“Spirituality starts when religion ends”

Real spirituality is in each one of you, in each one of your hearts, whether you believe or not, it’s there. God is sitting permanently within you. But to achieve it, this is each one’s way, each one’s personal way. To discover the God without form, God without name, the eternal – to realise that you, all of you, are part of Him. This is the aim of man.

Who is burning with this Love for God.......

When you burn something, there is a residue that stays, but when Love consumes, nothing stays. For example, when you take the life of any great Saint, who is burning with this Love for God; they don’t see anything, they just see the Divine. I always take the example of Meerabai – have you heard about Meerabai? No?  She is a 15th  century saint of India. She was a model of bhakti; she was a model of devotion and surrender. Like her there are many, but she was a princess who loved Krishna with all her heart. There

is not even a single cell in her that was not in Love with Krishna. One day she was sitting in the temple and was singing for Krishna; whenever she would sing for Krishna, people would see Krishna, standing next to her. The King disguised himself. He was a Muslim king, Akbar, so he disguised himself and he was so touched by the devotion of Meerabai, that he gave his pearl necklace to the temple. Of course Meerabai didn’t take anything. Because of that, her father-in-law got very angry. As she was a princess, the father-in-Law was a king; so he said “Because you have sung in the temple and the enemy has come, we accuse you of treachery.” Meera said “Well, in the temple everybody is equal, I don’t know any bad one or good one, the fight is between you, not between God. Whether the person is Muslim, Christian, Hindu; everybody is allowed in the temple. The Lord is for everybody.” For that they said “We command you to drink poison.” She said “OK, if you have condemned me for that, I accept it.” So they brought the cup with the poison for her. As she was drinking it, she thought of Krishna, she thought that Krishna is giving her Divine nectar – amrit – to drink. She drank this poison, and she walked to the nearby temple of Krishna. Everybody followed her. She entered the temple and as she had the effect of the amrit, she became one with her Lord. She disappeared physically into the deity in the temple. Even the poison didn’t stop her. How did she view the poison? She accepted it.

It’s so easy to merge with God......

It’s so easy to merge with God. It’s so easy to realise His Divine love. Just take one name and recite it continuously. Make the power of the mind combine with the power of the mantra. Let the mantra take over the mind. Let yourself become the mantra. What is in this name, Narayana, or Jesus, has the capacity to give peace to the mind. It’s very simple. Wherever you are, keep singing, keep reciting. It’s not limited. Wherever you are, even if you are travelling, you are on the toilet, you are taking a shower… recite the name of God. If you are cooking, you will have better food. Become this mantra. And let your heart open. And let this love which is inside of you being reflected on the outside. You will become this Divine instrument. Let everybody who is next to you feel this love so that they will also want it. They will ask, “Where does this love come from?” Some of them will say to you, “You look different. You reflect something different.” You will answer, “It’s just the love of God.” It’s simple. But you see, sometimes when God gives simple things to man, man is not really happy with it. Man likes to complicate things. The more you complicate it, the more man enjoys it. And the more man complains about it. So, try to be as simple as possible. You will grow closer to yourself, closer to God and closer to the Divinity.

A true friend is ready to sacrifice everything.....

Christ said: A true friend is ready to sacrifice everything. And, actually, Love is that sacrifice. If you truly love, you will sacrifice everything. Until you have come to the point of really feeling this kind of Love inside of you – and you have to be ready – all the other kinds of love will have expectations. Very often what we call Love, it is just passion or desire. Today we love that person, tomorrow we love another person, but in one year you don’t even remember who these people were. Real Love is to be found deep inside of you,

personally. It’s not in someone else, it’s inside of you. It’s your true nature. This is who you are in Reality. The Divine is not far away. He is inside of you. You just need to calm your mind and introvert yourself. So see how much you are truthful towards yourself and how much you really, sincerely want the Divine.

True love is everlasting giving, not expectation. We do our sadhana, we do our spiritual practices, only to attain this Love, so that it may become unconditional. For the sake of Unconditional Love, we realise the Unity with the Divine. Then we can say that we are really in Love. As long as it’s here in the mind it is very difficult. Christ said: Love Thy God, with all Thy mind and Spirit. The mind has to be fully on the Divine. The mind has to transcend the limitations and transform itself.

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about service on the spiritual path...........

Then He will get fed up and just say “Let me give it to him.” ....

 The real happiness is when you can enjoy the Love of God completely, because His Love never fades.

The more you love Him, the more you will want to love Him. Such Love one really has to cultivate, you have to love Him and want Him. Bug Him, call Him and as long as He doesn’t give Himself to you, keep harassing Him. Then He will get fed up and just say “Let me give it to him.”

With the eyes of your heart you shall see and feel Him....

