Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda....

There are so many beautiful flowers; it is so beautiful for the physical eyes, isn’t it? But it is much more beautiful to see with the inner eyes. The light that shines through all these flowers, all around you – this is the Truth. Each particle reflects the light of God – this is the Truth. And this Truth is accessible for everybody. There is not any dogmatic thinking in it. It is free. The only thing is that you need to take a little bit of time to be able to see it. That is up to you. Nobody else can do it for you. You have the grace of the master; you have the grace of God. It is up to you if you want to let go of the power of your mind and gradually achieve the heart. You don’t need to do much; you don’t need to force yourself. 

In silence is everything.......

On the spiritual path, the utmost thing that we have to do is to control our mind. We say to watch our thoughts. What is a thought? A thought is an image. A thought is a creation.  Why is it said that we have to watch our thoughts; because most of the time our thoughts make us negative. We have to watch them and have them under control – very often it’s quite difficult. Our thoughts make us who we are, because we always run behind them. A few days ago there was a reading in the chapel where there was a saying from St. Silouan of Mount Athos that said “Let your thoughts be in hell, but you rejoice in the Divine.” I will comment

a little bit on that. Nowadays, the moment you see your thoughts running to hell, you are all running with the thoughts to hell. Your thoughts are jumping, jumping and jumping and then boom – there they go. You are also jumping behind them and doing the same, throwing yourself after them. When we watch ourselves, we see that very often we like to speak out what we have in our minds. We like to tell  everybody how great

we are. We like to publicise ourselves and say “Oh, I have seen that light, I have seen this and I have seen that. I have felt this and I have felt that.” Why? It is to feed that thought, so that the thought can become bigger. It’s like when you analyse a reptile. A reptile can be very soft, very easy, going its way, but the moment it falls in a pit, it will try it’s best to come out. The moment the reptile comes out of that pit, it will be more aggressive than ever. This is how our thoughts are also. The moment we let it out, it’s infamed with this vigorous power, saying “Yes, I am out.” Like Christ said “It’s not what goes inside the person that makes them polluted, but what comes out of the person.” In the Gita it says “A controlled mind is your best friend,

but an uncontrolled mind is your worst enemy.” Like I said, the way we think is the way we are. There was once a great sadhu in a great ecstasy, in Divine ecstasy. He fell down in the middle of the road; he was in samadhi. A few hours later, a thief was passing by. He saw the sadhu on the road and he thought “This must be a thief who has been stealing last night. Now he is tired; he is just resting. The policeman will come and get him.” Then he went away. Next came a drunkard. He saw the sadhu lying down and said “Oh, you have fallen down. You have drunk too much. Look at me; I am still standing.” Then he went his way. The third person who came was another sadhu. When he saw the other sadhu lying on the street, he knew that he was in samadhi. He sat down near him and started to  massage his legs. This shows how our mind functions. We will always see what we have inside of ourselves. Christ has said: Don’t judge your brothers. Don’t try to find fault in your brother when you have the same in yourself. Don’t try to remove the splinter in the eye of your brother, when you have a big pole in your eye. Firstly, we have to control our thoughts. Prayer and continuous remembering of the Divine help us to control our mind. Tey help us to bring our mind, which is always running, into calm, into silence. Through silence, the thoughts will disappear. If your thought is negative and you let it out, all around you everything becomes negative. There will be nothing positive. But if you keep this thought inside, through prayer and through inner silence, it will dissolve. But no, we like so much to express ourselves, to express our thoughts. You can;  I won’t say “No, don’t do it”, but first, master it, then you can express it. If you silence yourself completely, if you silence your mind, you will receive everything. You will not even need to ask. You will receive, because God is merciful. He is the all-knowing, so do you think you really have to ask Him? How many of you think that we have to ask Him? Most people think that we do have to always ask, ask and ask. We never finish our asking. Our asking is endless, but what are we asking for? We are always asking for something “Give us this, give us that; give us this and that.” Very often our asking is so limited that it’s never finished. You are right that we have to ask, but we have to really know what to ask.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

                      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.

“Swamiji, you talk about humility, but how do we cultivate it?”

Very often we see masters high up and people say “Oh, they are very high”. We are here to serve. It’s not you who are serving the Master, but the Master who is serving you, all the time. Whether you know it or you don’t know it, it’s the Master that is serving you. The Masters don’t come here for themselves. They come to lift you all up. So taking the example of the life of saints, taking the example of the life of great ones, we learn a lot; we learn how to develop selfless Love, unconditional Love and humility. People will say “Swamiji, you talk about humility, but how do we cultivate it?” It’s so simple, I tell you, really. It’s the simplest thing that you can do. Love is there, in the heart, but humility is in the mind. How will we make this mind, which is so ferocious - this big beast - how will we make this mind humble? We always say that it’s our mind, but we don’t say we are the mind, do we? Or do we say we are the mind? No! The truth

