Divine Love between Radha & Krishna

Today on Krishna's Jayanti- Krishna's Birthday Sri Swami Vishwananda shares following story:

Now you always say Radhe Radhe. In Brindavan actually, they don’t say Hare Krishna, or they don’t even mention the name of Krishna to greet somebody. They always use the name of Radha. Do you know why? Tell me. Because Krishna left Brindavan and they were still angry with him.
Well, there is something to be angry with, you know? Because the Gopis had such Love for Krishna, which is not comparable to any kind of love. That’s why when He left, they were angry. Also the descendent are still angry with him. It’s amazing the love relationship that still today the people have for Krishna. It’s really one to one. It’s like He is the dearest one. They will tell Him anything. They will scold Him even. Once one thing will go wrong, they will scold Him. They know that He is God, but yet the love, that they feel inside their heart is stronger. This closeness, this relationship, this love, that’s what is the most important thing. Our relationship to the Divine, this kind of love our soul has to the Brahmamatma. And if we awake this relationship, it will come.
It is said that the Queen of Gopis, which is Radharani will do anything for Krishna. Name it, she will do it. Even giving her life she will do it. It so happened once the Gopis all sang 'Krishna, Krishna we love you so much'. And everybody was saying 'Oh Krishna we will do that for you'. You know that very well. When you are in love, you just have big, big promises, when sometimes it comes to practice: null, zero.
Well the Gopi also were talking ‘Krishna we love you so much’, but yet Krishna wanted to test them. So one day He pretended to have terrible headache and He was screaming “Aah, I have terrible pain”. Everybody was shocked you know, said “Oh my Lord what can we do for you?” And those who have said they will do anything, said “Lord, we will do anything for you, tell us.” Krishna looked at them all, said Ok, fine. To cure my headache I need the dust of your feet. I need that you press my head with your feet. They all got shocked. He, the Lord of Universe is asking that His head is pressed by their feet. None of them considered them worthy for that. They were very scared that to press Gods head with their feet is so disrespectful. Secondly for sure they will go to hell. So everybody was discussing with each another how would they do that.
At that moment Radha came and she saw Krishna in such a state. So she went to Krishna and said to Him “My Lord tell me”. Krishna said the same thing that He said to the Gopis tell us really what we will do. Then she did what she had to do. Without thinking, without considering about herself she said “Yes” and there Krishna was lying in pain. She start pressing the head of Krishna with her feet and everybody was shocked. At that moment Krishna's headache was gone. Everybody was shocked. They came to Radha and were very angry with Radha and start cursing Radha, saying “Oh you are so bad, you are mean. How come you have put your feet on the head of our Lord? Then for sure you will go to hell.” Radharani said to them “Well, even the deepest of hell will be a blessing for me for it has cured my Lord’s pain”.
So you see in the relationship to the Divine you forget about yourself, completely. You forget about your own realization, you forget about what will make you happy

Giving and receiving love

Our beloved Guruji Sri Swami Vishwananda tells you this morning: If you receive love, let this love flow, you know. Increase this love inside of you, let this love flow. Feel it in each part of your body, increase it and send it out. You can send it to somebody that you know, you can send it to nature, you can send it to whatever, but let this love always flow. You will see, when you have sent this love, when you have increased this love inside of you and you have send it out, nature itself will increase in double what you have sent and send it back to you. And if this round happens, this is healthy. But many people doesn’t do it, because it’s easier just to receive love and then to keep it. So, open up! That’s what is important. Know that every moment, every second, every time you think of something positive, you think of God, you think of something nice, you receive this love of God, you receive this energy of God- let it work through you, let it work through each part of your body and also let it flow out, then it will grow.

OM meditation

In South Africa Swami Vishwananda was holding a three days-retreat where he was for the first time teaching the OM Healing meditation.

Being the child of God

On this beautiful day Sri Swami Vishwananda tells you: To be good in meditation, to be good on your spiritual path, you have to be disciplined. But, it’s not a pressure, it’s not forcing. It has to come from deep within your heart; it has to be out of love.

