Do 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.

For the sake of Unconditional Love, we realise the Unity with the Divine.....

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.

Pray, chant your mantra and silence yourself.....

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. 

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.

From untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality...

If you want to Realise your Self, focus more on what you have here inside of you. You have a great treasure. Each one of you is special. Each one of you has special duty, dharma. And pray that you Realise the purpose of your incarnation. That’s why we pray: Asato ma sat gamaya, Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, Mrityor ma amritam gamaya. The sages have always prayed this mantra, have always chanted this mantra, which means: From untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. This is who we are. When we have limitation, we are always in the untruth of ourselves, because we don’t see the Reality. We are always in the shadow. That’s why we ask that the shadow of ignorance be removed and that we are in the light, in the wisdom of the Divine; that our mere mortality is transformed into our immortality, which is our atma.   

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda....

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

A nice message of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

...His message is simple: Just Love. Yes, just love. Love is all there is. Love is all you have to do. The rest will take care of itself. Those who have inner ears will hear. The words are like a sweet love song that if you allow it to touch you – will change your life forever. Because it will change you, and make you want to become again that which you already are, always have been, always will be - just Love.

                                                     " Happy Valentine´s Day "

Love can just flow.....

You have to rise in love! And how to rise in love is to find your Self, to Realise your Self, to realise the greatest gift that God has given you. Of course, some people will say “Yes, it’s easy to talk about it, but it’s difficult to practise it.” But Love is there! There is no point of saying that it’s difficult or it’s easy: it is there

already. It just needs time for you to look at it. And when you take time through your spiritual practice, you will realise the beauty of Love, the beauty of life and you will know why you are here. And once you have opened this fountain, this tap of Love, Love can just flow, nothing else. In your spiritual practice, whatever path you are on, whatever sadhana you are doing, why are you doing it? It is to Realise your Self, to Realise God inside of you, to have God-Realisation, because God-Realisation or Self-Realisation will not come to you just like that. It needs an effort from you.

The Art of Controlling the Mind.....

After so many lives we attain a human body. A human is very special. A human is gifted with the grace of attaining and merging with the Divine and becoming One with the Lord, of realising the Lord within himself. Why do we always limit ourselves? Why do we always like this limitation? Why are we not free? It is there. It has been given to you, but you forget about it. Work to concentrate, to focus your mind, to make your mind positive. Work through increasing the power and the strength inside of you. When you know that the Divine is with you, you really know He is with you. Whenever you chant the Divine Names, don’t think that

the Divine is far away. The Divine  is present, is nearer than your heartbeat. So close is the Lord, you know, but yet we see Him as if He is so far away. When we talk about attaining the Lord, it seems like some distance but, actually, it’s not that far. When you have learned to control your mind, when you have learned to concentrate and focus it, you will see that He is ever sitting in each part of your body, because the human body is not just made of flesh and bones like we say. It is indeed, but when we look at the mystical form of the human body, there are all the Deities present inside. A certain Deity is responsible for each part of your body. This is beautiful. If you can look beyond the physical body and see the Divine, which is seated in each part of you, you will learn to respect this body. You will learn to love it. What about the word ‘Love’, which we always talk about? One time in Germany I was asking the question “I always talk about Love, but I was wondering how many of you really understand what I am saying about Love? ” We know many forms of love, many kinds of love. In all kinds of love, there is Love, but when we are  on the spiritual path, we talk about unconditional Love. It’s another degree of Love. It’s a Love that transcends the mind itself; that transcends what we understand with the mind. It’s a Love that even transcends the heart itself. How many hearts do we have? Well, we have one physical heart and one spiritual heart, but we have only one brain. I have never heard of a spiritual brain. Since you have two hearts and one brain,  why does this mind seem so much bigger? Isn’t it said that two are stronger than one? This is the illusion that the mind always creates,

to show that it is more powerful, to show that it is stronger, that it can control everything. In reality, it can’t control anything and it knows that. That’s why the mind creates fear, and when you hang with this fear you are never free. That’s why on the spiritual path we say “Think with your heart and feel with your heart. Stay in your heart always.” Our physical heart is always hanging out in the realm of thoughts, but our spiritual heart is much stronger. That’s what we have to discover. To attain this spiritual heart, the journey is from the physical heart to the spiritual heart, from the spiritual heart to the higher Consciousness. That’s the journey for each one of us; if it is not in this lifetime, it will be in the next life, or in the next, next, next life. But if you can do it in this lifetime, don’t waste time! Don’t lose hope, because we are all part of the Divine, whether we want it or not. Whoever we are, we are this and we will attain Him. It doesn’t matter how many lifetimes one takes on Earth. He is the source. He is the beginning and He is the end. Very often people talk about themselves as if they know themselves. You know only one part of yourself, only this self that you think of as yourself now in this life. In this physical body, in this present moment, you think you know yourself. You don’t know anything about yourself. If you want to know about yourself, you have to start working. 

