpower of construction – constructive willpower – inside the mind. Very often we say the mind is something apart, something which is very negative. It’s true, very often the mind is negative, but we can transform it. Deep inside in the inner cosmic mind, there lies also the Divine. That is the point where we have to use the mind to achieve the higher state.

We have to learn to turn the mind.....

We have to learn to turn the mind and gaze in the inside, inside each one of ourselves and see the Lord there and let Him reveal Himself. When you call Him, when you chant His name, when you recite His name, when you sing His name, this is how you’re calling Him. You’re calling him “Please, reveal yourself.“ Like

in the Gita it is said, Krishna said “ I don’t reside anywhere in the outside. I don’t reside even in the heart of the people, but I reside where there is the glory, my glory is being sung.” The same thing is written in the Bible, “If two or three are gathered in my name, I shall be near to them.” That means that when you sing the name of God, you are calling, you’re asking Him to awaken within you, you are asking Him to come to you and to reveal Himself to you. The more you do that the more he will reveal Himself as this Love. The more you long for Him, the more you will love to do your sadhana, the more your mind will be controlled. And, when your mind is controlled, when you have peace of mind, you will be peaceful. You will be peace in your body and you will bring peace this peace to your surroundings. You will be an instrument of this Divine Love. But, as this first step, you have to not only be contemplating in the outside, but you must contemplate within yourself and find God. This reminds me that very often people are scared about the outside. They are scared and they always look at how the outside thinks of them. This is a weakness of man, actually, always looking about others and forgetting about how they can change things. That reminds me of a story where there was this sannyas, a sannyasin, a sadhu. He used to live just opposite a house where a prostitute lady lived. So, every day the sannyasin looked at how many men visited this prostitute. He counted. So, one day he decided to go to the lady and said “Lady, you don’t know how much you are sinning. For sure, you will go to hell for all the sin. You have to really repent and change your life.” This poor lady, when she heard that, she was very alarmed and shocked. She was crying very bitterly, you know, crying and repenting inside and feeling so bad inside of her when she heard how much sin she had committed. And she prayed to Maha Vishnu and said “Lord, forgive me, I didn’t know how much sin I had committed.” So, she cried and cried, but as prostitution was her only means of living, she could not really change her life. So, seeing that even after talking to her she didn’t change, the sannyasin was thinking and he said “For each person I will put one stone in front just to show her how much is her sin.” So, after some time, it was a big heap of stone. He went to the lady and said “You see this big heap of stone; this is all your sin.” And, again, she cried; every day she was crying. Sincerely, she asked God for forgiveness. It so happened that, after this incident, the prostitute lady died and, coincidentally, the sannyasin, who was a brahmin, also died. So, as he was waiting for who would come to get him, you know, he was thinking, since he was a brahmin that the angels of God would come and take him. As he was waiting, he saw that the angels of God, of Maha Vishnu, came and took the soul of the prostitute lady to Vaikunta, to Heaven. And, for him, the God of the dead came to get him and bring him to hell. So, out of protest, he started to scream, saying how unfair it was, “I am a sannyasin, I am a brahmin, I passed my life praying to God, but here the prostitute lady is going to heaven and I’m going to hell.” At that, the guards of Maha Vishnu, the servants of Maha Vishnu said, “Well, whenever you accused her, she repented sincerely and asked God for forgiveness and she was chanting the Divine Names continuously in her heart. Whereas you, you were not contemplating the Divine, even if you were sitting and praying in the outside, inside your heart you were contemplating the sin that this lady was doing. So, that’s why you are going to hell. In the same way, where you put your heart, there it shall be. That’s what is said in the Bible. So, if your heart is focused on the Divine, the Divine will always reside inside of you, in each part of you and you will start to radiate this Divine Love and give it to everybody, so you will become this instrument that I was talking of before. But, if you concentrate on the negativity that you always see - because your eyes always perceive things that are not good - you will get trapped into this illusion. The only way you can really un-trap yourself is to surrender to the feet of God, you know, and really say “Lord, take me.” Know that God is compassionate. He will hold you and He will carry you and He will always send help for you. That’s how His Love is. So, concentrate not on the negative, but on the Divine, and call Him within you. Don’t be shy to chant the name of God. And, also, don’t be shy, because it is not about the others, it is about you and God.

