Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda...

If you fully believe in yourself, if you fully have trust in yourself, you will fully believe and trust in God. Then of course, the Divine will always help you.

Deep inside in the inner cosmic mind....

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.Whenever you read in any Holy book, the Bible, also the Bhagavad Gita, it is said that Lord Krishna or Jesus went far away in a desert corner or on a higher mountain to sit down and talk with God. However, each one of us, we can also go deep inside of ourselves and raise the vibration in our self, reach to the higher level, and open to the consciousness of God. Let the light flow through you and become the Self and realise it; and know that you are the Self, and that the Self is acting for you. And when the Self is acting for you, for sure everything will be perfect. There is no doubt – with the power of trust you have in the mind.

Let Love fully blossom in your heart .....

When faith is strong, the Love will be much stronger, because when you have complete faith, you are the Lover. And when you are the Lover, the Beloved will always be with you. So, strive for that! Work, so that

Love can fully blossom in your heart; so that your mind can fully be into the Divine; so that the Divine can reveal Himself to you.

When true faith arises in the heart of man, all outside images disappear....

God has created everyone equally. He has placed Himself equally in everybody’s heart. God lives in the form of Love in the hearts of all people. Everyone is an aspect of this Divine Love. Regardless of your religion, be it Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or any other path, this Divine Love connects us all.

Faith is the same everywhere. When true faith arises in the heart of man, all outside images disappear. We have to understand that God doesn’t have any religion; God doesn’t have any caste; God doesn’t have any colour. God is beyond all this. We have to achieve this Oneness with the Divine beyond all diversity on the outside. As long as one looks outside, one will always see the differences between us, and of course, there will never be peace.

My mission is to help mankind realise their own Divine Self and to be able to express it in their day-to-day life. I wish for everyone to open their hearts so that they may experience this unconditional Divine love deep within.

My mission is to spread love. Divine love. The word ‘love’ itself has so many meanings nowadays that people have forgotten the true aspect of love. This unconditional love is what will change the world. All other types of love have expectations. But when one feels this true love inside one’s heart, it’s beyond all expectation. And only with this love can peace be restored.

Swami Vishwananda and Faith

Swami Vishwananda says: "The more faith you have − towards yourself, towards the Divine within you − the more Love there will be. Then you will see how easy spirituality is. You don’t need to run very far. You run just from the mind to the heart. Mahavatar Babaji is always asking:“Why are people wasting time? 

Why don´t they just surrender to Love?” 

Yearning for the Grace of the Divine......