You know there is a thing called dying while you are still alive, which means samadhi.....

To want Him means to devote oneself sincerely, to develop this pure Love that is already there, just to let

it out and let it spread around. With this devotion and pure Love, one will realise that the Divine is not outside, but it is inside, in this microcosmic form of the Universe that He has implanted in us. When a yogi looks inside of himself, he doesn’t see in the same way that human beings see things, because human beings want to see many things. How many human beings want to see the Ultimate within them? If you haven’t found the Ultimate inside of you, how would you find the Ultimate outside? How would you find it in all His Creation? We say God pervades everything but how many people achieve this state? Very few! Like in the Gita, it said “Out of a million, only few will attain Him.” Through the Divine Names, which have been given, go inside. Utilise the Cosmic Names of God and attain Him. That’s what Shiva teaches us. That’s what all the Deities, if you analyse them properly, teach us: to realise this oneness with the Creator. We have to take time and be patient. Not in one month of spiritual practice will you attain the Divine, not even in one year! If you read the Vedas, if you read the Upanishads, you will see that it took yogis hundreds of years to attain the Divine, but it was that age. So it’s a lucky age now, because just by chanting the Divine Names you can attain Him. It’s so simple, no? You know there is a thing called dying while you are still alive, which means  samadhi. We will do a meditation and, if you do it properly, you can go into Samadhi. It doesn’t mean that you will die. No, you will come back again. 

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda........

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.”

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda......

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. 

Awaken the Spirit of Helping.....

Christ said “ The least you do to my brothers, you are doing it unto me.” The little you do to someone who really is in need, you are doing it to the Lord. In return, He is giving you much more. In return He is filling your heart with lots of Love.

If you want to experience the Love of God, help, do charity. This will open the heart, because when you do charity, you don’t think of yourself, you think of serving. You see, when you start to think of others, God will give you the most important thing. Some people will say “Yeah, but many people help.” Yes, there are many people who help, but the help doesn’t come from the heart. Help doesn’t mean that you have to go to a house like this or help these kinds of people. Help means anything and everything! You can go into nature and do something simple, help planting a tree where it is needed or if you see some trash on the way you pick it up. Something like this is also help, a help to nature. 

Don’t let the negativity of this world affect you....

Live in the world, do everything, but do it in the mind-set of surrendering. No matter what action you do, surrender it to the Divine. Know that whatever action you do, whether it is, positive or negative, it is a prayer for and in front of Him. If in this attitude you surrender every action to the Divine, it will be pure always. In the  Soundarya Lahari, Sri Adi Shankaracharya wrote about it. He said “Oh, Divine, I give you everything. Let my every action of surrender to You, be a prayer to your Feet. When I am lying down, sleeping, let it be a prostration to your Feet! Be it that every food that I am eating is an offering to Thee.” Like that, all the actions that you are doing in daily life, if you do them with the remembrance of the Divine, they will be pure, because the Divine is not limited half as much as we think of Him. We are limited. We are limited, because our mind, our pride, our ego is so huge, that we live in this world and we get attached to the world. We make our whole life depend on this world. Like the great Sages said “Live in the world, but don’t let the world live in you. If you let the world live in you, then God becomes far away.” Like the lotus. Have you seen the lotus flower? Where does the lotus flower grow? In mud – it comes out from mud. All the mud doesn’t affect it. Such is the Divine inside of you also. Such is who you are in reality. You live in this world. Don’t let the negativity of this world affect you. Be positive firstly. If you are positive, automatically you will be humble. Humility – this is a nice word. Humbleness means acceptance – to accept yourself how you are and to know that what you are looking for on the outside doesn’t reside on the outside. It resides here inside of you. 

Floating in the Hand of God......