You will become an instrument of that peace and Love wherever you are and whatever you are doing...

Once, somebody asked a Saint “How do you see the world?” The Saint answered “Well, each person creates their own reality in this world.” What we see outside is a combination of a mass reality. With this mass reality, of course one person can change and make a difference, a small one. It’s better when one person changes, introverts oneself, opening the heart to Love, because Love is the greatest thing in this world and Love is the only way through it. It’s only through Love that people will change and it’s only through that, that there can be peace and for that you have to open up. That’s what I was saying in the beginning, that it is a time to introvert oneself. Our mind is always running to the outside, so we always see the cruelty, the negativity. Whenever you read the newspaper, whenever you put on the TV, what you see is always negativity. This gets imprinted in you to make your own mind become negative. You believe what you see is very bad, so then what happens? You start to judge and the mind becomes very judgemental. This is like that

or this is like this. But are you changing? No, you are not changing. That is the same thing everybody is doing around the world, there is no difference. Does it contribute to bringing peace and harmony to the world? No

it doesn’t. When you introvert yourself you go into the peace which you have inside of you. You sit quietly and when you sit calmly, of course the mind will begin to rebel. After some time you don’t want to get up,

for some people they can’t get up, it’s painful, or they go to sleep. But when you go into the calmness of the depths of your heart, in total surrender through your heartfelt sadhana, you enter the chamber of peace - the true inner peace. Through that inner peace which you will project to the outside, you will bring changes. For

example, let’s say when you go to somebody you know who is nervous and very agitated, what do you do? Do you try to calm the person down and advise the person to be positive, or do you also sit and cry with the person? It’s the same when you go to the doctor. The doctor will ask you what kind of problem you have. It is the first question and then you say “Doctor, if I knew what I have, I would not have come to you.” Well, when you go to the doctor, you go because you don’t feel well and you open up and tell the doctor what you don’t feel well about. Does the doctor sit with you and cry? No, the doctor won’t do that. It’s the same with psychiatrists. They advise you to move away from the way you’re thinking and the way you see things. Moving away from this, changes certain things inside of you. It changes the way you are always looking at

it. We were just saying that we see the world and project it as being cruel. The media wants us to see all the cruelty. But there are always also good things and it just depends on how you see it. Very often, one will see one’s own projection of what one has inside of oneself. When one suppresses certain things inside of oneself, of course by suppressing energy deep inside, what will happen? Whenever something happens outside, the suppression will project itself. When that happens there will be complete judgement only. When you learn to accept yourself and learn to be in peace with yourself the way you are, you will see that there is nothing wrong with the world. Things can change and it simply depends on each one. But we can’t say “You change

and I don’t change.” No, instead you have to say “I have changed and now the rest will change.” If there are certain things inside of yourself that you do not accept, be positive about them. You have a choice, the choice is how you look at things. Either you place a judgement saying ‘this is bad’ or you can say ‘this is not for me’ in a positive way. This is the way you look at it differently, in a metaphysical way. The first thing is

to open the heart, open the mind, let peace rise inside of you, each part of you. Whenever you have peace inside of you there is no place for anything else. Whenever there is Love inside of you, there won’t be any place for anything else either. You will become an instrument of that peace and Love wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

The body, the mind and the soul, each one has to be an instrument of God....

The mind, which is a big weapon, pride and so on, many other things keep people in delusion.

All Scriptures have said that Man is made according to the image of God. So, if Man is the image of God, Man is part of God. We have just to realise this Divinity within ourselves.  Jesus said “I and my Father are one.” First He claimed Himself to be the son of Man,

purely human. Then he said “Who has seen the Son has seen the Father.” One who has seen and realised that one is the child of God will come to the stage of realising that one is part of God. During these different stages, one firstly has to be really, really sure that

one wants God, wants Realisation. So  Satchitananda – Existence, Consciousness and Bliss – this is

your true Self. The body can`t exist without consciousness. If God didn’t give consciousness to mankind, mankind would not feel joy, without experiencing Bliss. Even if you have forgotten it, these three can’t exist separately. In direct language, the body, the mind and the soul, each one has to be an instrument of God and to reach that stage there are different ways.

