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.

A Meditation given by Sri Swami Vishwananda

We do this meditation. When we can practice, I will use OM as a reference. You can use any Divine form that you feel close with. Because OM is the cosmic sound, it resounds in everybody’s heart. Even if you create a form, you give OM a form, at the same time you focus on it. OM is just vibration.

Leave your eyes open, don’t close them, because in the moment you close them, you start thinking. I want you to take five deep breaths – in and out and when you breathe out, drop your shoulders and release all the tension from them. Take your time. Breathe in slowly and breathe out slowly. You don’t need to be quick. Now, close your eyes. Use the creative power that God has given to mankind. As God is the Creator, so you are also a creator. So, let’s create the Divine form, at your third eye, in between your eyebrows. Create an OM sign, if you know how it looks, or you can create a cross, or the form of the Divine Mother, Krishna, any Divine form. Look with the inward eye... look at how beautiful the form is and listen to your breathing. Breathe the Divine name in, slowly. Breathe until you cannot inhale anymore. Then hold you breath and focus at your third eye on the Divine form, and breathe out again, the same Divine name. If you have a guru mantra, it is nice, that you do the guru mantra with the breath. Don’t forget to listen to your breath, too. It’s a great help. This helps you to focus. Forget about everything. Just let your focus be on the Divine form or on any Divine aspect that you have created. Slowly, let it grow. This divine aspect is the same size as your face, which is full of light. It is growing more and more. Half of your body, you see in just this Divine form. Now you see your whole body and this Divine aspect is the same size, and this Divine aspect becoming bigger, you see your physical body inside this Divine form. You see yourself in the Divine. You see that your body is becoming light and merging into this divine form. Continue going deeper and deeper in it. Now slowly, reduce this divine aspect. Bring it near your heart. Let it merge in your heart. Feel the love, and see the light that this aspect brings to you.

Now slowly open your eyes, but stay within this state.

Swami Vishwananda tells a story about Jesus

Jesus was sitting in the Heaven and thinking, “Maybe the world has changed. Let Me go on Earth and see. Two thousand years ago, I was there, but because I said, ´I am the Son of God´, they put Me on the cross and crucified me. But there were no churches at that time. So, let Me go and see, maybe they will recognize Me, and welcome Me. They will know, that I am here for there own good.”

So, Jesus came in Bethlehem, where He was born. There He saw a church, and He was walking towards the church, when, at the same time, the Mass was finished. People started to come out from the church, and they saw a man coming, who were dressed like Jesus. So they all started to make fun of Him, “Oh, look at this mad man who is dressed like Jesus. What do you think he is?” Jesus was shocked, and said, “Oh my Goodness, I thought that after thousands of years, that they have been praying and calling to Me, they would recognize Me. But here I am, and they don´t even recognize Me.”

Jesus went to them and said, “Don’t you recognize Me?” The people said, “Oh, you are just a mad man, who is dressed like Jesus.” Jesus answered, “Oh, no, no, no; I am Jesus, you were just praying to Me in the church!” But they said, “Nooo, he is mad.” Jesus thought,” My Goodness, how come they don’t even know Me now?” The people finaly told Him, “You better go away, before the clergymen come.” But at the same time, the clergy was coming, and Jesus went to him and said, “Hey, I am Jesus!” The clergyman said, “You mad man, keep quiet!” Then he took Jesus by force, brought Him inside and locked him in the sacristy.

So poor Jesus was locked in the sacristy, and He could not understand what was happening. He thought that after two thousands years, with many churches around and people who are praying, Christianity is well flourished and they will know. But no, poor Him, He was locked inside. So He sat there and waited. At night, He saw a light coming. The clergyman was coming with a lantern and opened the door. And when he opened the door, he fell at the feet of Christ and said to Him, “Please, Master, forgive me.” Jesus asked “why?”And he said, “You know, I did recognize You, when I saw You for the first time in the morning, but You see, the people are not ready to accept You. I locked You in here, because You will start talking the truth and it would be inconvenient for You to speak the truth. People will never believe You, because they believe in the clergymen now.” said Swami Vishwananda

Swami Vishwananda tells you today:

There was a saint called Chaitanya Das Maharaj who lived in the 17th century. He was always Gauranga, Gauranga - all the time. Even while he was sleeping, people would just hear 'Gauranga, Gauranga, Gauranga, Gauranga' vibrating from him. Each breath of him changed to Gauranga and he rised in such a divine, spiritual advancement, that even when he died, when he took Samadhi, his whole body was vibrating Gauranga, Gauranga. Gauranga is another aspect of Krishna, who appeared 1500. So just by chanting you are making proper use of your tongue, by reciting the name of God and also you are utilizing the hearing, which will become more fine till you realize the vibration within yourself. So this will lead you to self-realization or God-realization and to attain the love of God completely.

God is sitting in your heart

There are many ways to realize divinity within oneself, like there are many rivers that flow to the same ocean. The main thing is to find the simplest form. The simplier it is, the more you feel free in whatever path, in whatever way you are. That is the best way. I can’t tell you the way you will realize God and that way you will not realize God. God is sitting deep inside the heart of man and you just need to focus your mind on your heart. Try your best at all times to feel Him.

The best way is to start loving, without thinking of loving, without asking the question, “How to love?” Train your mind to focus on God. Train your mind to focus on yourself. By focussing, take any divine name, take any divine aspect. Keep chanting the name. Then you realize that you have become one with this name. It’s not the name apart from you, but it’s the name of your own Self.

The more you think of yourself being human, which many people often think about, the more they become human. But the more you think of yourself being the Spirit, being part of Divinity, the more you will become the Spirit and Divinity.

Swami Vishwananda tells you today,

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!”