 You have to develop faith, because if you don’t have faith, it’s difficult and faith is this yearning. You have to develop not only faith; you have to transcend faith to yearning. You have to yearn for God. As long as there is no yearning for the Divine, there is always emptiness. Into this emptiness, anything from the outside can fill it. That’s why you have to guard yourself always, otherwise the old one, the old you, will be back. In somebody who lives in the world, you see it very clearly. You see that somebody who lives in the material world, when they don’t have much they complain. They have a little bit, yet they are not happy. They always long for more. This is how the world, the material world functions. It never gives you real happiness, because the more you have, the more you will want to have. So having more, you will still not be happy. This reminds me of a story. There was a man who was passing under a tree and he heard a voice. The voice said “Do you want seven pots of gold?” He looked around, could not find anybody. He said, “OK, let’s try it.” He heard the voice again and the voice said “Go home. Your seven pots of gold are waiting for you.” He reached home very happy and he saw seven pots.  He approached and he looked inside. They were full with gold. Six of them were completely full with gold and the seventh one was only half full. He said “What is that? Why is this one only half full? I have to fill this up.”  What did he do? He took all his savings, changed it into gold and put it in the seventh pot. In spite of doing that, the pot was not full, so he sold all his utensils. He sold all his  furniture. Still the pot was half full. He started working, slaving himself, working very hard night and day to fill the seventh pot. He worked, starving his family. His wife and children were starving, because he tried to fill up the seventh pot with gold. He was getting depressed. He was working at the king’s palace, and one day the king said “What’s your problem?” He said to the king “I would like that you increase my salary. I’m not so happy.” The king said, “Alright, we’ll increase your salary, because you are a good person.” In spite of increasing the salary for a few months, the king saw that he was still unhappy. One day the king called him and said “Tell me, when your salary was low, you were happy, you were content, you were joyful. Now your salary is double, but you look more depressed. You look unhappy. What’s your problem? Have you met the yaksha, the demon of the seven gold pots?” He was shocked that the King could know about that, because he had kept it secret. Then he said “Well, yes.” and the king said, “Well, that’s a big mistake you have made to accept the seven gold pots, because this will never bring happiness, but only sadness and unhappiness. It will bring only misery to your life. Go quickly and return them.” Well he went and returned them. When he returned it, the seventh pot was still only half full. This pot can never be full. You can’t fill it up and it brings misery. When he returned the seventh pot, he lost everything. All his savings, all the money that he had put inside the pot, all was lost, but that’s what humans often do. Life after life, they want to fill the pot of misery. In spite of knowing that this pot will bring their own ruin, they like to play this game, but when you realise that this is bringing misery to you, do you like to play this game, or do you want to change something? You change your life, because you realise that the world we see outside will never bring happiness. Only your spiritual path will bring you this real happiness. On the spiritual path one has to yearn for the Divine. You have not to be superficial, because if you are superficial, you will get only superficial things. When you are sincere from within yourself, you know, with yourself you are sincere and call the Divine, He can’t refuse you. He will run to you.That’s why it is said “Have faith; have faith like a child,” because when the mother says to the child “That’s your sister,” the child, without asking a second question, will believe that. You should believe and have no doubt. That’s what faith makes happen. That’s what this yearning for the Divine makes happen. That’s why it has to grow more and more. It’s not that you ask for something and you don’t get it, so you say “OK, I will change.” Until you are pure at heart, keep trying. Then one will ask the question “How will I know if I am pure at heart?” Well, when you are pure at heart, you will notice the change inside of you. Your attitude, the way you look at things, will be more lovin and calmer, because the old you will have disappeared completely. Keep asking the Divine to give you this Grace and He will.

Let the Divine Love that is inside your heart take control of you......