In one life we go through many levels –the seven gates that we have inside ourselves. In each gate,

we encounter certain aspects of the Divine, yet the mind is still present; the mind is still wondering “Am I there already or not?” The more you advance, the more you see that there is more and more to do. Until fnally, when you are face-to-face with the King, there is no question. There is no doubt. There is just absolute peace and even more than that, there is this absolute Love. If your aim is to attain that, no matter what comes on the way, trust. Never lose hope and you will reach there. The Divine is ever present around you. He comes in many forms to help you. With the eyes of your heart you shall see and feel Him, so practice. Don’t practice the opening of the mind; practice the opening of the heart, so that you can Love unconditionally, so you can love and feel the Divine Love inside of you and not only inside of you, but everywhere. The easiest way to do that is to try to be calm and to be in silence.

You will find the biggest treasure of all, a treasure that nobody can steal from you......

Often people talk about liberation or freedom. When we talk about freedom, what are the things we think of at first? Freedom of country, political freedom, economic freedom… But the inner freedom is the most important among all the different kinds of freedom, and that is what mankind really wants to achieve. This is the reason why each soul has come on earth. They come to achieve this freedom, this love of God.

Let me try to interpret this kind of freedom: If you want something you shall have it. But you can also detach from the desire by your own will. You see, mankind desires many things, but when they have them they get attached to them. This attachment brings unhappiness. The more you are attached to things which are limited or not eternal, the more you feel miserable. You lose this inner freedom. You become limited in the mind. You become limited with your body, which in turn makes your soul limited. So, to free one’s self, one must surrender the body, mind and soul to God, to the Unlimited.

It’s true that everybody can’t renounce the world and live only for God, but you can continuously try to remember God wherever you are. Remember that the soul inside you is the light of God. The more you think of yourself being part of this light of God, this great love, the more you will reflect this love. But the more you think that you are just a normal human being, the more you will just be a normal human being with all of its limited qualities and you cover all of your divine qualities. Take time every day, just five minutes, to be with your Self. Forget about the world outside, forget everything. Forget about your husband or wife; forget about all your relationships with the outside. Only think of the relationship with your Self.

Do you know what treasure you will find? You will find the biggest treasure of all, a treasure that nobody can steal from you. And that is love. Love is such a big gift. We feel it with our heart, we know it with our mind, but to realise it, to become one with this love, to spread this love, unconditionally – this is the aim of mankind. The more you spread it, the more you reflect it, the more you will discover your Self.

When people say, “I want to know God”, I answer, “Know thyself!” By knowing your own Self you will know God. Because when we want to know God outside, we automatically create a barrier, we create a limited form. But we are this love. We are this Light. We are not separate from God, we are part of God. To achieve this, we must surrender. Surrender the mind which is always jumping around. Surrender the body, which is the temple of this light and love. And reflect this light always.

If we look with our eyes through the heart.....

When you were a toddler, when you are still a baby, you are born full with light. When a baby is born, the father, the mother, and all the people around it say, “Oh the baby is so beautiful, so radiant.” Isn’t it? Then what happens afterwards? When the child is born, it reflects the light of God, but when the child grows up the light goes deep inside the heart. With the world being how it is outside, it creates a lot of shadows over this light, and the same people who twenty years ago maybe said, “This child is full of light”, they start saying the child is very bad.

Isn’t this interesting? How can the same child who reflected the light be the same old person in front of you, who now does not reflect the same light? If we look properly with our third eye, we will see that all of you reflect the same light, whether it is a small baby or an adult.

But our mind is busy judging. In this judging, our mind enjoys looking only at the negative parts of life. How this person is dressed or how this person behaves, we tend to see only the negative. But behind what we see with our two physical eyes is the reality. If we look with our eyes through the heart, we will be able to see the reality. First we’ll see the reality of our Self.

We incarnate time after time to attain one thing: liberation. This word “liberation” is present in all Holy Scriptures. Take the Bible, Jesus talks about it; in the Koran, the prophet Mohammed talks about it; take the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about it. So why does man not achieve it? Why does man not say it’s enough?

“What is the most important thing on the spiritual path?”

We often ask ourselves “What is the most important thing on the spiritual path?” The most important thing on the spiritual path is self-discipline. It is a word which many people don’t like to hear, but it’s only through self-discipline that you will be able to do your sadhana. Without self-discipline it’s very difficult, because you will always find excuses not to do something. What is  sadhana? What does the word  sadhana mean? It means something by which we will attain our spiritual goal. In  sadhana there is perseverance, there is eagerness and there is patience. Without these three you can try as much as possible, but it will be

very difficult. Your mind will always make you think “Oh, today I’m a bit tired. I will not go to prayers.” or “I will not do this.” or “I will not do that.” You start to build up this self-un-discipline, because there is a lack of perseverance. You want to achieve your spiritual goal. You want to realise your Self, but do you think it’s just like that? No, it’s not. If one thinks that just by sitting around and thinking “OK, I think I will go to the prayers whenever I want. I will do my  sadhana whenever I want.” Then God will also say “I will come to you whenever I want. ”Well, He will come to you whenever He wants, it’s true, but you can make it happen faster. You can make Him awaken within you and be consumed,   attaining Him faster, and this can be done only through your discipline. If you want to become self-disciplined and have one-pointed mindfulness on your spiritual path, in your sadhana, you must aim for what you want; but what is this single- mindedness?