In this kirtan that we just sang, the meaning of the first two lines: Chori Chori Makhan Kha Gayo Re is: very stealthily Krishna is stealing butter and eating it. The second line, Sabke Man Ko Loobha Gayo Re, means: in the same way He steals the butter, the same way God steals the heart of Man.  God steals the hearts of men, the same way, little by little, He steals the heart. This is actually the Love. This is what one has to go through to let one’s heart be stolen by God. The more you resist, the more it becomes difficult. The more you say “Yes, take it. Steal it. It is yours already,” the more you will see how you float in your spiritual path, how you float in the hand of God, but the more you use the mind and try to stop it, the more you will see that there will be lots of pain that will come. The pain gets transformed into Divine Love, merges into Divine Love and becomes Divine Love, because even pain, even problems, all is from Him. The one small step that one has to take is to realise that it is from Him. We know it and we say “Yes, everything is from God,” but when a problem comes we forget about God. We don’t say that it is from God. Actually, there is His Hand in it also, we just need to be aware of that. In the calmness of your mind, in the depth of your heart, you know that everything is His game. All of you who are sitting here know it’s His game. As long as we like this drama, as long as we want to play this game, we will be in the game. That’s what Krishna did as His Lila when he was small, and that’s the same Lila that we are all playing. We think that spirituality is far away. No, spirituality is very near; it’s just here in one’s heart. In all the techniques that we will be talking about very soon – through the grace of Mahavatar Babaji we’ll be doing the Atma Kriya – He is there already. He is already sitting there. All techniques lead you to this path. With all these techniques that we do, including meditation, we are saying to God “Here, I am surrendering myself. Reveal Yourself to me. Let me taste the little sweetness of the Amrita that You are, that is deep within me.” Like I said, through the grace of Mahavatar Babaji, soon we’ll do the Atma Kriya and you will see how easy it is to be in the different mood of the Divine, anytime. Often people think “Why do we have to be spiritual? Why do we have to be ready for God?” Why not just sit down and say “God will give whenever He wants to give?” It’s true if you don’t make any effort, you will not know how to handle what God wants to give you. It’s only when you start making your effort and say “Yes God, I’m working on myself to be ready for You. I’m working on myself to be ready for this realisation and I’m trying to be ready also to help others”, then God will give it to you. Even if He has to give it on a silver plate or even on a diamond plate, He will do it, but the effort, you have to do it. When you look at the mind, it’s decorated with so many beautiful things that it traps people into it. To become spiritual is to divert this beauty of the mind to the heart, and go in the boat of the heart to reach the final destination, to reach the Oneness of God within you. All that you are practicing is good; whatever path you take is good. Know that the main thing is that you have to reach. The more you say “Yes, take it. Steal it. It is yours already”, the more you will see how you float in your spiritual path, how you float in the hand of God. But the more you use the mind and try to stop it, the more you will see that there will be lots of pain that will come.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

You can love, you can love beyond what your mind is thinking about love. In the depth of this love you’ll be one with the Divine. Beyond all the duality that the mind creates is only the Self, and that’s what each one is here for. And no matter which path you are following, at the end, each path will reach that point.

All paths are right but you have to be disciplined in them. When I say disciplined I don’t mean forcing or pressing. This is spirituality. Something that has to emerge from the heart of man, is like a flower that opens without any force. Let it open, and let it shine with beauty.

Love is beyond expression......

What is life? The Divine is far away. For the mind to understand the Divine is very difficult. Until you have

really cleansed the mind completely, until you have really purified the mind completely, it is quite difficult to understand the Divine. Love. Life is Love. And Love, of course, is Divine. Love is God. But the feeling of Love, that’s what life is all about, to Realise this great Love, not just this partial love when today we say “I love you” and tomorrow “Who is that person?” Life is not that love, but the Love that is beyond expression, this Love that is unconditional, which is in everything around you. That’s what is life.

Don’t let the itching of the world get you......

...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. 

When the drop merges into the ocean, there is no identification.....

You see, God is not limited to one form. He’s unlimited. That’s why He is God. If God were limited, then He would not be God. Then He would be the fashion of one’s mind, but God is not that. Even if you give a form to Him, He’s not that. He’s beyond our creation. He’s beyond our mind’s creation. Like it is said in the Bible “Give what belongs to God back to God.” So what belongs to Him is everything. In our mind we think that something belongs to us. Yesterday I said that we came with nothing; we will go with nothing. All that belongs to us is from Him. He creates everything and He will annihilate everything in Him. Everything is born from Him and everything will merge back into Him. It’s of no use to resist Him. You can try your best, you can try life after life, but at the end it’s only Him who will win. Only your True Self will win. And you are part of Him. You are the droplet in the ocean, but you are not yet the ocean and you will never become the ocean, because you stay always this drop. When the drop merges into the ocean, there is no identification. Where is the drop and where is the ocean? Until you reach the point of merging into the ocean, Love Him. Serve Him. Enjoy Him. This is in your capacity to do. All that we are doing is to express our Love to Him, to express how much we want Him, how much we want to Realise Him.

