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. 

We are so busy with what we see outside.......

Discipline helps us to calm our mind, because when the mind is very agitated on the spiritual path, we can’t concentrate. We can’t really focus ourselves on our heart. So even if you want to focus yourself on your heart, your mind is jumping, jumping, jumping. So we do our Sadhana. We chant, we practice Yoga or we do Om Healing or Atma Kriya to calm the mind. It helps that we can listen more clearly to ourselves and realize the Divine within ourselves. Not just tell somebody “Just do your Sadhana and meditate and you will attain God"... It’s true: If one is sincere towards oneself, one will attain God, because God will come to that person and will manifest Itself, the heart will manifest itself. But yet we look at the world and ask “How many people really are sincere towards themselves in that way?” We are so busy with what we see outside, what we think. We want to always analyze everything with our mind, that we give so much less importance to the heart, even when we know that “Yes, we have to be in the heart, but we see how dominant our mind is."So without saying “Yes, I want really strongly to follow, I want to change and I want really to attain my goal, it's difficult.”We can outside say “Yes, yes, yes I want this”, but inside we say “Wow, it’s far away”. As long as you see this distance and are discouraged, you will not enjoy your practice. It doesn’t matter how big the distance is. Keep trying. And never loose hope.

If you silence your mind completely, you will receive everything......

What do you think we can ask from God? If He said what He wants from you, would you be able to give it?

Actually, let’s ask Him one thing – to purify our thoughts, help us to go beyond the thoughts and help us to go beyond the mind. That’s it. When you have gone beyond it, it will be very easy. To go beyond it is the most difficult part where everybody gets stuck, because the mind is very active. We see it every day in whatever we do, our thoughts are always in front of us. At the beginning, when you were always with the Divine, how was your thought? It was always focused on God. There was not a second when it was diverted to limited things, like a Mercedes, but nowadays, how many people’s thoughts and minds are on God – only a few. If you consider the amount of people living on Earth, how many people do you suppose are thinking of God – very few, a handful. The rest are thinking how they will get a Mercedes, how they will get this and how they will get that. They will even pray “God, get me this.” As the Mataji said, God also says “Yes? What can I do for you?” We must be prepared to make only the appropriate request. It is through prayer, through japam, through meditation, that we learn to control our thoughts, but the best of all is through silence. Pray, chant your  mantra and silence yourself. Feel the mantra inside of you. When you chant the name of God, don’t just say, Narayana or Durga or Babaji. It’s not just the name. They are not simple names, you know? These names create a vibration and even when you are not aware, it’s still vibrating. The main thing is you have to be aware of that vibration inside of you. You have to feel that each part of your body is vibrating these Divine Names. You can really feel it and really know it only when you are in silence. Silence doesn’t mean that you have to stop your work and say “I sit in silence and that’s it – finished!” No, silence means that whatever you are doing, you stay calm and you control the tongue. The body is made of 206 bones and they say that wherever there are bones, we can control them, but the tongue is not made of bones, so we have to learn to control it. If this tongue can chant the Divine Names all the time, you will be able to control it. When you have controlled the tongue, you will be able to control your mind. 

If you silence your mind completely, you will receive everything. You will not even need to ask.

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.

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.

Love is a Great Teacher.....

There are four kinds of yoga – Bhakti yoga, Jnana yoga, Karma yoga and Raja yoga. Any of these four kinds of yoga, can lead someone towards Self-realisation. What is karma yoga? Selfless service – some will also say working. But that is just the karma not the yoga. Karma yoga is selfless service, selfless help. What is this selfless service? People do a lot of service, but selfless service is very rare. There is this part in the bible, where Christ said “When your right hand gives, your left hand should not know”– it is better you cut your left hand and throw it away. Selfless service means, that when you render service, you have to forget about it, the moment you have rendered this service. Does the mind forget about it? Very rarely. You see, when one does service, there is always an expectation. Even the expectation of “thank you,” or “thanks.” When one doesn’t get a “thank you” he becomes very upset, thinking “I have helped that person, but yet he didn’t even thank me for that!” But selfless service is not like that – when you render service, forget about everything. Deep inside of you, you are rendering service to the Divine, but you don’t expect the pride of knowing that you are rendering service to the Divine, to rise. So erase completely the expectations of the mind – and that is selfless service.

