We create the illusion of being free......

We forget that if the mind could fathom God, we would not be slaves of the mind. But yet, we let ourselves be ruled by this mind. We don’t have it under control. We are never free, but yet we create the illusion of being free. We think about ourselves being the best. But yet, how will we find God? How will we find the Lotus Feet of the Lord, if we are so filled with this pride inside? Only with humbleness will one find Him, but not in the mind. You say to yourself, “Yes, I’m humble, I’m humble,” but it has to be here, within yourself, inside of you. When you think to yourself, “Yes, everybody is greater than me” you can learn things. There are so many things that you can learn. But, how many like to learn? Not so many. It is said that in this world there are four kinds of people: the one who is attached to the world, the one who is looking for freedom, the one who is ever free and the one who is liberated–well, actually, liberated, then ever free. These four kinds of people make this world, and where is each one situated in it? Are we trying to be liberated? Are we liberated? We can’t be ever free, because the ever free is only the Lord Himself. And, of course, whenever He manifests Himself, He’s ever free. He’s not bound by any law of karma, like people are, but yet, you see how humble He is: for Prahlad he killed Hiranyakashipu. The Lord manifested Himself into a form here, in this level, to show the greatness of devotion, how important the devotion of His bhakta is. The Lord limits Himself for his devotee. So, the Lord is ever free to take whatever form, wherever He wills it, but yet we fight. We say, “Ours is the best; yours is not,” forgetting that He’s the Lord. He has created everything and He’s not bound in the way people are bound with the mind. There’s this beautiful story that shows these four categories of humans. When a fisherman throws his net in the sea, the ever free will never get caught in the net. The fisherman can try as much as possible, but they are too wise for that. When the net of Maya is cast, the rest of them, the other three, get caught in it - the one who is attached, the one who is liberated and the one who is on the way to liberation. The one who is searching for liberation is like a fish caught in the net. The ones who are trying their best to be liberated see the net and they try their best to jump out of the net, but yet, they don’t succeed. They try and try and try and they can’t. But the liberated ones, they will jump out of the net, and then they will go! And the fisherman says, “Look at this big fish, he’s going away.” And the ones who are caught in the net are like the fish that don’t even try their best to come out. They don’t do anything. They think that, “Yes, I will be saved; let me go down deep in the mud and hide myself” but yet, forgetting that the net is caught in the mud. They will go and hide, forgetting that when the fisherman pulls the net, they will be also caught. They will come out inside the net. So, such are they who are caught in the world outside, who don’t even try their best to realise why they are here. They don’t even try and do something. They don’t even want to think about it, because they think, “Life is beautiful; let’s enjoy it!” Enjoy for how long-ten years, twenty years? They’re getting old; time is running on! And we don’t realise that, you know. We don’t realise that one day there will come a time where we will look at life and say, “What have I done?” We have danced in the routine all the time, every day. We have danced in the routine, which has made us a slave to this world. The merciful Lord has given a chance to change, but yet, we have not taken it. Then when you look at life behind you, you realise what a waste of life, what a waste of time has been. Then you will say to yourself, probably among you -you have even said it already, “Oh, I should have changed that time.” You realise that there were times for you to change, but you didn’t take the opportunity. Then you fall into the category of the fish that has been caught in the net, and when the fisherman pulls it out, you say, “Oops! Too late!” But it’s never too late. When you have practiced to surrender to God, when you have the Grace, take the chance and change! It’s not up to me to tell you to change, but it’s up to you to tell yourself to change. When you try, of course, it’s not in one go you will get the Divine. Of course, for some it’s easy, because of the past karmas. They can try and very quickly they receive the result. But for some, it takes time, but one should not lose hope. When the Divine sees that you are trying, He will send help. If you accept the help, He will lead you to liberation, but it’s up to you. This is the freedom that He gives to mankind. We choose the way we want.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda......

When you go to the Hindu Temple, the first things you see are the feet of the Deity. The first thing that you do is to bow down to the feet. When you go to the Master, you bow down to the feet. So, you bow down to the greatness, you bow down to the Divine inside, you bow down to the Father within the Teacher. And that is what Christ said. He said it word for word. I don’t even need to say anything about it. I don’t even need to comment on it. It’s just very clear about this non-duality of God within man and, also, very clear on the way of God-Realisation, the way of Self- Realisation, or whatever you want to call it. But you will not reach God-Realisation, Self-Realisation, with pride. You will not reach it being very arrogant. You will reach it only when you are humble, and He said: People will be against me. You know where you are going and you know why. So, meditate on that. Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Very often spiritual people think they are humble...actually, they have the humility of the spiritual pride....