The same, if a child wants something, the child will do anything to get it. In the same way, when Jesus talked about how to enter the kingdom of God one has to be like a child who wants it very badly, and who is screaming to the Father, “God give me realization. God reveal Yourself to me. Reveal my purpose of me being here on Earth.” Often we start in this way, but then we loose hope. Many people start, but in the middle, they loose hope and give up. But, of course, it is they themselves that stop the realization, not God.

Love is a word that for centuries has been used and misused. In the name of Love, and in the name of God many bad things have happened. But it’s up to each one you to rectify and to reflect what Love really is. To reflect that you truly are part of God. It’s not just a word, it’s not just a sound, it’s also something we can see with our eyes. You’re the child of God? Then prove that your the child of God. Show that you’re the child of God. Have this deep determination of realizing God. Have this deep desire to realize who you really are. And you will have it.

Let Love be the most important thing in your life. Let God be the most important thing in your life. Because in Him there is everything. Whatever you desire is in Him, in your true Self. Otherwise you will always have things that are limited; and these things will always make you unhappy. Try for real happiness, and really become the Satchitananda that God has created in each one of you. If you really want that, you will have it. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. It can also happen right now. If you are 100 percent sure of yourself everything will be given to you.

Searching for happiness

You see, we are always on a search. A search of who we are; a search of what we are here for. Many times this clicks in your mind, and you ask yourself, “Am I just an incarnation of man born here on Earth?”

You see, this search can last for years and years. You can go around the world, looking for what is deep, to find what will really satisfy you. But, because humans always desire new things, you enjoy whatever you have for some time and then the desire disappears, and then afterwards you desire something else. Humans are always desiring, and you will keep on desiring as long as you desire material things. One desire will lead you to another, but do you think this is really the incarnation of mankind? Come on…No.

Human beings are said to be Satchitananda. This is a Sanskrit word. Sat means Existence; Chit, the Consciousness; and Ananda is Bliss. Everybody wants bliss, everybody wants to be happy. But if you really, really want to be happy, then you have to be sincere and truthful towards yourself. Then you can ask God, “Lord, give me happiness.” And do you think he will refuse you? Him not! He will give it to you. But, it is upon you to maintain the happiness. It is upon you to keep it and help it grow.

Developing Bhakti

Today Sri Swami Vishwananda wants to share with you the following message: The more you feel Him, the more you become part of Him. Like it is said also in the Gita, “When one chants the name of God, the Lord takes full possession of the person. The more the person looses oneself, the more he looses the Ego, the pride, the more the person will realise the Divine. But the more one hangs on the pride, the more one hangs on the identity, less it will be there real happiness to be found. So the easiest way that the Lord has given is to sing His glory. Any Divine Names just sing it. And when you sing, let yourself, be drawn into it. Not just try to think with the mind. Especially in the West we like to use the mind a lot, we like to understand thing, with our mind. But our mind has a limit. Does the mind understand the heart? It will never understand. The mind will understand things only, when there is a limit to it. When there is a wall that you can bang yourself, on it, the mind will understand. And then of course you will complain about it, it hurts.
Whereas when you centre yourself in your heart, and awaken this Divine Consciousness, you will always flow. No matter what, you will enter Divine Ecstasy, you will feel different energy flowing through you, where the mind can’t understand it and then the mind will cry, “I want to understand it, but I can’t”. Then the power of the mind decreases; the power of the heart increases. And it’s so simple that what the Lord has send you here to realise. To develop Bhakti and get self-realised.

Story of the shoe maker

Once in a town, there was a shoe maker. He would make his shoes while chanting God’s name. And whenever he would go to sell his shoes in the market, he would tell everybody, “Look, by God’s Grace, I bought the leather for one Euro. I bought the nails for a few cents and all together the shoes cost five Euros. I will make a profit of two Euros, by God’s Grace.” He was very sincere. And with everything that he did, his mind was always centred on God. He accepted everything as God’s Grace. The people around him saw this innocence and this love he had for God and they would buy the shoes without any bargaining.