Yesterday, we were talking about humility and also about the Love of God. Like I said yesterday, many people tell me “Swamiji, it’s very difficult; it’s very difficult to be humble.”    It’s true. Some people told me again today it’s difficult. Actually, all of you want to Realise God and to Realise God one also has to develop the qualities of the Divine. So for God nothing is difficult and everything is possible, but for the human mind, with human limitations, everything is impossible. If you transcend this mind and yourself, everything will be easy. It all depends on how you think of things. If you think it is difficult, it will become difficult. Like I have always said, God is the Creator, but part of this Creator is present inside of us. When we create the barrier and think that it’s difficult, when we become the creator of this big barrier, then it will become difficult. But when we say “Yes, I can transcend everything” we become positive towards ourselves. We develop the qualities and we make it happen. Look, when you want something – let’s say you want to eat something nice – what would you do?  You would do anything to have it. No matter what people think, would you bother about what people think?  No, you just want to have it; you don’t think about what people would think of what you want to eat! Or would you bother about what people think? No, you wouldn’t. If you want to eat something, you will eat it – no matter what! Whatever your neighbour thinks about you, you will not bother about it. So why do you bother about other people, what they think or what they do or how they act? Bother about you! If you develop the qualities, people will learn from you; you will become an example. You are spiritual people, yes? So you have to act in a certain way you have to have the quality of the Divine within you. This quality has to reflect on the outside as well. The quality of the Divine is not to gossip around; the quality of the Divine is not to criticize; the quality of the Divine is not to curse others. No! The quality of God is to Love everybody. No matter what way a child is behaving, a mother always loves the child, no? So if God says “OK my children, you are all very bad, you have acted very badly today. I shall punish all of you” what will happen? Yet, we who call ourselves spiritual, we let these qualities govern us. We forget about our real qualities, the Divine qualities within us. If little by little you get rid of your negativity – firstly, the negativity of the mind – and if the mind is transcended and the mind becomes pure, everything that you do will be pure. There will be no negativity present inside of you. The power of the mind is so great that you will create what you want. That’s why when you read something, instantly you go into the image of that which you are reading. You become identified with that. So what you are reading is very important. If you are reading positive things, you are becoming positive too; you’re creating this positive energy. If we train our mind to be positive at all times, we will create positive things. If we just say “Yes, I want peace in the world. I want to change the world. If little by little you get rid of your negativity – firstly, the negativity of the mind – and if the mind is transcended and the mind becomes pure, everything that you do will be pure. I want to make a big impact on the world,” and when it comes to ourselves, our self is negative, then what in the world do we want to change, when we can’t even change ourselves? If you want to change the world, if you want to have peace in the world, change your mind. When the mind is changed, everything becomes pure. Let me tell you about the power of the mind. You know, a few years ago, some scientists made an experiment about the power of the mind. There was one man who was under a death sentence, so the scientists went to him and said “My dear man, you know very well you will die, so only if you accept, we would like to make a certain experiment with you.” So the man thought for a while and said “Yes, look, I will die anyway, so it doesn’t matter what I do. I will die.” So he agreed. Then the doctors said to him “Listen, before you agree, we will show you how we will kill you.” So they took the man to show him a horse and a snake. The horse was bitten by the snake and the horse started to tremble, to shiver and foam started coming out from his mouth and he died. The man saw that and said “Yeah, well, I will die, whether here like this or in the electric chair, still I will die.”  Maybe it was in Texas, somewhere – probably. So, what happened was, on the day of the sentence, they brought the man to the laboratory. Inside, the man was thinking “Yes, I will be bitten by a snake.” The doctors said to him “We will cover your head.” So they covered the head of the man. The man could not see anything. They took, in place of a snake, a rat. They made the rat bite the man. So what happened?  He died; he died in the same way he saw the horse die. He started to tremble and then the foam started to come out, then he fell down dead. The most amazing thing is, when the doctors analysed his blood, inside of him was no rat venom, but there was the venom of a snake.Such is the power of the mind, that it can change the venom of a rat into the venom of a snake and that it can make the person die in the same way he had seen. So we programme everything the way our mind functions. We can create, also. Like it is said, human beings use only 5% of their brain and the rest is dormant. So imagine if everybody transcended the mind and transformed everything which is negative into Divine wisdom. This can be done only if you become positive.Such is the power of the mind and such is the power that you have to control the mind. But no, we like to listen. Like I always say, I don’t understand one thing about humans, you know, well I am human, also. We like to listen to the mind, we like to suffer and we like to complain. Three good qualities: listening to the mind, enjoying the mind and suffering and complaining – four! You see, God has given the mind to Man for a reason. Of course, each part of the body, each aspect that is inside this body, God has given. He is the master engineer of everything, you know. He is so perfect that He created human beings perfectly. The mind has been given for the right reason and if we use it for the right thing, it will always be constructive. If we use it in a negative way, it will be destructive to ourselves, firstly, and also to others. Each one wants to change, so let’s see. Be positive in your mind and change. Let the Divine Love that is inside your heart take control of you. The more you want this Divine Love, the more the Divine qualities will be present inside of you and the more you will feel the Love of God. You will feel how much He loves you. Look, when a child makes a mistake, of course, the mother will slap the child – a small slap – but the mother’s heart stays the mother’s heart, no matter how many mistakes you make. His heart also stays the same, even if sometimes He has to slap you a little bit. When you sit down with God and talk to Him, you will see. He will say “I slapped you, but my Love inside is stronger for you.” Look, when a mother beats a child, what happens? The mother showers more love afterwards. So no matter what comes along the way, even a small slap, you know, later on His Love will be much more and in more abundance. It’s for your own good!

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda...

God is ever-present, every moment. Any time wherever we are, whenever we need Him, He is here. He’s just here in your heart!

Have faith that what you are hearing within your heart is true...

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.

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.