In the bad times you have nobody, because even your good friends don’t want to partake in your suffering. But in the good times they will all sit with you and gather around you, singing and dancing joyfully. We all know that very well, don´t we? Well, this is life, life where each one is very egoistic, thinking only of oneself. Even if they are among a teacher, they don’t know the glory of it, they don’t know the blessing of it. And then afterwards they will say “Oh, how great it was!” When people will afterwards read in the books of those times, they will say “Oh, how great it was: they were among this teacher”. But it is like this, in everyday life. We see it everywhere: when people are near a Teacher, they always judge the Teacher. Actually they are not judging the Teacher: they are judging their own Self. Because what you see, the Teacher, is a mirror of yourself, so that you can learn something. But if you are stupid enough, you will never learn it because even if a Teacher can give you the lesson a hundred times, the stupidity in your mind can blind you completely. Such were the wonders that Christ did, so many, but yet the disciples were all blinded with pride and fear, to the point to deny Him, to the point to betray Him. But even when they came to collect Christ, He didn’t react. He knew that the Will of God is the most important thing. He surrendered to the Will of God. The Master surrendered to the Will of God and did what God told Him to do. Even if it was death, He accepted it happily, and he said “As I, the Shepherd, am being led for the sacrifice, the sheep will be scattered”. Already then He predicted it, but indirectly. He already said everything to them, but they were so blind to themselves, that they couldn’t hear it. Know one thing: a Master will not say directly “You are stupid. You, stupid man, do it like this, like this, like this.” Well, sometimes they will do it like that, but very often they give only hints. If you are clever enough, you will get it. If you are not clever enough, you will not get it. Like that, Christ had given many hints to the disciples. He had said to them so many times that the Son of men would be betrayed and would be lead to the crucifixion, but yet they didn’t understand anything. In the Gospel we see also the beauty of Christ, how He humbled Himself down. He humbled Himself by washing the feet of the disciples, and when Peter wanted to say “No, Lord, I don’t want that you wash my feet”, the Christ said “Well, if I don’t do that, you will not have your place with me in Heaven”. Then Peter said “Ok, wash my head and wash my hands, also”. Then Christ said “But there is no need for that, because when you wash your feet, you wash the whole body”. This is a very symbolic thing, because in the Hindu tradition the feet are considered the most blessed of all. That’s why, whenever you go to a temple, whenever you bow down to the Deity, to the Master, what do you do? You bow down and touch the feet, because the feet are the source of all the powers that the Master has. That’s why, just by touching the feet of the Master, one receives the blessing and also shows reverence and humility. Christ said “What I have done up to you, you all have to do it. You all have to humble yourself. You all have to be ready to lower yourself”. Coming back to the point, in the Gita Krishna said “If you want to realise Me, you have to be more humble than a dry grass”. A dry grass: when we look at a dry grass, it is always crooked down. So if you want to be humble, you have to be even more down than that. And Christ has shown it by washing the feet of the disciples, showing the humility. He is One with God, He has realised the Unity with the Father. The Father had sent Christ but yet He was showing this humility for all the people. To be able to understand, to be able to realise God, one has to be humble. Without being humble, you can forget about it. Very often spiritual people think they are humble. Actually, they have the humility of the spiritual pride, you know. They think they’re humble, but when they really have to act in a humble way, it is completely the opposite. It is not about judging anybody, but it is about realising each one, by selfanalysing - where we can change, what we can change, how we can serve our brothers and sisters. How, in which point, we can say “Ok, let’s forget a little bit about I, I, I, but let’s think about ‘us’, ‘we’”. 

Always remind the mind that it’s God that does everything...

Many people take Ghandi as an example; many great people take him as an example for what he did for the world. But above all, when you go deeper into his life, you see he was the model of bhakti itself. He was the model of devotion. Whatever he was doing, he forgot about himself first. It was about devotion to the people, to his country. It’s not just that he wanted to make his country free, but he showed a way to free the country through non-violence. The basis of nonviolence is Love. That’s the greatest thing. Without Love there is no non-violence, there is no peace. Of course, his life was not only joyful. He had lots of tribulations; there were lots of tests on the way that he had to go through. We see how he was, how he died. Yet, even at the time of death, he forgave. He said “Let him be free. He did it through ignorance, let him be free”. We have to take such a life as an example, but of course, we can’t make for ourselves what Gandhi came here to do! But, in our own way, each one can participate in it. Each one can become a model of devotion and peace. And for that you have to cultivate humility. He had a great simplicity. Of course he had fame, names, everything, so that he could have put himself very high up, but yet, he put himself the lowest of all. Such is the life of the Master. 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.

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!

“Guruji, I offer to you as Dakshina my pride and ego.”