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.

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.

What is left is only Him......

When you start chanting the Divine Names, for the Lord to reveal Himself to you, you have to prove yourself, also. Of course, everything happens through His grace, nothing happens through your grace. Even moving, even for me to talk, it is only through His grace that this is possible. But, as man has a mind, you have to prove that you really want to let go of this mind. So, by chanting His Divine Names, you start to call Him. So, the more you call Him, the more you are tuning yourself into His tune and the old you becomes less and less, until only His grace starts to shine through. It’s very simple. For example, when you start chanting Krishna’s name, at the beginning you will feel tired about it, you know. You will feel “Oh, what is happening? Why is He not listening?” But actually, these are all different qualities that awaken, you see, even to be angry with Him, because you wish for Him. In the same way that you wish for Him, He wishes for you much more. Let’s say you get depressed or you say “Ok, I’m praying, all this, you know, but He’s not listening,” and it happens, you know, but actually, this is Maya, His game. When He doesn’t show Himself, it is for you to long for Him even more. Of course, we can talk about it, you can think about it in the mind, but when you are in it, it is completely different. For you, it’s like the world is going upside down. I was talking with somebody yesterday, actually. This person said to me “Swamiji, I would love to see Krishna!” And then he reminded me of something that happened about twelve years ago, when he had the wish to see and I, well, He showed Himself to him, but because at that time he was not ready, I took this grace away from him. Then he said to me “Look, what happened twelve years ago, you took it away. I would love to see Krishna and I want it back!” And I said “What would you do to get this?” Well, he said “Anything!” And I said to him “Are you sure?” You see, it’s easy to talk about, but when it comes to the act, when it comes to practise, it’s difficult. Many people say “Yes, we love God”, but how many really do everything so that this love may grow? Very few do. Like the Lord said “I can count them on my hand.” Well, His hand, His hands are not like a human hand, you know. He has not only one; He has many. So, in the same way, the more you chant the Divine Names, the more you tune yourself into this Divine Name, the more He starts to shine through you and the more He starts to act through you. But of course, not Him, only His qualities do. To get Him fully, you have to go deeper and deeper. It’s the same as when you dig the hole. First you get a little bit of water, which is muddy, but the more you dig you have more water, which is clearer. It’s the same with the qualities of Him. Because, you see, when people reach a certain degree of spirituality, they develop certain qualities. He gives them certain qualities, but the sad thing is that people get stuck to these qualities. They think they have already reached a very high level of spirituality, you know, and they think of themselves as being everything. Then, of course, nothing further happens. But whereas, when you forget about these qualities, don’t give them too much importance, but go for Him, He will not be able to deny you His presence. He will even not be able to deny you Himself. The way you give yourself to Him, He will give Himself to you. It’s so easy, actually, but yet, difficult for the mind to understand, no? You see, it’s because everybody wants to understand how to do it, you know. When I just say to chant the Divine Names, you know, just recite His name, think of Him continuously, well, you say yes, you will do it, but in between, what happens? If you analyse your day, very often you forget about Him. You actually forget about Him more than you think about Him. That’s why it doesn’t happen. And, also, when you tell somebody to chant the Divine Names, they just chant mechanically, you know “Because Swamiji said to chant, let me chant it, chant it, chant it”. No, it’s not like this, because when you chant His name, your mind has to have His vision, also. You have to have His image in the mind. Of course, just to chant His name, it’s very good to do it. It’s better than nothing, but if you really want to achieve Him, chant His Name and visualise Him. Visualise Him, like He, Himself, said in the Gita, visualise Him in your third eye, visualise Him in your heart, visualise Him in each breath that you are taking in and out. Let’s say you are chanting the Maha mantra: Hare Ram Hare Ram, Ram Ram Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. You don’t need to rush; you have all the time. When you have a party, you have all the time for that. It’s the same thing when you take time to chant the Divine Names, you have to take your time, you know. And you sit, chant, visualise Him sitting in your forehead, in your heart. In each breath that you take in and out, it’s only Him. So, the more you chant like this, the more you are aware that He is not outside of you, but He’s inside of you. You will not just know it, you will start to Realise it. Then, this identity that you put always to yourself, this I, I, I, will start to dissolve. It will become You, You, You. So, it dissolves this ego identity and what is left is only Him.