“Blessed is the one who believes without seeing”

Whenever you pray and you expect, saying, “Ok, I will pray to the Lord now. Probably He’s happy with me and He will come to me.” But He is happy with you, you know, whether you see Him or whether you don’t see Him. Whether you see Him or not, He is there! The moment you close your eyes and call for the Lord in any of His forms, He is there and He hears each prayer. Whether you see Him or not, He is there. This reminds me of what Christ said, “Blessed is the one who believes without seeing”.

He hears everything and, above all, He knows when to give you what you’re praying for and when you are ready. When you will be able to handle it, He will give it to you.

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.

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

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.

Faith and Willpower

“Our Mother Earth is the most beautiful planet in the whole universe, not only in our solar system, but everywhere else.” What is so special about her within the whole universe – the universes – is that all the other planets and all the other spheres, they are governed by only one or two elements. As you all know, we have five elements, Earth has all the five elements in Her. That’s what makes Her special. All that is coming out of Her, which is everything that we can see, is made up of these five elements. Even our body, which we took from this earth plane, is made up of these five elements, so we are part of this creation. We are part of Her. It’s sad to see nowadays, how people behave, how people think. This creates a great impact on her, our thinking. It’s so easy to become negative, but very difficult to become positive. I have met many people who ask how to change that. You see, if we analyse how quickly we can change ourselves, that means that inside us we have a very great power. We have a great energy that can change from minute to minute, from second to second, from positive to negative from negative to positive. Why does one get stuck in the space of negativity? Do you think this brings positivity to you? No, it doesn’t. When it doesn’t bring positivity to you, it also affects nature. When nature gets affected, it affects this world, the surroundings that we are in. One person can change a lot. You have seen it in the past what the negativity of one person could do. One person in India – take the example of Ghandi – just one person’s positivity can change a lot also. So imagine, if inside of yourself you can change so quickly and change also not only you, but you can influence the outside and change the outside, then imagine if you become positive, how much it will contribute to Mother Earth, how much it will contribute to Prakriti, to Mother Nature – a lot! For that positivity – if you look at it both ways – I have given you two examples. I don’t want to mention the names, but in these two examples, one which is negative and one which is positive, what has made them really able to change the world? It’s amazing! Both of them are amazing. This is because of the full trust they had in what they wanted. In both ways, each one thought they were doing good, but the intensity of how much they believed in what they were doing, that is what brought the changes. This intensity is present in each one of us, but in place of making us more positive and more trusting in ourselves or making us stronger in our own will, what do we do? We make ourselves weak. Of course, when one becomes weak, one can’t expect what’s around them to be different. It’s like with one’s body – if the hand gets hurt, doesn’t it affect all the body? It does! You feel the pain everywhere. It becomes a handicap that you can’t use the hand because it hurts. Just the same Imagine if you become positive, how much it will contribute to Mother Earth, how much it will contribute to Prakriti, to Mother Nature – a lot! Your positivity can influence everything. One influences firstly oneself – one influences the mind, the body, the spirit. From that, one influences one’s surroundings and the surroundings will also influence nature and nature will balance itself. It’s simple! Well, I can say it’s simple. That’s what many will say “Well, it’s easy for you to say it is simple!” Like I said, it takes everybody together. We want peace in this world, we want peace in ourselves, we want to be happy, we want to make the world happy, so then we have to change. Nobody can change us, only we can change ourselves. It’s not what I am saying that will change you. No, only when you say to yourself “I want to change” with intensity, with full belief in yourself, then you will change. When you change, it will affect your surroundings. It will affect you; it will change you.

Through the grace of God.....