Once there was a man, who went to a Rishi, to a  Sadhu, and wanted to get knowledge. He wanted to study under the Guru and he did. After some years, he succeeded in his study, and as you know, in the Hindu culture when you study under the Guru, at the end of your study you have to give a Dakshina. Dakshina is normally whatever you feel close to. So when he went in front of his Guru, he said “Guruji, I don’t know what to give you as Dakshina. You tell me.” The Guru said “My dear child, I want that you give me the most worthless thing.” As the Guru said that, he bent down to pick up some earth, some soil and as he was doing that he heard a voice. Mother Earth said to him “You fool, you consider me worthless? Look around you. You walk on me, all this greenery, all these beautiful flowers, everything comes from me. How can you consider me worthless?” Then he started thinking “Yes, it’s not worthless.” He put it down and as he was walking he saw a stone. He said “A stone – who cares about a stone?” He was going to pick up the stone, when the stone started talking to him and said “You consider me worthless? I tell you, all these big, big buildings that you see around, they are all built from me. The statues, the Deities, are made from me and then you pray to those Deities, so how can I be worthless?” He thought for a while and said “Yes it’s true.” Then he started thinking “If the soil that we don’t think too much about is not worthless, and if the stone itself is not worthless, what could be more worthless than my ego? That’s the most worthless thing.” He went to his Guru and bowed down to his Guru and said “Guruji, I offer to you as Dakshina my pride and ego.” You always learn new things. Even from the smallest detail, you always learn.

To be able to realise God, one has to be humble.....

Christ said “What I have done up to you, you all have to do it. You all have to humble yourself. You all have to be ready to lower yourself”. Coming back to the point, in the Gita Krishna said “If you want to realise Me, you have to be more humble than a dry grass”. A dry grass: when we look at a dry grass, it is always crooked down. So if you want to be humble, you have to be even more down than that. And Christ has shown it by washing the feet of the disciples, showing the humility. He is One with God, He has realised the Unity with the Father. The Father had sent Christ but yet He was showing this humility for all the people. To be able to understand, to be able to realise God, one has to be humble. Without being humble, you can forget about it. Very often spiritual people think they are humble. Actually, they have the humility of the spiritual pride, you know. They think they’re humble, but when they really have to act in a humble way, it is completely the opposite. It is not about judging anybody, but it is about realising each one, by selfanalysing - where we can change, what we can change, how we can serve our brothers and sisters. How, in which point, we can say “Ok, let’s forget a little bit about I, I, I, but let’s think about ‘us’, ‘we’”. Imagine if, in your body, your right hand starts to do something that is not in communion with your whole body. What will happen? Huh? Chaos, no? Imagine if my hand will start moving left - right, right now. What would happen? I would not be able to be here, to talk with you, to do my work properly. If my eyes would be one up and one down, and one would want to do something else, nothing would work! Only when every part of your body works in accordance with each other, in unity; when each one is doing its own function, its own duty or dharma, then there is perfect unity. The same in a family: all work together to make a family. In a community it is the same thing, but at the same time each one has to do their own duty. That doesn’t mean that one has not to participate together. One participates together, makes it one family: that’s how the unity comes. But if one starts working against another, then it will be chaotic and there will be problems. And this is the weakness of which I have given many examples. Last year, also, I have told this example. Once there was a Teacher who knew that His time to depart was coming near, but looking at His disciples, He saw that they were all fighting against each another, because each one wanted to take the place of the Teacher. So, seeing that, the Teacher thought for a while and said to them, “Ok, all of you; go in the forest and bring me a piece of wood, a stick”. He told them a certain length - let’s say - a sixty centimetre stick. “All of you go there in the forest and bring it to me”. So all of them went, and all the twelve disciples came back and said “Ok, here, Master, we brought this wood”. And the Teacher took all of them, one by one, and started breaking them. And then He asked the disciples, “Come, break these”. The disciples took one stick, and, of course they broke it. Then the Teacher tied all the rest, which were left over, into a bundle and called the disciples again, and said, “Now break it”. When all the sticks were tied together, no one could break the bundle. The same thing: if you are all together, no one can do anything to you, but if one is against another, then nothing will work. In the Gospel, Christ showed also the ‘humbleness’ that we all have to have towards each other, the understanding towards each other, the Love towards each other. Love is there, but very often understanding is not there. So, this also the all-knowing Christ showed: that He knew everything that was happening and what would happen in advance, but he had also to fulfil what was written in the Scriptures; what God had talked to the prophets: He had to fulfil it. But there were expectations among the disciples of Jesus of how the Master would be: a lot of them were expecting Jesus to be a great Master, who would come and raise everything down and build up something new. If there is this kind of expectation among the disciples, and when it is not like that, they feel bad. That’s why Judas went and betrayed Christ. They expected “Oh, He will do this and He will do that”, but yet Jesus knew what His work was. He knew His duty. He knew for what reason He had incarnated and He did, according to His job. But yet the disciples didn’t know what their duty was. But yet they thought they knew, but when they realised their mistake, it was too late. Very often - it happens to everybody, actually, it was not only the disciples of Jesus, you know - but whenever you go to a Master, to a Teacher, in your mind you already expect certain things. You already create in your mind “Oh, you know, the Teacher will do this and this and that to me, He will tell me this and this and that to flatter me”. You already create it in your mind, but if in your mind you already have some expectations, then even if the Master would talk to you ten times, you would not hear anything.