I will tell you a small story. Once there was a fisherman who was sitting on the riverbank, throwing his bait into the river and waiting for the fish to eat the bait. He was very focused. He was just looking at the foating bait, waiting for it to sink. He knew that there were a lot of fish around. A stranger who was passing

by asked the fisherman “Mister, can you tell me where Mr X lives?” The fisherman was so concentrated that he didn´t answer. The stranger repeated his question again – one time, two times, three times – still no answer. He got really angry and walked away. As he was walking away, the fisherman saw the bait going down, so he pulled and caught a fish. Then he called after the man “Hey, you were calling me, asking me something? Tell me what your question was.” The stranger said “I repeated my question several times, but it was as if you didn’t hear me or see me. Why should I repeat it again?” That was single-mindedness, one-pointed focus. When you meditate, when you do your  sadhana, you can achieve this state where nothing can disturb you. No left and right, no hearing, no seeing, because in the deepness of meditation, in the deepness of your practice, you have to be fully focused. If you are not disciplined with yourself, do you think you will have this focus? No, this is where everything gets uncertain. You will do prayer, but you will be really superficial and then not be satisfied with yourself. Self- discipline is something that you have to work for. It’s purifcation of the mind and of the senses. When the mind gets purified, when the mind becomes positive, you will see how easy it is in your sadhana also. It doesn’t matter if you don’t succeed in one go. I know that people when they start practicing, they would like to have quick results, like in one month. They want it very fast. Know one thing, if you go  in fast, you will go out fast also. You see, it’s like cooking. If a Mataji would like to make syrup, but she just took the fruits and threw them into a pot of water and then removed them quickly, would the sweetness go out from the fruit and into the water? It would not. You have to leave the fruits inside for some time. It is the same with your sadhana. If you just go inside and then quickly out of it, being impatient with yourself, it will be the same. It will not be sweet. The sweetness that you have inside of you is waiting to be awakened. It doesn’t matter which path you follow or which sadhana you are doing. How you are doing it is the most important. When you love to do something, you are not disturbed by anything. When you love to do the work that you are doing – let’s say that someone, for example, loves to be a carpenter – you would see how much Love he projects into his work, because he would do it with a full focus. I love painting. I love to paint, because it brings you to such a focus that nothing will disturb you, not even people around you who are talking. Have you ever painted? How many among you paint? That’s nice. So you know what I am talking about. It’s not only about painting. Anything that you do, when you love what you are doing, you will come to that focus that nothing will disturb you.

Sri Swami Vishwananda tells us a Story today......

Loving oneself is transcending the physical aspect. Through Love you will develop trust and patience. If you have these three: Love, trust and patience, you have everything else. This reminds me of a story. Krishna used to stay in Brindavan. He stayed there until the age of sixteen, then he went away. When he left,everybody in Brindavan was sad and always thinking of Krishna. They thought that Krishna had forgotten about them. So, one day, Krishna sent one of his devotees, Uddhava, to tell them that he does care for them. When he arrived there, he met the gopis and before he could start talking, the gopis started blaming Krishna, saying “Oh he forgot about us. He has left us. He had given us so much Love and then he just went away.” Uddhava was laughing and said “No, Krishna has never forgotten about you. He thinks about all of you every day. There is not one second that he doesn’t talk about all of you. The point is: He had other work to do, and that is why he went.” They could not accept it. So they keep on saying bad words about Krishna, but in a more loving way. There was so much Love in it that it didn’t matter. Then Uddhava gave the gopis a message that Krishna had given to them. Krishna said “All that is and all that you feel is just a game. I create, I protect and I destroy everything by my own will, and it all goes back to me. Maya, illusion, has created a veil of separation. With this veil, you can’t see that you are all a part of me.” That is actually why you are all here, to remove this veil. There are many lifetimes that you keep on playing the same game. You repeat and repeat the same thing, forgetting that the Lord is here, deep inside our heart. We are looking for Him on the outside. We are looking for Him in this world, but we can just drop deep inside of ourselves and find Him. Let go of the mind which is always busy looking on the outside. If we just drop ourselves deep in our heart we can feel this peace and happiness and enjoy it. You will see how great it is, how great it is to love.

