The Divine Lotus feet of the Guru

Here is an excerpt of one of Sri Swami Vishwananda's Speeches in the Chapel in Springen on Easter 2008.

You will see how important the feet of the teacher are.
When you go to a Hindu Temple,the first representation that you see are the feet of the Deity.
The first thing that you do is to bow down before the feet.
You go to the Master and you bow down in front of the feet.
You bow down to the greatness.
You bow down to the Divine inside of you.

You bow down to the Father within the Teacher.
And that is what *Christ said.
He said it word by word.
I don’t even need to comment on it.
[* Christ said: “My Father and I are One.”]

It is very clear that this non-duality of God is within man.
On the way to God-realization
You will not reach God-realization with pride.
You will not reach it with arrogance.
You will reach God-realization only when you are humble.
And people will be against you.

But you know where you are going and you know why.
So, meditate on that.

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.

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.

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.

Awakening Divine Love

Jai Gurudev everybody. As you are all aware, human life has a purpose. As you know, that purpose is to realize the greatest goal, which is the true self, which is love. This love seems far away to the mind, and sometimes even inaccessible, but actually it is close. As you all know, you are an incarnation of love, you are part of the divine. To attain this divine love, to attain this blissfulness again, to become satchitananda—this is what we are all trying to become. In reality, you are that already. It’s just that you don’t let it out. You like the love on the outside, you think it’s easy, but after some time you say, “headache.” As you know, this love is eternal. This love is waiting to be awakened deep within you. This love you have been carrying for many lifetimes. Firstly, to have the opportunity, to have the grace of being spiritual, of being on the spiritual path, is itself an attribute of this divine love. Everybody is searching, but it’s only when this love comes to the point of sprouting out and growing and maturing that one realizes oneself—realizes this love. The question comes to the mind, “Why every time we come back do we have to do the same thing all the time? If we have already realized this love, if we have already attained this love, why don’t we have it now?” To understand this, look at a child. A child just goes along with the daily routine. It doesn’t bother to think how things have to be. We older ones, we like questioning things; We like to doubt things; We like to put some spice into it. Then, when we have put too much spice into something, the path, the flavor, has changed—then it’s too hot. This pure love, this divine love is present at all times.

The ultimate goal of your life

We think before acting. We always think. We think if we give love we will feel hurt. However, you see, in the mind you already create the hurt; you create the feeling of destruction, so you don’t put love first.
Make the ultimate goal of your life Divine love, and surrender to it. You know what God wants from you? Surrender your mind to Him, continuously. Surrender your mind to the lotus feet of God, to the feet of your guru, to the feet of any Divine master. And free yourself. Free yourself from the mind, free yourself from all the misery that you created. So when you free your mind, you realise the Divine everywhere in every aspect, every small thing. Even the clothes you are wearing are divine. Each atom is divine.
If you have divine eyes to look at the world with, you will see that it is just the radiated light of God shining through everything. But as long as you don’t come to that realisation, keep trying. Never lose hope. The moment you lose hope, you lose everything. The moment you say, “No, I can’t do it, I can’t do this”, you will not be able to do it. Challenge your fear! Keep reminding yourself that you are part of God. You are in His Divine hands and He will never let go of you. Never! He will be always near to you, even nearer than the breath, the air you are breathing in.
You try to imagine a little bit with the mind, how close God is. It’s difficult, isn’t it? The mind will never let you imagine that, the mind will never let it. Only when you start thinking with the mind of the heart – then you can realise the Divinity completely.
So to think with the heart, how to do it? This is why meditation is important, when you can sit with yourself in silence. When Jesus said, “If you want to pray, run to the darkest corner of your house, close yourself and talk with your Father,” he meant, go in the inner chamber of your heart and talk with God. Talk with your true Self, and you will receive the answer. So in this inner chamber – what is there? Just love, nothing else.

Looking for the Truth

When you’re centered, when you concentrate, when you pray, when you chant the name of God, that moment is between you and God. Christ said, “If you want to pray, don’t make it a show. Run to the darkest corner where you and God, your Father, are alone… then converse with the Divine.” And this corner is your heart, where you can be quiet. The mind is not quiet, the mind is always thinking. You will quiet it by chanting. When, through chanting, you train the mind to go inside your heart, in that deep quietness, you will realize that God is sitting there. You will realize it, not because you know it in the mind, not because you have read it, but because you will feel it.
We are all searching for the Truth. Of course, people will go left and right looking for the Truth. Until one finds their spiritual path, one is never satisfied with where they are. It’s like a train which is traveling but does not know its destination. People go left and right, it’s the same with this train. But when one knows the destination, one goes directly to thisdestination. When one knows one’s path, one goes directly. Take this path and just go and realize yourself.

Holding the hand of God

It’s very easy to lose hope. It’s very easy to jump into Maya and say, “Maya is too strong!” How many times have you started on your spiritual way? The enthusiasm that you had at the beginning fades, because you let yourself be drawn to it, you make yourself weak. So when you weaken yourself, you vibrate on a very low level. So the other energy which is stronger can dominate, so you let yourself be dominated and be put into a problem. Forgetting that you are the lovely child of God you let go of the hand of the Father, you let go of the hand of God trying to stand by yourself – very difficult! God is ever loving, ever waiting for His children, to realize themselves. It’s upon to each one of you to hold the hand of God deep inside your heart and hold it very tightly whatever comes. This is how you really get rid of all the other things that keep you away from your spiritual way, that keep you away from realizing yourself.