Paramahansa Ramakrishna used to say “The ones who consider themselves wise, are not wise, and the ones who consider themselves not wise are the wisest.” You see, you have to understand the truth that is behind this. Let’s take for example Moses himself. He didn’t have knowledge of anything, but he had the grace of God. Through the grace of God his mission was revealed to him, his dharma was revealed to him. Through the grace of God his way was revealed to him and through the grace of God he attained a very high degree of spirituality. Similarly, know one thing, that whatever happens in your life, you can make an effort, yes. But count not on your effort, count always on the grace of God. Like that, all that you will do will be blessed. All that you will do will be perfect, because it is not you who will do it, not as you in the form of pride and ego. This is how very often when men are focused, they try their very best. They try their maximum, but yet nothing happens without the grace of God. This is one little hint for you that will help you in releasing your pressure that you put on yourself. For example, there are so many great saints, great yogis, ascetics, which are meditating from morning until evening, they meditate in the Himalayas, no? They have become great ascetics through many years of penance, through many years of prayer and chanting divine names, and yet, they are still far away, whereas a simple person from a village, Moses for example, who comes from nowhere, He just takes him and says “OK, you will do this mission for me.” Like that, if you look at the life of Saints, they were not knowledgeable people, but they had the grace of God with them. Through that they have complete trust in the Divine that whatever the Divine is doing for them is for their own benefit and is for their own good. So if God has called you on to this way, if God or your soul has revealed your path to you and you feel this love, this unconditional love inside of you, then hold tight, no matter what, hold tight, be strong! When you make yourself strong, the Divine will give you more energy so that you become even stronger. So never cease to practice, never cease to ask the Divine for help. Make yourself ready, and remind yourself always of the love for God – wherever you are, whatever you do. Like that you will become Love. What is someone who is enlightened? We talk about enlightenment, no? Or self-realisation, what is that? Can somebody tell me? Tell me please, don’t be shy! (someone: “Remembering who we are.”) Yes, remembering who you are. Not only remembering, realise who you are! What is this word “realising” who you are? Enlightenment, who is the light? The Divine, no? Enlightenment means you are radiating the Divine Light, when you start radiating the Divine Light, you become enlightened.

When the mind is in a calm state, when the mind doesn’t bother you, and the pride is not there, you are like a white cloth, no? The Divine is like a golden cloth.

What happens when the white cloth is brought closer to the golden cloth? Automatically the white cloth will start to reflect the golden cloth, no? The golden colour, the same thing, the more you advance towards the Divine, the more you do your effort to advance towards the Divine, the more the Divine will move closer to you. The closer he moves to you, the more his reflection will be on you. Then you become also Divine, then you realise this Divinity – the Divinity which you are already. Then you start to radiate it, you start to reflect it, you start to let it go into action. So whenever tests come, don’t fall into them, be strong. Whenever you feel you are down, know that you are not alone. The Divine is much closer than you think.

The Chance to transform ourselves......

When you start searching for the truth of your Self, then you disengage yourself from that grief of Maya, but as you know very well, it is not an easy task. It’s not something that is very easy to do at all. Everybody would like to, lots of spiritual people would like to, but only a few succeed. Why? Because their determination is weak. If your determination for the Divine is strong, nothing can move you, but if your determination is weak, then you will be weak, because you make yourself weak, like I said before. If you fully believe in yourself, if you fully have trust in yourself, you will fully believe and trust in God. Then of course, the Divine will always help you.You have the Shakti inside of you. You have this power inside of you and if you work on it, you will intensify it, but of course Maya will make you more dense. Remembering this is great. When you all remember your Mother, remember also this Divine Shakti which is inside of you – the Shakti, which, without it, you would not even be here. Without the Shakti, without this power, you would not even be able to blink your eyes. Be grateful for life and really try. I don’t say to do it, but try it at least, by yourself to see certain things that you have to transform in your life. Know that you have the power to transform them only when you fully believe in yourself. If you fully believe in yourself, if you fully have trust in yourself, you will fully believe and trust in God. Then of course, the Divine will always help you. There is so much help around, but like this famous saying says “Help yourself; Heaven will help you.” You know about this? You have to make the first effort and then of course, you will receive the help.