To feel it from deep within you — this is the true Love of loving somebody. It is not only for one person but for everybody. Loving unconditionally.

There was a blind man who was taken to a big hole......

There was a blind man who was taken to a big hole. Some people then closed him in. In this hole there were eighty-four exits. Among these eighty-four exits, only one door was open. So they put the man inside and told the man to find this one door. So the man stopped, found the first door, tried to push it, but could not. Then the next door…the same thing. He reached the eighty-third door, but he didn’t know it. He had not been counting. When he was about to push this eighty-fourth door, his hand started to itch. So he forgot about the door and started scratching his hand. While scratching his hand, he missed the eighty-fourth door. Likewise, for many humans the door is now here. Don’t let the itching of the world get you. You want liberation? Make it strong in your mind; make it strong deep inside your heart. Let it reach fulfilment outside. You are this light. And you all can merge back in this light. You have to want it very, very strongly. It has to be the most important thing in your life. There are many divine incarnations. They all come, they all teach, they all go. People at different times assimilate it in their own way. But we are living in such an age right now that it is very easy to attain Self-realisation. We just need to be simple with ourselves. Simple in the mind. When I say simple, I mean just to love. Make this love unconditional. This love that you have inside of you, the source of all things, let it flow. Don’t try to stop it; don’t put any barrier around it. Now you are putting up barriers. How long can these barriers hold this love? It will overflow one day. So let it overflow, let it flow right now. But at the end of life you will say, “Oh, I should have done this much more before. I wasted all my life in running after things that have a limit to them.” Close your eyes, drop inside your heart and feel this fullness. Feel the greatness of yourself. And this greatness is you. This greatness is who you really are. Without any egoism. Keep concentrating on this greatness inside you. This great love which is emanating from your heart. It passes through each cell of your body. Try to reflect it outside. Isn’t it beautiful to see each person as the full body of light? Let the eighty-fourth door of your heart open up. And if your mind is troubling you, sing the name of God.

But once the mind has seen the Light.....

The mind knows only the tangible things which are outside – running from one thing to another, looking for the eternal. Wherever the mind is focused you are not happy. Today you want a house. Tomorrow you will want a car. You will get the car and then so on and so on, because nothing outside can really hold the mind. But once the mind has seen the Light, once the mind has seen the Divine face-to-face, the mind gets consumed into that Divine Love. For this, it doesn’t matter whether you are here, whether you are at your place. It doesn’t matter what you are doing, but it just needs the sincerity of your heart. Just that. Simple!

You see Yogis meditating, you see great Sages meditating. Why? It’s because they have already come face-to-face with that Divine and for them, seeing the world, they don’t see it the way people see. They see it completely differently. That’s why if they have to explain that to humans they will not understand. They prefer to run away to caves to hide themselves. They say it’s better being in the cave and being with the Lord, helping the world than being with people who will not understand anything. Man always wants to understand things through the mind. Man always wants to know more and more. What will you do with it? Do you think next life you will take it with you? Ah, forget about that! All that you have studied in this life will be buried with you here. You will not take it to the next life with you. The only thing that you will take is what you are working on for your soul. That’s the only thing that you will take with you and this, you will carry through lives. This is because when you are spiritual in this life it’s because in the past you have already worked, through many lives you have worked your way to be here. It’s not just that God is saying “This one, I like his face. I will bring him on the spiritual path.” It’s not like that. You are here because in previous lives you have worked hard and this life you are also working hard, but this time is different from other times, it’s a very special time. All times are special, but at the moment we are living in a very specific time where God is giving Himself to you, whereas in other times you had to run towards Him. In this time He is running towards you.

You will become an instrument of that peace and Love wherever you are and whatever you are doing...

Once, somebody asked a Saint “How do you see the world?” The Saint answered “Well, each person creates their own reality in this world.” What we see outside is a combination of a mass reality. With this mass reality, of course one person can change and make a difference, a small one. It’s better when one person changes, introverts oneself, opening the heart to Love, because Love is the greatest thing in this world and Love is the only way through it. It’s only through Love that people will change and it’s only through that, that there can be peace and for that you have to open up. That’s what I was saying in the beginning, that it is a time to introvert oneself. Our mind is always running to the outside, so we always see the cruelty, the negativity. Whenever you read the newspaper, whenever you put on the TV, what you see is always negativity. This gets imprinted in you to make your own mind become negative. You believe what you see is very bad, so then what happens? You start to judge and the mind becomes very judgemental. This is like that

or this is like this. But are you changing? No, you are not changing. That is the same thing everybody is doing around the world, there is no difference. Does it contribute to bringing peace and harmony to the world? No

it doesn’t. When you introvert yourself you go into the peace which you have inside of you. You sit quietly and when you sit calmly, of course the mind will begin to rebel. After some time you don’t want to get up,