The love of God is the only Reality......

I’ll tell you something: to realise the Love of God you have to live it; you can’t read it. To realise devotion, bhakti, you have to live bhakti. Then you can have just a glimpse of this Love. I’ll tell you something more: even a glimpse of this Love is a lot for this body. Try your best always to achieve this Love, because this is the only Reality. All that we think is real, all these things are just an illusion and will fade with time. The body is an illusion; with time it will grow old and disappear. But yet, the reality of the Atma will stay. How many people really arrive in a lifetime to the point of realising the Atma Swarupa - the real form of the Atma? 

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

Be in the hands of God. May you be ready always to be His messenger, His tool, to spread His Love. As Christ said to His disciples: What I am doing, you all can do much more, you just have to believe it, and if you believe without doubt, it will happen. You need faith like a child, because when you look at a child, a child doesn’t ask questions. 

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

Be yourself! People will learn to appreciate you as yourself and by being yourself you will develop self-

confidence. It is only by developing this self-confidence that you can attain the Divine. 

When your right hand gives, your left hand should not know about it...

Jesus talked about love and faith. In Hinduism, we call it bhakti: faith, devotion and love. In love, you don’t have expectations. You do not want anything from anybody. You are just here to give. Jesus never expected anything from anybody. Did he expect something from somebody? No, he was just here to give. He was always giving. You cannot say his life was a charitable one, but he gave it freely. He gave without any expectation, without even thinking or talking about it. He even taught to be quiet about whatever happens. In one of the parables he said, when your right hand gives, your left hand should not know about it. That means, give and forget about it. In the same way, sometimes when you receive something, you are very happy about it for some time, but after some time you forget about it, isn’t it? So the same way you should also give and forget it. And when you give – give with love. Give it joyfully without any egoistic thinking, “Oh, I have done this.” So many times people do lots of good things and talk a lot about it. But this is not how it should be. You have to give and forget. Then it is not you who gave, it’s the Self. The Self is everlasting giving! 

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

When people come for darshan, they ask me “What do you see, Swami?”. I see the beauty that you have inside of you. If you look at it, you would be the richest person in the world, in the whole universe and that beauty, is what you have to see inside of you. When you have seen this beauty inside of you, you will see it

everywhere. So keep trying and know that it is there, know that you are there also. It really is simple to do that, it’s free. 

The sweet name of Sri Hari is the most important one....

When we say we want to do God’s Will, we have really to do His Will, not our will. To know how the Will of God is, this will be the question, you know? When you pray there is always a feeling that awakens. If you are praying sincerely, and you are sincerely chanting the Name of God, there is this great longing and the great peace and calm that awakens. When this awakens inside of you, there is also the inner voice that will start awakening. When you hear this inner voice, it is even greater than what you have in the mind, because even if you want to do what your mind wants you to do, this one will be greater. You will know that. Your heart will pull you towards that voice. When you chant the Name of God, it’s not just mere chanting when you recite the sweet Name. It’s not just chanting it like that, but what it creates inside of you, what it awakens inside of you, because you see, it is said that the Name of God, and God, are one. There is no difference between the Name of God and God. So when you chant the Name, He is next to you. It is said that when you chant, first your Guru has to be in your mind. From the Master, the Lord will show Himself. So always, when you chant, always place the Master first. In that way, it will be like what Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.” To sing the name of the Guru is so easy. There are so many names. Everybody feels close with certain names, but in this age, as it is said, the sweet name of Sri Hari is the most important one. Chant always, and as you chant, let your mind be focused on the Divine. Don’t just do it mechanically, but do it and feel that the Lord is with you, and is standing next to you. 

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’”. 

What does always come together with love?