The next yoga is Bhakti yoga, which is considered one of the easiest yoga. In bhakti, the first step you make but in that form of yoga, the first step that you make, the Lord makes ten steps towards you. You know your goal in life. In karma yoga, you have to walk towards that goal, you have to climb to the peak of that mountain. In Bhakti yoga, you are flying towards that mountain with a helicopter. Then, the third yoga is Raja yoga. Raja yoga is divided into many forms of yoga. That’s where your spiritual exercises come, like Atma Kriya, Hatha yoga; all these yoga fall into the Raja yoga. In Rajayoga you come to the point where you go into Samadhi. If you do your sadhana sincerely, when you do your spiritual practice sincerely, you come to the point of the samadhi state. What is the state of Samadhi? I said there is a mountain; in the first one you have to walk up there, in the second one you fly there and the third one, you don’t even need to carry your body. By will, you are there. Many great saints or sages have reached that point, where they could be in many places at once with this will. Like Christ – a man wanted Him to heal his servants and he said “Lord come to me, to my house, You shall heal my servant.” Christ said “Go home, your servant is healed.” This is the state, where you have touched the cosmic consciousness; you realise the infinite of your true Self. The last yoga is Jnana yoga. I will ask you; what is Jnana yoga? – tell me please – (someone: knowledge, knowing who you are). Yes, knowledge. The knowledge of the Self. But real Jnana yoga; very often people think that Jnana yoga can be found in books or one may find it or by practising, but real Jnana yoga is to have the wisdom, not just to know it, but to have the wisdom, that what you are looking for is that the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. With these four forms of yoga, anyone can attain Self-realisation or God-realisation. Each one is free to follow whichever path of yoga one wants to.

The main aim is to awaken this Divine Love, because without Love, you will not do anything. The key of all of these four kinds of yoga, is just the Love, the core of the heart. A love which consumes everything, a Love which will liberate you.

A teacher is not here just to give you good things, he has to teach you.

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

The world, however we look at it, is always on the move. When we take time and calmly we look at ourselves; when we look at human beings, they are constantly on the move. Even sitting here, they are far away, somewhere else, you know. They are sitting here, they are listening, but the mind is somewhere else, doing something else. So, how can there be peace, when one is not in peace within oneself, when one can’t take five minutes to sit down here and bring the body, mind and spirit here, in the same spot? And yet, human beings are looking for peace. So, to have this peace, one has to learn to calm oneself. It’s like everything else. You see, if you want your child to study, what do you do? You make the child sit and then you make the child study, no? First you have to make the child sit down, then study. In the same way, without an effort from you, without disciplining yourself and sitting down and practising your sadhana, it’s difficult to find real peace. With everything else, today you have something, but you don’t know tomorrow if you will have it or not. It’s the same thing with real peace, you know: if you have attained real peace, once you have it, you will have it always. It’s the same thing with Love, real Love I’m talking about, pure Love. Once you have realised it, you will always have it with you.

"Only when you are wholly directed towards Him, He will turn wholly towards you."

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us today......

In the life of Rama, Rama wanted to cross over the ocean to go to Lanka to get Sita.
So He fasted for many days, prayed to Varuna, the Ocean God and said “Clear the way, that we can pass.”
But after three days still the Sea God has not appeared.
This angered Lakshmana, the brother of Rama.
He was short-tempered.
And the same Lakshmana has incarnated as Balarama.
So he took his arrow and said to the Ocean “Ocean, I will dry you up.”
Rama saw that and rushed to His brother, saying“Brother what are you doing? My dear brother, I will tell you something, what you are trying to do right now is to kill Maya by Maya, but it’s impossible.
You can’t remove illusion by illusion.
What you see here is an illusion and how would you kill illusion by illusion?”
So how to remove illusion is only by God’s name and spiritual practices.