for some people they can’t get up, it’s painful, or they go to sleep. But when you go into the calmness of the depths of your heart, in total surrender through your heartfelt sadhana, you enter the chamber of peace - the true inner peace. Through that inner peace which you will project to the outside, you will bring changes. For

example, let’s say when you go to somebody you know who is nervous and very agitated, what do you do? Do you try to calm the person down and advise the person to be positive, or do you also sit and cry with the person? It’s the same when you go to the doctor. The doctor will ask you what kind of problem you have. It is the first question and then you say “Doctor, if I knew what I have, I would not have come to you.” Well, when you go to the doctor, you go because you don’t feel well and you open up and tell the doctor what you don’t feel well about. Does the doctor sit with you and cry? No, the doctor won’t do that. It’s the same with psychiatrists. They advise you to move away from the way you’re thinking and the way you see things. Moving away from this, changes certain things inside of you. It changes the way you are always looking at

it. We were just saying that we see the world and project it as being cruel. The media wants us to see all the cruelty. But there are always also good things and it just depends on how you see it. Very often, one will see one’s own projection of what one has inside of oneself. When one suppresses certain things inside of oneself, of course by suppressing energy deep inside, what will happen? Whenever something happens outside, the suppression will project itself. When that happens there will be complete judgement only. When you learn to accept yourself and learn to be in peace with yourself the way you are, you will see that there is nothing wrong with the world. Things can change and it simply depends on each one. But we can’t say “You change

and I don’t change.” No, instead you have to say “I have changed and now the rest will change.” If there are certain things inside of yourself that you do not accept, be positive about them. You have a choice, the choice is how you look at things. Either you place a judgement saying ‘this is bad’ or you can say ‘this is not for me’ in a positive way. This is the way you look at it differently, in a metaphysical way. The first thing is

to open the heart, open the mind, let peace rise inside of you, each part of you. Whenever you have peace inside of you there is no place for anything else. Whenever there is Love inside of you, there won’t be any place for anything else either. You will become an instrument of that peace and Love wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

“The name of Rama is even stronger than Rama Himself”

When you study the name Rama, you see that it’s a very powerful name. All the Divine names are very powerful, but the name of Rama is very special. It is said that just by the mere chanting of the name of Rama, if one, at the end of life chants this Divine name, one gets liberated from the cycle of birth and death. That’s why this name is called Taraka Mantra, which is a mantra that can liberate someone. That’s why you see in Hindu tradition, when somebody dies, they always chant the name of Ram: Sri Ram, Sri Ram, Sri Ram. The word Rama in itself is the fullness of two Divine names: that is, Ra, which is taken from Om Namo Narayanaya and Ma, which comes from Om Namah Shivaya. So, the combination of Om Namo Narayanaya and Om Namah Shivaya is the name Rama. So, this mantra is not that easy to chant actually, even if you just say “Ok, we will chant it like this: Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama”, it will not be easy at the end of life, if you have not learned to practice the chanting. Because you see, at the time of death,

very often, you are so attached to the world, you are so attached to things or to people, that to free yourself, even if you are well aware that you would not have to take another birth, it’s difficult, because of the power that is generated at this time. If you don’t use the Divine names, the last image that is in your mind will affect your next incarnation. That’s why, you see, through attachment to other human beings, very often, when somebody is dying, the attachment is so strong in the mind – they have the image of their children, or people that they like so much - that the next life, when they come, they come again as a human being, but to finish certain karmic things with that family. Some people very often ask if you can incarnate as an animal. Well, in some possibilities yes, you can, because, you see, you are the master; the soul which is inside of you is God, and He can create an aspect. Let’s say somebody is attached to a dog, which is better than attaching to human beings actually, (People: laughing) because they are more loyal, more faithful. But, it creates a problem. You see, if you are attached to an animal at the end of life, when you die, what will be the image in your mind? You will think of the animal, how much you will miss the animal, how much you will miss this dog. Imagine, at that moment, when your soul already creates your next life, what will it be? It can’t be a human being. You degrade yourself to an animal state. You degrade yourself to a lower sphere. That doesn’t mean that whatever you have worked on as a human being has disappeared. It is still there, but it becomes dormant.The same thing when an animal looks at a human being, they say, “Wow! How lucky is this human being!” But human beings when they look at animals they say, “How lucky are the animals!” But this is when Divine names come in, where the names can liberate one self. Without the power of the Divine names, without the infusion of the sacred names inside of you, you are always empty; it is always only the Divine names that fill you and give energy to you. It doesn’t matter if you believe or you don’t believe in the Divine name actually, it’s the name of God that is giving you this energy. So the name of Rama, like I said, is a Taraka Mantra, which helps one, even if somebody has attachments to the world outside, it helps to dissolve this attachment. But you have to chant it regularly. So that’s why it’s said, “The name of Rama is even stronger than Rama Himself”.