Someone suggested that I talk about love and death – interesting themes, actually, because what does always come together with love? It is humility. Love and humility go together. When there is Love, there is humility and something dies at that moment. What is it? It is the pride, the egoism. In the presence of Love, there is no egoism, there is no pride. So the questions arise, “How can I be humble? How can I awake this love? How can I awake this humility inside?” Because we are hanging so much onto this big ego or pride, we always say, I, mine and me. Have you ever counted how many times in a day you use these words? If you were to count them, you would scare yourself. It’s a lot of times! It’s true that we have different I’s. There is the “I” of the ego and there is the “I” of the Self, but most often, what our mind first understands is the “I’ of egoism. And with this “I”, it’s very difficult to awaken Love. Even if Love awakens, it gets diluted with the power of the mind. The ego is so strong. It’s true that to achieve Realisation, to achieve God, we have to be humble, but there is one problem. Very often, when someone sees himself as humble, he starts to say “I am very humble.” These people are very proud people. What is this called? This is the ego of humility and the pride of humility. Actually, it’s very difficult to be humble, but it’s not impossible. Have you heard about a great Persian Sufi poet called Sa’adi? You should read about him. His poems are very beautiful. There is an incident in his life, which marked him very much and which made him completely humble throughout his life. One day, he went to the mosque with his father for an all night vigil. It’s when you pray the whole night. So, they were all sitting in the mosque with the Mullah and they were praying and praying. And, in the middle of the night, everybody dozed off. Everybody was falling asleep; even the Mullah was falling asleep. Then Sa’adi went near to his dad’s ears and whispered “Dad, only me and you are keeping vigil. All of them are sleeping.” At that moment his father became annoyed and angry with him and told him off, saying “It’s better to sleep and not to keep the vigil all the night than to judge others and consider oneself more superior than anybody else.” At that moment, Sa’adi realised that one has to always be humble and he took the decision that nothing should ever come between him and his humility. So, he became very, very humble. It’s easy to talk about humility, but sometimes difficult to practice, because we are so bound by our pride, which makes ego perceive us to be above everybody else. If we really want to change something, if we really want to let go of this pride, it will happen, but first we have to want it. We have to say “Yes, I want it!” and not superficially. Many people say, “Yes, I want it, Swamiji. I don’t want to be proud. I try my best to get rid of it, but it’s not leaving me!” But it’s not that it is not leaving you, but you are not leaving it. This is the difference, you know? When one is humble, one will not even care about putting oneself completely down and regarding everybody else higher. This is the beginning of how to learn to be humble, to learn to put yourself down and say that everybody else knows better than you. Keep repeating to yourself, keep reminding yourself of that and you will learn from everything and from everyone. That’s true humility.

Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda.....

Desire the Ultimate, and you shall have it. Surrender your body, mind and soul. Focus on any Divine aspect firstly, and then you realise your Divinity. Remember that whoever you are, even if your advancement is slow or fast, God loves you. He loves you even more than you can think about love, more than the mind of man can think about.So always trust in this love, always hang on this love, and never let go of Him. He is always  with you. Even if you do not feel Him, even if you do not see Him, He is there. 

At the Feet of the Father.....

...So, in this reading of the Gospel you see the Crucifixion of Jesus, but before the crucifixion, He had given many commandments to His Disciples. Above all, the commandment that He gave to the Disciples was to Love. How many times in this small piece has He been talking about Love? Many times, not twice, but many, many times He spoke about Love in it. And He also shows the non-duality of the Self, of being One with the Father. Because we are bound by the dualistic aspect of the body, we are limited. He even said it “Whoever loves me, they are with me and I am with them and they are with the Father and the Father is with them.” So, if He is with the Father, the Father is also with them, so there is no duality. That means that whoever loves, they are One with God. But this word Love, very often we take it for granted. We are like little Judases, you know, who love God for His gifts, who love God always for something. How many times do you really love God for the sake of loving Him and not asking anything? Always we ask God for something, but He is not bound by anything. He is not saying not to ask. He says ask, yes, until really you ask what it is you are here for. And why you are here is to Realise this Love. And when you Realise this Love that you have inside, you transcend everything and all becomes One. There is no duality that separates you from the Father. All the practices that you are doing, your meditation, your Kriya, all you are doing is for what? It’s to Realise your Self, no? But many people think they are Realised and they become very arrogant and they are the ones who judge everybody. They are the ones who say “Oh, this is right; this is wrong.” He said it. It is part of the Gospel. Jesus said: The Father is present everywhere, in everything. It is not up to me to say it, but you will know about it. If you just take this part of the Gospel and you meditate only on that, you will have a whole truth in it – especially about Love. I always talk about love, love, love, always, you know. It is true that the world doesn’t yet know about it. And yet, you are working for that, all of you who are spiritual, all of you who are searching for the truth. It is not outside, it is here inside of you, but you have to want to change. You have to really say “Yes, I want to change.” Like He said: Even if you want to change, the world will be against you. It’s perfectly true! Ask yourself in your life, in your own life itself, when you took the spiritual path, how many people became against you–firstly in your own family? So, it is normal. The more you advance towards the light, the others will be jealous, because inside everybody wants that. Everybody wants to be with the Father. Everybody wants to be close to the Divine, but, yet, they don’t want to make any effort. They don’t want to make any change to their life. They want to get everything happily and for free. So, if you want this really and sincerely, then be sincere towards yourself and ask the Father. Ask God and you will have it. It’s simple.