So it happened one night, he could not sleep. While he was sitting in his courtyard, a group of robbers came by, and they kidnapped him. They then went to rob another house. When the owner of this house heard noises, the thieves ran away and left the shoe maker behind with all the jewellery they had robbed. The homeowner saw this innocent shoe maker with all of his belongings and said, “It’s impossible!” But since the shoe maker had all the jewellery on him, the homeowner had doubts in his mind, and said, “Let me call the police.”

The police came and put the shoemaker in prison. The next day he was brought in front of the judge, there the shoemaker said, “By the Grace of God yesterday night I could not sleep. By the Grace of God I was sitting outside of my house. And by the Grace of God some robbers came and kidnapped me. By the Grace of God this man found me. By the Grace of God he thought that I came to steal from him. And by the Grace of God I am here.”Seeing the innocence in the shoe maker, the judge said, “This man is not the one who stole, he has spoken the truth.” While coming out of the court, the shoemaker said to his friend, “It is by the Grace of God that I was freed.” This shows that very often we take everything for granted. We forget that behind all our actions, behind all that is happening is God’s Grace. If we start seeing it in this way, we’ll be happy and we will find peace in everything. Even the worst of things that might come in one’s life, we will see it in a different way.

To discover the God without form,

Swami Vishwananda tells us today:

"You know there is a saying, ‘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".

Diving deep in your heart

We all are here because of our spiritual path, of our spiritual way, this way to the heart, this way to realization – God realization. Most of you probably know that the main aim of this life is to know thyself, to realize in completeness who we are in reality. In this search many travel everywhere, to India, you travel to America, everywhere around the world. But all the search outside have a limit. You are on a search, the search bring us to different places. We will meet different people, but still we are uncomplete. You say God have left heaven to realize it here. Whatever I’m doing I’m bringing for Thee, whereever I go just I’m looking for Thee. But all my search towards the outside is of no use. Until at the end you will realize that God is always with you – deep in the heart. God is always with you. It’s like in the ocean you have lot of precious treasures, and to get it you have to dive into the ocean, go deep inside. So God linked deep inside the heart of man. With your mind you have to dive deep within your heart. (...)
See, when you love others you see the goodness in others, but when the point comes to love oneself, you see all your negativity. You should stop look at the negativity look at the positiveness within yourself. And when you stop looking at this positiveness and stop thinking about yourself positively you will dive deep inside this ocean and your heart will open up for the divine, and you become a diver. The Beloved is always with you all the time

Be Happy with whatever He gives You

When you put your mind aside and try not to listen to it, you will awaken this divine love. When you say, “God, I surrender to you, I tried my best. I did everything, every yoga, every meditation, I did it all in my life, but still it’s not coming. I say I’m tired with that, I surrender myself to you now. You do what you have to do.”
In this deep surrender, you’ll see how close God is with you. Because often we do lots of things, but we have expectations. We pray, and we expect something. We meditate, we expect God to jump into our meditation. This expectation will not lead you anywhere. Only when you don’t expect anything from God, and accept, like a child, whatever the Father is giving, and are happy with whatever He gives you, then He will also give you the full realization of this divine love. So, look deep within yourself, and try your best to feel Him.

The spark of Divine Love

Today Swami Vishwananda tells you a story about Divine Love: Once a Master, a guru, was traveling. On the journey they were tired, so they stopped to relax a little bit. One of the disciples said, “Master, you always talk about love. You always say that love is eternal, that love is the only thing that we have to attain, but it seems that we take birth, we die, and we don’t realize this love. Where is this love?”So the master kept quiet for awhile. By his side there was a stone. He pulled the stone next to him, and he took another stone from the river. He started tapping both stones, the one from the river and the one from the land. What happened after some time? A spark! Fire came.The same stone that was in the water, and the same stone that was on the land, they each have the spark. Even if the one from the water has stayed in the water for centuries, it can still produce a spark. So it is the same with man. No matter how many times you take birth, how many incarnations you will have, this spark of divine love is ever with you. You have to want to let it out. It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s just waiting—and for it to come out, you have to want it; you have to let it out.