Through charity, through service, through love......

God will not only come to you in a beautiful form. He will always come, even as your own enemy. He will come, because this is how He will teach you to love – love without condition. Once there was a lady in Switzerland. She was walking down the street, and a beggar asked her to give him something. Her only reaction was to just take some money and give it to him. The moment the money reached the hand of the beggar, he disappeared. When she looked in the eyes of this man, he was just light, and he disappeared on the spot. Very often she talked about this story. Maybe you have heard it from someone.

So like that, I can tell you many stories, many facts that many people have told. Through charity, through service, through love they have experienced so much. And if you really want to experience the same thing – open up your heart and let Jesus work through you, let Krishna work through you, let God work through you. Through that you will realise His love, realise that He is always with you, and realise how much He loves you, and how much you can love. Even the mind cannot comprehend this; even the word love is too small for that what you can give. You have to want to give it, only then it can flow.

In silence is everything.......

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

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

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

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

It’s just this pure love......

To love God is......... I can’t even express it in words actually, because it’s a mixture of everything in it. Sometimes you will fight with God, sometimes you will blame God, and sometimes you will just be completely in love with God. And at the end of all three, it’s just this pure love. And this is the freedom that all of you have. But you have to really express it, to really let it grow. Not with a ‘but’. So many times we say, “We try to open our heart, but there is always something in the way.” Try it, you will see. One day you will surrender completely, saying, “Open my heart. Here I am. I surrender to You – body, mind and soul is Yours! Do whatever you want to do.” For sure you will be guided. Do it. Very often people start to do it, but then doubt arises in the mind. You see, doubt arises because you expect limits. People think that when they become spiritual they have to see something; they have to see maybe some light, or some miracles, or anything that the physical eyes can see. But expectation limits the Divine. Do you think God can be limited when you say, “God I love You, I really want to feel You, I really want to know You”? And then you’re questioning about the light when He is the Light of all lights, and the Light that these eyes can’t even look at! Actually, it’s just that the inner eyes can see it. All of you have this light. All of you have these eyes. But open them! Don’t have fear to open them, no matter what you will see – focus your attention on the Divine! Focus your attention on God – on this light and love that you have inside you. And like a child, let yourself be guided. You will feel that – whatever you want to do, if it is not right – you will not go in that way. But for that you have to be sincere to yourself. You have to be sincere to the feeling that you are feeling inside. It’s not that your heart feels something and you say, “Oh no, it’s not that, it’s my own creation... it’s all just illusions of my mind.” Look at Mirabai, one of the devotees of Krishna. Do you know her story? Some of you might know it, and some of you don’t. She was a queen, and her love for Krishna was so great, it was beyond everything. When she got married, she said to her husband, “My love for Krishna is beyond all your love, that you can understand. I see Him in you and in all of you who are around.” Whenever she used to sing Krishna’s name or sing a bhajan, he was present there. Such was her love that the Divine manifested Himself there. 

Whenever you call from deep within your heart, whenever you call any aspect of the Divine, the Divine will take that aspect and come to you. Mirabai’s love was so great that at the end of her life they blamed her for so many things – but she was fixed and steady on her Krishna.

                                                                                                                                                                      

When a leaf falls on a river......

When a leaf falls on a river – do you think the leaf knows where the flow of the river is carrying it? No. Just let go! The wind is blowing the leaf. In the same way, we have to be in the hand of God. We have to be centred in our heart, that – wherever our heart is carrying us – we just open up and let ourselves flow. Life is not just a straight line. For sure this line will go up and will go down. Sometimes you come down. But this is just a game of yourself. Like a game, if you want to rise and rise, you can. But on this way – if ever you go down – know that there is the hand of God to pull you up! While you are falling, get hold of this hand and let this hand pull you up. See, this hand is so great. It will pull you even higher than you were before. Like it is said about children, you give a little bit of a finger, and they just try to get your hand or pull your whole arm. It’s the same with God. The moment you give your hand to Him, He will pull you higher. It’s up to you to make this effort of giving the hand. These past two days I’ve been hearing, “Yes, yes, yes!” It was sweet. The Divine really enjoys it – the ‘yes’. But the ‘Yes’ has not to be outside. It has to be truthful to yourself. Not to me, not to anybody around you, but to yourself you have to say ‘yes’. And the moment this ‘yes’ is without any doubt, without any ‘but’ – what will happen? You will see the Divine hand of God pulling you higher. And you will enjoy this bliss. You will enjoy this love of God every moment. And this is what you are looking for.

Hold tight to the Divine names.....