The infusion of the Divine Love is present everywhere.....

Somebody asked me a question about eternal Love, about God’s Love. Actually, the infusion of the Divine Love is present everywhere. There is not a moment when this Love is not present. That’s what gives us the

power to act, that’s what gives us the power to do everything. The question is, why don’t we feel this Divine Love all the time? Why do we feel it only sometimes and then sometimes it is just dormant? The thing is, the Divine Love always flows through us, but we are not always with the Divine Love. That’s why very often we don’t feel this Divine connection, but if we are always in connection with this Divine Love, if we are always in connection with this Divine consciousness, we will always feel it. This comes to the point we always want and want. Are we ready to also let go of certain things?  Until we let go of certain things, of how our mind thinks, we will not find God, because we darken Him. We darken the light which is inside of us. We put our own shadow around this light and we blind ourselves and then we say “We are blind.” We don’t want to see. Even when we say “Yes, we want to see”, yet there is a thick shadow around us, so how will we see? A blind man wants to see, but there is a veil over the eyes. Until this veil is removed, we will stay blind. This veil is our ignorance. This veil is our pride. Are we ready to renounce it? How many are ready to humble themselves? Because this light, which is inside of us, has left God to incarnate, it is a great form of humility itself. Once this light has incarnated here, it builds up the shield. The mind builds up a shield that darkens this light.

The greatness of the name of God.....

Isn’t it beautiful to sing the name of Narayana? Let yourself be drawn into it. Such is the greatness of the name of God, whoever is singing with an open heart, whoever is singing the name of God with faith, will be pulled more inside of it. See, the more you go into it, the more you lose yourself in this Divine name, the identity of being human disappears. Then what stays is only the Divine, and that is what you really are. If we remove the body, who are you? The soul, isn’t it?We are the soul with a stain on it. The stain is in the mind. However, by singing the name of God – any aspect, Krishna, Jesus, Allah – one begins to remove this stains. But it has to be sung with devotion and love. It is nice when you join together and sing the name of God. It creates a vibration, an urge to merge with 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 His names. While you are reciting, picture the form in your mind. Keep concentrating on the form and let yourself go. Let yourself merge into the Divine energy. And enjoy it! Remove all the darkness and barriers from the mind – just jump in. This is bhakti! 

We say God pervades everything but how many people achieve this state?.....

To want Him means to devote oneself sincerely, to develop this pure Love that is already there, just to let

it out and let it spread around. With this devotion and pure Love, one will realise that the Divine is not outside, but it is inside, in this microcosmic form of the Universe that He has implanted in us. When a yogi looks inside of himself, he doesn’t see in the same way that human beings see things, because human beings want to see many things. How many human beings want to see the Ultimate within them? If you haven’t found the Ultimate inside of you, how would you find the Ultimate outside? How would you find it in all His Creation? We say God pervades everything but how many people achieve this state? Very few! Like in the Gita, it said “Out of a million, only few will attain Him.”

You know that the Reality is only realised when you surrender to the Divine Feet....

As long as one does not surrender the mind, one is a slave of the mind. Our mind is bound by the five attachments: greed, lust, anger, ego and jealousy. These are the five gross qualities that make up our mind

and the strongest of them is the ego. In place of surrendering the mind to the Lord, pride and ego make one surrender to all other things except the Lord. That is why we become restless, because the mind is not at the right place. The soul inside of us is jumping and telling us, “Hey, mind, surrender yourself!” but the mind says, “No! I am better off with my own worries, because that is how I can drag you down completely.” The soul says, “But this is just an illusion”, because - deep inside - you know that the Reality is only realised when you surrender to the Divine Feet; when you realise the mystery of your incarnation, when you realise your Dharma, your duty here, and achieve that. Deep inside, each one of you does know about it. It is not about me saying it; it is about you, yourself, knowing that. But the mind makes it impossible, because whenever we say: don’t do something, detach yourself from it, what does the mind do? The mind gets more active and says “No, no, no. Do it!” But the moment you do it, you get entangled in it. And then, one will lead to the other. It will never end! Then, when you look back, you say, “Oops, if I could have changed it from the beginning, I would have changed it!” How many times in your life did you take such a decision, and then, afterwards, you said, “I should have done it differently!” It happens, doesn´t it?