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

It is said that Rama Himself didn´t know the power of His own Name. Once Rama was with Hanuman and all the monkeys and they tried to build a bridge between India and Sri Lanka. They did their best. They would go near the lake carrying big, big stones and they would throw them into the sea, thinking that it would fill up, and they could walk across. Every time that they did that, the stone would, of course, sink. Then Ram decided “Let me, also, go and put a stone.” So He went, took a stone and put it in the sea. He thought that if He put it in, it would float, but the moment the stone left His hand, it sank deep in the water. So He called Hanuman: “Hanuman, come here for one minute. You know, I don´t understand one thing. It is said that by singing my name the people will get liberation, but here, look, I can´t even make a stone float, because at the moment I put the stone on the water it sinks.” You know, Hanuman is considered as the Ocean of Wisdom, so He said to Rama “My Lord, with all my respect to You, I don´t want to offend You, but I will tell you something. It is not Your fault, because the point is, as long as the stone is in Your hand, the stone will float, it is in safety; but the moment the stone leaves Your hand, it will sink, of course!” That’s why, as a solution, Hanuman wrote on each stone the Name of Rama and so they floated.

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

Someone asked me to ask Mahavatar Kriya Babaji to come and bless you all, and I said to him, “Do you want me to get beaten by him afterwards?” This reminds me of a story: Sri Lahiri Mahasaya didn’t believe too much in gurus and all that stuff in the beginning. After he met Babaji, his life changed completely. One day his friends were talking very badly about gurus and saints, saying all these gurus, all these saints are just always cheating people. Lahiri got a bit angry, thinking, “No, I know one real guru who is not like that. I can prove it to you!” Babaji had given him a special mantra so that whenever he was in need, he could call upon him, and he will come, even physically – but in need!

To prove that he was right, he asked to be closed in a room. Inside the room he was praying, crying, calling Babaji. Finally Babaji appeared and said, “Yes, what do you want?” He said, “You know, my friends don’t believe, so I want to prove it to them.” Then Babaji told him off by saying, “No, you should not do that. If they don’t believe, it’s their problem! You should never force anybody to believe anything.” Then he said to him, “OK, don’t do that. I will come to you whenever it’s needed. I myself, I will come to you.” Then Sri Lahiri Mahasaya was very clever, and he said, “As you are already here now, can you please bless all of them?” And he was so much filled with love, and so sincere, that Babaji could not refuse. Then he opened the door and everybody could see Mahavatar Babaji. And Babaji came out with them and he even ate and drank with them, and blessed all of them and then he disappeared again.

It is upon yourself to call for all devas, they can come if you really call from deep within your heart.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda

You need faith like a child, because when you look at a child, a child doesn’t ask questions. It’s true! You go to a child and you say, “Listen my dear, that boy is your brother”. The child will not say “Yes, mother” or “No, mother” or “Why it is like that?” No, he will just accept it, because the mother has said “Yes, this child is your brother”, because she knows it! This confidence in the mother, you know, is there! And that self-confidence you should have.

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

There was once a Rabbi. He was giving his discourse, his lecture and as he was talking to his students, there was a line which said “The one who is close to the Divine, the one who is close to God, to Jahwe, is the one who smiles in the midst of difficulties.” Then his students stopped him and said “Professor, Mr. Rabbi, reverent Sir, can you please explain us how it is possible that we can smile in times of difficulties? The Rabbi said “Well, it's very difficult to answer this question, because when there are difficulties, I, myself forget where the smile is gone. I forget how to smile." It’s true: our mind is so engrossed into negativity, that we forget the reality. Saying so, he said “It’s very difficult for me to tell you how to smile in times of difficulties or in times of great tests. But I know one person in the village, who has gone through so many trials in his life. When he was just one week old, he lost his parents. Then later on in life, in everything that he did, he didn’t succeed, but he was always very joyful and smiling.” So they went to that person, knocked at the door, and an answer came “Who is it?”. The students said, “Oh, we are the students of the Rabbi, we came to ask you certain questions.” He replied“Tell me what questions do you have?” Then they said “Oh we came across this line in the Bible that said ‘The one, who is closest to God, smiles in the midst of difficulties’”. The man answered “Well you have come to the wrong address, because I am 78 years old. Yet I don’t know what difficulties are, so I can’t tell you how to smile in it.”

So, know how close you are to the Divine, the difficulties transcend itself. How much your mind is focussed on the Divine or on your true Self. Everybody wants to attain this true Self, no? But everybody wants to attain the true Self only by being good. You don’t need to be good. You don’t need to pretend to be good. You just need to be yourself. Even if people think that you are bad, you have to know how you are.