Never be scared of opening your heart to love

Today Swami Vishwanananda tells you a Story about a King: Once there was a King. This King was very generous and very loving, but he had one fault. He was short-tempered. For that, many people were afraid of him. But in his kingdom there was one Minister that he loved so much. This Minister used to pray every day, and he trusted in God so much. One day the King went hunting in the forest. On the way, there was a cobra on the path in front of the King’s horse. The horse panicked and threw the King. He landed down near the cobra and the cobra bit the King’s index finger. The King knew that if he didn’t cut his finger off, the poison would kill him. So he pulled his dagger and chopped off his finger. He was in very much pain. The Minister rushed to him and took a piece of cloth and bandaged the King’s finger. As he was bandaging it, he said to the King, “King, don’t worry, it’s God will you cut your finger, and it’s God will that you’re in pain.” The King bore this for some time, but the Minister was going on and on and on. The King could not handle it anymore so he said to his soldiers, “Take this man and put him in the prison. I can’t bear him, I can’t listen to him. Every word he is saying is, it’s God’s will, God’s will. Here I’m in pain and he’s saying, it’s God’s will.” So they took the Minister to the prison and locked him inside. He was happy. He said, “Thank you, God, that I am here now. It’s quiet and I can chant your name. You know, in the world when I’m so busy, I have very little time to chant your name. But look, I'm here now, and I will have time to chant your name all the time.” A few days later, the King went out hunting again. But this time he was attacked by a group of tribesmen. They captured the King and brought him to the Chief. The Chief was very happy to see the King tied up and said, “King, you’re so lucky. Today we will sacrifice you to the Goddess Kali.” The King thought to himself, “Well, I’m not lucky at all. I will be killed.” So the Chief said to his tribesmen, “Take the King, because it’s not every time the Goddess gets royal blood... take him and wash him, dress him nicely, and we will offer him to the Goddess afterwards.” So, as they were removing his clothes to wash him, the tribesmen noticed that the King had one missing finger. They rushed quickly to the Chief and said, “Chief, Chief, we can’t offer this King to the Goddess, he’s incomplete. He’s missing one finger.” The Chief thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, let him go. Lucky for you, King, that you are missing one finger. We can’t offer you to the Goddess.” The King was very happy. He rushed back to the palace and went directly to the jail. He opened the jail door and embraced the Minister. As he was embracing the Minister he said, “Thank you, it’s true, you were right, it was God’s will. I was saved because I'm missing one finger.” Then a thought passed through his mind and he asked the Minister, “But I don’t understand one thing. Why did I lock you in here? You’re such a good man. You praise God all the time.” The Minister replied, “It’s simple, I told you that everything happens through the will of God. If I had come with you the second time, if you had not locked me up in jail, what would have happened? They would have taken us both. And when they saw that you didn’t have one finger, that you were incomplete, but that I was complete... they would have taken me and offered me to the Goddess.” So, whatever He, the higher consciousness, God, whatever name you put to Him, gives you, He’s always right. You may not understand when something negative happens, but later on in life, you will realize that whatever He did was for your own good. You should never be scared of surrendering yourself to His will. You should never be scared of opening your heart to love.