Once there was a very learned priest.......

Once there was a very learned priest, a pundit, who went to a king and said “King, I will teach you the Bhagavatam.” The king, who, of course, knew about the Bhagavatam, looked at the priest and said “No, I don’t want you to teach me the Bhagavatam, because you yourself have not understood it, so how could you teach it to me? Go back, learn it and, when you understand it, come back to me.” The priest went away very angry, because his ego and pride had been hurt. He closed himself in his room, took all the books and started to read, again, the Bhagavatam. When he finished, he went again to the king and said “King, I have read everything and I am coming to you, again, to teach you the Bhagavatam.” The king replied “No, no, no, go back!” So he was sent back for the second time. This time he thought “If the king is sending me away all the time, for sure there is a meaning. Let me study it really carefully.” Again, he closed himself in his room and this time he really surrendered himself and he really opened his heart and read the Bhagavatam. As he was reading the Bhagavatam, new knowledge arose in his mind, new wisdom came. Things that he didn’t know before arose within him. Then he realised that he had been going to the king for the wrong reasons - for fame and wealth - and that was why the king had been sending him away. When he realised this, he didn’t go to the king anymore. After a few months, the king remembered him and went to see him. He said “Priest, I have come to you, because I didn’t see you coming back, so I was wondering what had happened?” But he saw that the priest was radiating so much light so, without asking him anything more, he fell at his feet and said “Now you can teach me. I surrender to you. I take you as my Guru. Now I see that you have understood the Srimad Bhagavatam.” Humans always do this mistake of wanting things for the wrong reason. They pray to God, they ask for Realisation, but they do this out of selfishness. They ask “God, grant me this, grant me that, give me this.” They don’t really trust; they just ask. Out of pride, out of ego, one asks always to gain things that will make him happy only for a certain time. When you have enjoyed these little things and the happiness is gone, then you are back again in the same misery.

We are so ruled by our mind.....

We are so ruled by our mind and we expect so many things, but in your life, for sure, you have done something unconditionally, but very often it’s easy to forget about it. Let’s say, you want something from somebody. You expect it and you get it. You will always remember it. Or, if somebody has hurt you, you will always remember it. But the good that somebody has done to you disappears [from your memory], also. Time makes everything disappear. There is one question that we always ask ourselves. In the beginning we were with God, so why do we have to incarnate here? Why do we have to be separated from the Divine? This is a question that everybody asks, no? We have read books and we have seen probably many Masters who have said “Yes, the main thing in life is to Realise your true Self, to Realise your true aspect.” But the question, which is still in the mind is “Why are we separated from the Divine?” Actually, the Divine is not separated from us, but it’s true that our mind perceives us to be separated from the Unlimited One, because we let ourselves be ruled only by the outside. We forget what is inside. The last part of the song that we sang says “We visit holy places, we visit lots of pilgrim places, but one place that we forget to visit is our heart.” Why did we get separated? Of course, the Divine in manifest and unmanifest form is present everywhere, in each cell of our body and pervades everything manifest and unmanifest. When we think of the manifestations of the Divine, we only think of Saints and Avatars, but He is, also, in all of you. Of course, these Saints and Avatars are grand manifestations of the Divine where He has to come to help humanity. Actually, He always comes to help people, to help Himself, actually, but we are so bound by the outside that we create karmic things. Always, in many lives, we have been creating a lot of karma and we bind ourselves by that. Some will say “Yes, but we are here to remove the karmic things. We are here to Realise our Selves.” It’s very true and this is the purpose of life; this is, also, the purpose of religion. It’s not only waving the light in front of the Deity or singing the glory of God, which is very good, but we have to attain Him. For that, we have to make an effort from our side. But if we let ourselves get caught by the illusion, Maya will get us. Illusion is, also, the Lord’s creation, but He gives us the choice, also, to want Him or to want the world. Some people are pretending to be very clever, saying, we want everything; we want the world and we want the Lord. But Christ said in the Bible: Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give back what belongs to the Spirit, to the Spirit. He, also, said that: if you think yourself to be Spirit you will be Spirit; but if you think yourself to be human, you will be just human, because you bind yourself.