So if you wanna start to recite the Divine Name, you will find here a nice Bhajan.......

A Story about the grace of God

Once a student went to his Guru and said: “Master, I am troubled.”
The master stood right in front of him and came very near to his face and said: “Why do you hang on the illusion?
You know, whatever is in this mind is an illusion, why do you hang on that.
You know very well that deep inside of you only God resides. Why you don’t find joy inside of this?”
Then the master said: “My dear child, recite for 24 hours nonstop your Guru mantra* and meditate intensely for four hours and you will conquer the mind.”
Of course the grace of the Guru was there.
The same way the grace of God is also with you.

* A Guru Mantra is a special and powerful Mantra which is given by the Sadguru and which should not be talked about or given to other persons.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda......

By receiving the blessing – prana hooti, it’s called – you are receiving and activating the light within you. That’s what I can do for you; the rest is up to you. I can take the food, crush it to puree and put it in your mouth, but I can’t swallow it for you. I will be happy to do it for you, you know? But this part is up to each one of you. Your question will be, “We keep trying, yet nothing happens?” But what I said before, remember that – I said if you try with an expectation, it can never happen. You have to empty your mind completely. The thought will pass by, let it pass – don’t feed it. You are not the mind, you are not the thought; you are more than that.

You are the child of God. You are part of the Divine creation. So make this your achievement. Make this your goal in life. Wherever you are, remind yourself of this goal. Whenever you think that you are doing something wrong or you’re acting in the wrong way, close your eyes, drop inside, deep inside your heart and ask the Self and then listen to it. Only when your mind is quiet will you hear the heart talking to you. So keep practicing, I always say it, and I will keep saying it – maybe every time you come for darshan you will hear the same thing. As long as you don’t practice it properly I will keep saying it, I will bore you with it, because I would love all of you to reach Divinity. I want all of you to realise the love of God that is inside you, not only that – I want all of you to become an instrument of this love, you know, and share it around. Bring it to everybody. You don’t need to go and hug the person or whatever to share the love of God – just by the reflection of your face, this light will be passed on wherever you go; this light will be continuously with you.

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

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!”

It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? When your heart is pure. When your heart is purified from all the negativity that we, ourselves, have created, we will shine the light of God! So meditate and sing the name of God, sing “I am love!” Always! If your mind or your heart is troubled, sing it loudly with your tongue. That will calm the mind. Recite it firstly with your mouth, then with the mind until it reaches the heart and it is recited continuously by itself.

Swami Vishwananda tells you today:

Doing our daily Sadhana is also to self-analyse us and our day. Sadhana is not only to be practiced morning, but the whole day. At night before you go to bed, just sit down and reflect on the day. What you have done good and what you have not done good. Because what you have done good will bring joy to you and what you have not done good leaves a trace of uncalmness inside of you, because you try to rectify it. When God sees that you are trying to rectify it, He will help you through His grace and love. He will remove all the pride and ego that you have, because He is merciful. We say God is merciful. And as He is merciful, He will give you what you ask for. But only as long as you know what you are asking, because some times you are asking for something, that will put you in trouble. So know what you are asking for.

Swami Vishwananda tells you today:

"Sometimes some people asked the question “Why do we have to go to temples? Why do we have to go to prayers to pray?”
This is also a part of Sadhana. This is also why we go to pilgrimage places. These are places where all the energies are gathered in one place.
When you go to prayer or when you go to spiritual places, to holy places, you are always going to gain something. You are profiting from all the prayers, all the vibrations, which have been collected in that place. When you go there your sadhana gets amplified. It becomes more intense and more powerful. It’s the same thing: Let's say you sit down on a place everyday. The same spot, the same time, so you build up certain energy. You chant the same Mantra, the energy gets build up. Don’t think that when you get up from that place the energy is dissipated. The energy is always there. It’s solely defined at that place."