A journey inside

We are so busy with this material world that we forget about the Divine love. We try to look for this love in the outside world. We try to look for this love in other people. We try to look for this love by traveling around the world. But we forget that we have to travel, not outside, but inside, to find this love in ourselves. We have to realize our closeness to this Divine love, which is inside, in your heart. Some people will say it’s very difficult to reach this point, but I will say it’s very easy. You just need to want it.
People try to find the easy way. If they could buy love, they would. But love can’t be bought. If somebody comes and tells you, “Listen, I will make you be able to realize this Divine love.” It’s not true. Only the Guru can do that. Only by the grace of the Master can you do that. This Divine love, which is seated deep inside your heart, is like diamonds or gold when they are found in nature. They are covered with dust, and filled with impurities. To get a beautiful jewel, a beautiful stone from a rough diamond, what do you do? You polish it. The same with gold. To purify it, you have to remove all the impurities. This is the same with man.

Look at the flowers. Look how beautiful they are.

Swami Vishwananda tells you today: "I would like to tell you a very sweet story with a great meaning in it. Once there was a master and his disciples. They were walking in a field, and while walking, the master just stopped and looked at a rosebush and said to his disciples, “Look how beautiful nature is!” The master was in ecstasy. The disciples looked at the roses, they looked around, they looked at the bush – but they could not understand what the master was saying. They were looking and looking, and then the master said, “You can’t see, eh?”
They were very confused. They started looking at the roses, looking at each other, and then they looked at the master. The master looked at them, at their long faces, looking back at him with a lot of confusion.
Then he said to the disciples, “Look at the flowers. Look how beautiful they are. Look at them. They are living and acting now, without any hope for the future or any regret for the past. They are living and acting in the present moment, and finally they are giving their fragrance, without any motive, without any expectation – freely. They are living their lives fully. You understand what is behind it? Nature is doing its work, and humans can learn so much from nature – even from a rose. The rose is not expecting anything, but what do humans do? Instead of putting their lives into right action, they are wasting time, expecting always and bringing misery on themselves. And then what do they say? “Oh God! Why do you send misery to me? I have always done well to you. I remember you always.” But on the other hand they are always expecting.
In this game that they are playing, they forget about their true nature. They forget about why they are here. And they like it, you know. They like to say, “Oh, I’m the poor one!” They don’t say, “I am the Divine, I am the creator of everything.” They like hanging around for the future, for what is to come in the future or what has been done in the past, they keep bringing it up all the time. Do you think this will bring happiness to humankind? No! Only misery.
Even when they sit for meditation people expect to see some light, to see God in front of them. But I tell you, even this is an expectation and with this expectation in the mind, you will never see the light. You will never see the Divine. 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".

Purity of love

Swami Vishwananda satsang

Opening the heart

Actually all of you – knowingly and unknowingly – are here to open the heart. To know who you really are, not here in this room, but here in this world. Often people come and ask me about how to open their heart. For me it is very easy to answer this question - I know how the heart is open. It depends whether the person will accept it or not. First I will answer with this question, “do you love?” Then the person will tell me, “yes, I love!” - But do you love yourself? The main and the important thing is, that we love towards the outside. Yet in the same way we love the outside, the same way we judge the outside. As easy it is to love as easy it is to judge.You see, mankind is made in such a way that attention is always turned towards the outside, rarely it is turned towards the inside. And searching means to go inside! The moment you stop judging, the moment you stop looking for faults in others, you will start loving everybody truly. And therefore you have to start looking within yourself, looking at what you have to change in your life. I’m not telling you to judge yourself but to look at what is the negative part of you and face it. By looking at the negativity you will see that you have created it. To understand love is simple - it is just the absence of fear. Out of fear you can’t understand unconditional love. And to understand this is the only you don’t really want to do. If people really want to understand love and who they are, they will!

The power of Love

Start to love now, this moment. Open your heart and love. Let it flow. The more you open up, the more your mind is pure, the more your mind is positive, the more loving you will become, and the more love you will be able to give. And know that whatever you do with this love, will always be perfect. When you meditate, you will enjoy your meditation. When you do yoga, you will enjoy your yoga. When you chant the name of God, you will enjoy it. People meditate and chant, but when there is no love in it, it fades with time. Love with limitation fades. But true love, real love, unconditional love, never fades. So cultivate this love, cultivate this unconditional love, and surrender to the Divine.