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

Often people say “Swamiji I am on the spiritual path but I am working on this and that, I am so busy. I can’t be there!”

Well, God has put you there so you have to do your duty there and if He chooses to come to you in that way, He will come to you. He will awaken the cosmic Love inside of you wherever you are the moment you start to accept. Have acceptance of yourself and then control this pride because this pride will always stop somebody. I will tell you a story. You know Ganesha? No? Yes? How many of you know? Ganesha is the elephant God, the God of wisdom and remover of obstacles on one’s way. As He has an elephant head, of course you know there is always judgement around Him. So one day Kuber, the Lord of wealth; you know in Hinduism there are three hundred million deities, each deity is responsible for one thing. They are not outside though; each deity is present within oneself. Even science says there are around three hundred billion cells in the body, so the deities are present inside. One day Kuber, who is the accountant of Goddess Lakshmi, came to visit Shiva and pay his respects to Him. Despite having all the wealth with him, He only brought 2 bananas for Shiva. Seeing that, Ganesha said “Well you are the Lord of wealth but you are very stingy. You only brought two bananas!” Of course this offended Kuber very much. He said to Shiva “I came to invite you. Tomorrow I am making a great feast. Could you please come?” Of course Shiva knew what was in his mind. Because he felt offended inside, He wanted to prove Himself to be the best by making a big feast so that everybody would be talking about it. So the next day Shiva with the whole family came to Kuber. Kuber of course didn’t do it out of real Love, but instead he did it out of pride. What did Ganesha do? Ganesha stepped into the mud and walked with his feet on the beautiful carpet. Of course Kuber was not happy; he looked at Ganesha in a very weird way pushing him aside. What was the next thing Ganesha did? He went to the kitchen and saw all the beautiful dishes that had been cooked, a massive amount that had been prepared, and He said “I am a guest here and I am hungry right now. Please, before the great feast starts, let me eat something.” Everybody brought the food that they had cooked and He started eating one after the other. After some time, after all the cooked food was finished, He said “Well I am still hungry!” So they got Him all the fruits and uncooked vegetables, gave them to Him and He ate everything that was there to be eaten. Looking for more things to eat, Ganesha asked the cooks to bring all the dishes and utensils from the kitchen and He ate them all. After all that, the cook ran to Kuber and said “Your invited guest has eaten everything and there is nothing left to offer!” Then Ganesha said “Well you invite us but all what you had here fills only half of my stomach! What about the other half?” Kuber said “Bring more things!” but there was nothing to bring as everything what was there had been eaten. In that moment the pride of Kuber was shattered and He realised His mistake. He had invited Shiva not out of Love or joy, but out of pride. Whenever there is pride, the Great Teacher knows how to break it. Then he realised his mistake and asked for forgiveness, and he changed deep inside of himself. Seeing that, Ganesha said “Kuber, it’s not the greatest feast that will fill my stomach. Just one banana itself, given with Love, will fill me up.” But Love has to be from the heart. You see when we are first in love, when you meet somebody you are very much in love and this is a trace of the real Love. You forget about yourself and you are always thinking about that love in whatever you do, wherever you are. Constantly in the mind, that person is wondering what the other person is doing and where that person is. You will do everything to have that connection with the person. That is the trace of pure Love inside man. However when it becomes routine, you forget about that Love. That’s why it’s important to open the windows of the mind and let some fresh air in. In a house with all the windows closed, you get stuffy, no? The thing is, when there are too many old thoughts in the mind, particularly narrow minded ones, after some time, it starts to get stuffy. This is why sometimes you say you can’t breathe anymore and so what you must do is open up. Open your mind, let it have fresh air inside and you will see that the Love that you felt has never gone away. This Love is always there inside you, inside your heart. It’s just that the mind, with all the business of the world, forgets about it. It is very easy to love.