is that the mind is something apart from man. Man is the master of the mind. Man is the master of all the negative qualities that emerge from the mind, but illusion is so great that it seems that they are the master. We need to remind the mind continuously who is the master to build up humility. It’s not that I am telling you to flagellate yourself every time you have a thought, no, but flagellate the mind with the Divine Names. Always remind the mind that it’s God that does everything. He’s the cause of everything. Every thought is Him. Remind the mind continuously. Whenever the mind becomes negative, say “Mind, it’s not you, it’s only the Lord himself”. It’s only God. If God didn’t allow you to think, where would you get the power to think? In the Gita, Krishna said, “If the Lord didn’t allow the leaves to move, the leaves would not move”. Even if there was a great wind blowing, the leaves would not move. Such is the power. So if He who governs everything is inside each one of you, he’s seated in each one’s heart equally! So how can we forget about Him? So train the mind to remember that it is not this pride; it is not this big ‘I’ - which is the ego - the ‘me’, ‘myself’, you know. Transcend this pride and say “God, it’s You”, and continuously talk to Him. Whether you have an answer, whether you hear from Him or not, it doesn’t matter. Deep inside know that He’s listening. From time to time He will give you a hint. From time to time, He will give you a sign in the outside that he’s listening. Rejoice in this sign; look at this sign and say “Yes, He’s with me.” But, don’t let pride rise inside of you. If you are spiritual, on the spiritual path, and you want to realise God, let go of pride. Pride will attack everybody: whether a saint or not. Pride will be there, but the saint knows how to have pride under control, you know.  And such is this huge pride that if we let this pride control us, it will take left and right, left and right. Then, there’s no control. So when you have control over it and say “God is the Master”, Love will generate. Love will grow. And you will see that there is love that you always say with pride and then Love which will be a different kind of love that you will experience: Unconditional Love. This is the same way the Divine loves, you know? This Love you will experience, because you are part of the Divine. The Divine is seated in each one of you. So, if He can love like that, you also can love the same way. If He can live in humility: even Christ, you know, He was so humble that He even accepted the cross; Krishna was so humble as to be the charioteer of Arjun. If they are so humble, these Divine incarnations, you know, these Avatars, great Maha Avatars, who are we not to be humble? We have to be more humble than them. It’s true that they have everything, yet they’re humble!

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about.....

You all know the story of Krishna, how He was born, so I will

not tell the whole story again. He says in the Gita about His plan to manifest Himself: “Yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srjamy aham”...which means that whenever there is a decline, whenever there will be anything terrible happening in the world, He will manifest Himself. Of course, the Lord always manifests Himself, but in the minds of the people, they want a big manifestation, a bang, but He is everywhere.

“What is the true way, the true path that I should follow?” ...

“What is the true way, the true path that I should follow?” All paths have beautiful truth in them. All religions have beautiful truth. Truth is when we believe, but it does not mean that one has to be dogmatic. Actually, the greatest truth is in each one of you. And this truth is that you are all a part of God. This truth is above all the religions and all colours and casts. You are a part of God. You are the child of God. And you can reflect the light of God. It is beyond all conceptions of the mind. In this truth everyone is free, and this is the truth that mankind has always to remember.

With the truth in your heart, when it opens up, one sees beyond what the physical eyes can see. There are so many beautiful flowers; it is so beautiful for the physical eyes, isn’t it? But it is much more beautiful to see with the inner eyes. The light that shines through all these flowers, all around you – this is the Truth.

Each particle reflects the light of God – this is the Truth. And this Truth is accessible for everybody.

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.

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us a story .....

Once, in a town there was a shoemaker. He would make his shoes while chanting God’s name all the time. Whenever he would go to sell the shoes in the town, in the market, he was very sincere. He would tell the people, “Look, I bought the leather for 1€ by God’s Grace. I bought the nails for a few cents and I made a profit of 2 € on it and altogether it cost 5 €, by God’s Grace”. So, he was so sincere. In everything that he was doing, his mind was centred on God and he was accepting everything as God’s Grace. So the people saw this innocence and this love that he had for God and without any bargaining, they would buy the shoes. So it happened one day that, during the night, while he was sitting in his courtyard and he could not sleep, some robbers came and took him with them - they just kidnapped him. And after kidnapping him, they went to another house to rob it. When the owner of the house heard noises, the thieves left the man in the middle, with all the jewellery that they had stolen and they ran away. When the owner saw this innocent man with lots of things from his house, he said, “It’s impossible,” but as he saw that the man had all the jewellery with him, he doubted and he said, “Let me call the police”. He called the police, the police put the man - the shoemaker - in prison and the next day he was brought in front of the judge. And in front of the judge he said, “By the Grace of God, yesterday night I could not sleep. By the Grace of God I went outside of the house and, while I was sitting there, by the Grace of God some robbers came and kidnapped me. And, by the Grace of God, this man found me. And, by the Grace of God, he thought that I came to steal in his house. And, by the Grace of God, I am here”. But, seeing the innocence also, the judge said, “This man is not the one who has stolen. He has spoken the truth”. While coming out of the court, the shoemaker said to his friend, “It is by the Grace of God that I came out”. This shows that, very often, when we do things, we take everything for granted. We forget that behind all our actions, behind all that is happening, there is God’s Grace. And if we start seeing it in this way, we will be very happy. We will find peace in everything.

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.

He’s neither male nor female.......

Someone asked me “Swamiji, why do you always say God as Him?” God is also Her, but in the world we always use words which have limits. God is beyond all these things, like Narayana for example. He takes the appearance of Mohini Devi or Shakti when He has to show that He’s beyond this duality. He’s neither male nor female. He’s beyond this concept. He loves everybody equally, but in the mind of Man there is this concept, there is this duality. As long as we think of this duality, we’ll have the duality, but if we think of ourselves as being the Spirit, like Christ said, we will become this Spirit. This is what you have to identify yourself as. The more you identify yourself with the body, the more you limit yourself. The more you identify yourself as the Spirit, as this droplet of the ocean, the more your longing will be to be back in the ocean. I guess that’s what all of you want, no? It has to be a “Yes” from within. It’s not about how loud it is. You can scream “Yes!!” or whatever, but if you don’t mean it, it will not happen. Somebody can be quiet, but when he’s meaning it inside, it will help.