As long as you have not found yourself, keep trying, keep looking, and the Divine name of Rama will help you, or the Divine name of Krishna, the Divine name of Jesus, all the Divine names will help you to find that. That’s why they say that the bhakti path is one of the easiest paths, but you have to dedicate yourself. It’s not that the next moment, you just divert your mind from your path; or a little wind blows, and you let yourself fall from left to right. So, hold tight to the Divine names, any Divine name that you feel close to – you don’t need to have ten Divine names, you just need one Divine name. If you have a guru mantra, just chant your guru mantra; if you have one Divine name, one form of the Divine that you feel close with, just concentrate on one. It will be more intensified than concentrating on ten Divine names. In the mind of

man, they think that when they have ten, they will advance faster. They will not advance faster. Actually they will advance less fast, because one Divine name is like digging one hole and getting the water; ten Divine names is like digging ten holes to try to get water. You will not get it. So, if you want, just chant one name.

.....enjoy this beautiful Bhajan!!! 

He can’t see any one of His children suffering.....

He can’t see any one of His children suffering, so even if you are falling down, He will always be there to help you get up. So, by calling Him, by chanting His Divine Name, you get more and more accustomed to Him. What is the Divine Name? It’s the name of God. So, the more you chant God’s name, what happens? All this negativity, which is in your mind, gets dissolved. Of course, it doesn’t happen just like that! It happens through practice, through years and years of practice. Some people, after practicing a year or two, say “Ok, I don’t see any result” and then they let go. Well, these people will not go anywhere, because they will move from one practice to the other, from this other to yet another one. This is how their life will carry on. It’s like digging many holes trying to look for water, instead of digging just one hole and attaining the water. But if you dig ten holes, you will never get the water. So, in the same way, 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.

Wisdom of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

When you say “Really, I want Him,” there will be such Love inside of you, such great peace and

calmness inside of you, that you will feel Him.

The Gayatri Mantra is considered to be one of the most powerful mantras......

There was once a man in 1500. He was begging. He was a Brahmin. He was begging everywhere. You see, in the Hindu tradition, Brahmins are considered to be high class and to beg is considered something very bad for a Brahmin. One day the king was passing by. King Akbar and his counsellor Birbau were passing by. When the king saw a Brahmin was begging, he was aghast, saying “Oh, he’s a Brahmin. He considers himself as a very high class person, how can he beg?” He pushed him away. Then Birbau was talking to the king and the king was talking very badly about the Brahmin. You see, King Akbar, he was a very good king, but he was always on a search. Birbau thought to himself “It’s not good for a Brahmin to be on the

road, so let me go and help him.” He went to the Brahmin and said to the Brahmin “I don’t want you to go begging, but do one thing for me. I want you to chant five Gayatri Mantras for me every day and for each Gayatri Mantra that you chant every day I will give you a gold coin.” The Brahmin agreed to it and said “Well, five gold coins for five Gayatri Mantras, which is so simple, is good.” Every day what would he do, he would chant five Gayatri Mantras for the Prime Minister of the king, so at the end of the month he would

get his money. After some time of chanting the Divine Names, chanting Gayatri Mantra five times, he would sit merged into the mantra and he would feel great peace inside of him just by chanting five Gayatris.

He felt this peace and he went into this peace inside of him. After some time the Prime Minister came to visit him and saw him radiating, changed. He said to him “From now on I would like you to chant 108 times

Gayatri Mantra every day. I will give you more gold coins. The Brahmin said “OK, yes, I can do that.” So he started chanting 108 times Gayatri Mantra. The more he would chant, the more he would be

in the quiet state. He thought to himself and one day he said “Well, this mantra, I’m chanting

it and it is giving me so much peace and so much quietness that I completely see the world differently.” So he started chanting it more and more and he stopped going to see the Prime Minister for the monthly payment.

One day while he was chanting, Gayatri Devi appeared in front of him and said “I’m very pleased with your devotion, but all this time that you have been chanting you have been paid for your chanting, but I would like now, that you stop. I will provide everything for you” and likewise, Gayatri Devi promised him that She would look after his family. So he surrendered completely inside of him. By himself he surrendered to the Divine Mother, to Gayatri Devi. This made the Prime Minister start to think “Where is this man?”

He decided to come to search for him. He came to the house of the priest, the Brahmin man, and there he saw that the Brahmin was sitting in a very peaceful way, radiating lots of light. Lots of people were around him. Lots of people just being in his presence would feel peace, would feel that their worries and problems disappeared. When he saw the Prime Minister, he arose from his seat and fell down at the feet of the Prime Minister and said “Well, because of you I have received the Grace of Gayatri Devi. Because of you I have

had Her darshan, and because of you I have changed. I am a different person now.” Then the Prime Minister said, “But why is it you don’t come and get your money? This was our agreement, no?” The Brahmin replied “Well, before I was chanting it because of money or to gain something from it, but now I am chanting it because it brings me great peace and great happiness and my whole life has changed.”

This is the power of the mantra. The Gayatri Mantra is considered to be one of the most powerful mantras, but any mantra has the power to change mankind. It depends not only on the mantra, it depends also on your will. When you will it, God graces you with the strength, but as long as you don’t will it, it won’t happen. The earlier it is, the better it will be. The earlier you change, everything around you will also change. Then you will realise that the real happiness is not outside there. It’s within you. You carry it all the time.  It’s up to you to vibrate it in a higher frequency or in a lower frequency. It’s like with a radio, if you want to listen to loud music, what do you have to do? You have to raise the volume. Then you will hear only the music. Probably it’s not only the music you will hear. But if you lower it completely onto the lower frequency, you will vibrate in that way. So the first step is up to you and the faster you take the step, the faster you will grow.

Let yourself just slide in this Divine energy....

By singing the name of God, any aspect, Krishna, Jesus, Allah – it has to be sung with devotion and Love. It is nice when you join together and sing the name of God, it creates this vibration, it creates this urge of merging in God. That’s why it is very important, wherever you are, find a few people and sing. If you don’t know how to sing, just recite Divine names. When you recite the names, picture the form of the Divine in your mind. Keep concentrating on the form and let yourself flow, let yourself just slide in this Divine energy. And enjoy it! Remove all the darkness from the mind, remove all the barriers and just jump into it.  Bhakti! There are different ways of attaining God, but one way is bhakti – devotion! You can have devotion to the Guru, complete surrender to the Guru’s feet. Devotion has no limit.  Remove the “I”, let you and God merge together. Like sugar, when merged with water, they become one. In the same way, let yourself merge together and disappear in the Love of God. There will be no sugar; there will be no egoism that separates man from being Divine, because only the Divine exists. Only the universal consciousness of man exists.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

                      There will come a point where there will be
                         no need to ask the Divine for anything, 
                     because it will be given to you before you ask.

“God, I have tried everything. Now I abandon myself with all my expectations, completely, to you.”

Only when you let yourself say, “God, I have tried everything. Now I abandon myself with all my expectations, completely, to you.” Then you’ll see the light. The light will reveal itself to you, because the light is yourself.

However, the mind always covers it with perishable things, thinking this is the reality. So, abandon yourself completely – body, mind and soul. Just let go of it! Let go of this small egoism that says “I am this, I am that.” What is this ‘I’? Have you known this ‘I’? Have you realised this ‘I’? – No! As long as you have not realised this ‘I’, you can’t move forward. Why give much importance to something that you don’t know? What is so great about this egoistic ‘I’? Thinking this is the whole? It’s not. That’s what the cross stands for. Cut the ‘I’, and let only the Divine act. So when this egoistic ‘I’ disappears, what remains? The ‘I’ still stays, but this ‘I’ is a universal ‘I’, the ‘I’ without any identity of oneself. The ‘I’ which is equal in each one of you.

And this is the ‘I’ that Jesus spoke of: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the light.” It is the ‘I’ of the consciousness, the ‘I’ of the Christ consciousness that leads mankind. Yes, each one of you. This consciousness is in each one of you. It’s waiting to become active. It’s very good that you come for darshan, very good that you sit for meditation. But you should not only do it now, you have to do it always! 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.

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! 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.

“Blessed are all those pure in heart, for they shall see God!”

God loves you and He wants you back with Him.....

God has made the human being such a precious vehicle. It is very important that you look after it. It is very important to be, to enjoy it and to be happy with it, to respect it, to realise that it is the temple of God. It is in this temple that God is dwelling. It is in this temple that God can make humanity advance and realise itself. Without this temple – it’s very difficult. God loves you and He wants you back with Him. He wants you to realise that you are with Him all the time and that He is with you all the time So then, it’s for you to reveal the Spirit. Then the Light, which is deep inside of you, will shine! Love will shine. If you ask God, “God, make your Light shine through me”, can He refuse that? He can´t refuse you anything. Whenever you pray to Him, He can´t refuse you anything. He is here to give - only you should know how to receive it. Whenever you experience the deepness of Love inside your heart; whenever you sit down for prayer, bhajan, or meditation; whenever you feel the sense that you don´t feel pain, you don´t feel happiness, you don´t feel hot, you don´t feel cold; you only feel a joy, which you can´t even express, treasure it. There is a word that we can put to this; ‘bliss’, but still this word is limited. The only thing I can tell you, you can just feel it. You can´t express it with words. And this is what you have to be at all times. When you become equal toward the outside, by knowing that everything and everybody is One, you will love everybody; you will love firstly yourself. As I said before, you are the temple of God. God dwells inside of you. You will realise this Love for yourself. You will know that He is here, sitting here all the time. I have come to help you, to give something, which is very simple for attaining this state of Bliss. It’s through meditation.