Be pure in your mind

Today Sri Swami Vishwananda is talking about purity. When we are really pure in the heart and in the mind, there will be no more judgmenet- not towards us, but also not towards other. We will not criticize anymore, because we don't know the reasons or the heart of the other person or why he or she is reacting how we perceive it as the 'observer'.

Devotee 11: Guruij, when we hav

e to rise beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and we want to be perfect, what is purity in that?

Sri Swami Vishwananda: Purity is the state of your mind; so how you think of things. 

If you think of something is pure, it will be. 

But purity is not the way what you understand of purity. 

What do you understand of purity? 

Tell me firstly. 

Devotee 11: I always make the decision or the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’

Sri Swami Vishwananda: So...

Devotee 11: to judge and..,

Sri Swami Vishwananda: So, how can you be pure? 

That’s what is said in the Bible also: Be pure in the mind. 

You still have the judgment like that. 

Devotee 11: Hm

Sri Swami Vishwananda (laughing): Purity is a word only.

Be inspired by a wonderful video, that in my opinion has

 a very puriyfing influence on body, mind and soul:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0h1sb1IFI

Many have wondered who the Divine Mother is, yet she is part of all spiritual traditions as a Presence. This video was created as a communication of her Being.


Music - "Devi Prayer" from the album "Sacred Names of Mother Divine" by Craig Pruess and Ananda. Heaven on Earth Music.co.uk - 

Becoming pure like a clean river

In the year 2007 Sri Swami Vishwananda told us the following story about seeing no difference in "good" (clean water) and "bad"( flithy water)

Sri Swami Vishwananda:
Once somebody asked a great Saint:”Tell me, how will I become like you?” The Saint who was very dirty- you know, it was a sadhu and you know how dirty the the sadhus in India are.
So the sadhu looked at him, how he is dressed nicely and he turned to the river and said:”Do you see these two rivers, passing by there?”
The one river was filthy dirty and the other one was very pure, like Ganga- no, Ganga is not that clean, anyway... like a swiss river, you know! Very clear water!
So, the Saint looked at him and said:”When these both river become alike, then you come to me!”

Watch here a nice video of a Satsang with Sri Swami Vishwananda on the topic "Purity of Love", just feel His Divine presence and meditate on His pearls of wisdom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1rsUWHiM8Y&feature=PlayList&p=E4980A74E43D1980&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=10

The boy who met God or how the Divine will run to you

During Navaratri 2009 Sri Swami Vishwananda told His devotees and disciples the following story: There was once a boy who went to see God and on the way he met a great Sadhu standing on one leg with the hand up. So when he went to meet God, the Sadhu said to him “As you are going to meet God, I have one question: Ask God when will I attain liberation?” So the boy met God and asked all the questions. On the way back he met the Sadhu, who asked “So…have you met God?”. He said “Yes, I met him.” And he said “What did God say?” The boy answered “Well, the Sadhu still has some karmic things to do. He still has to take birth three timesbefore attaining me.” Well, that moment he was very enraged and said “All my tapasya, all my sadhana that I have been doing and still I have to take birth three times!” But the boy was very calm and joyful. So the Sadhu said “Oh, I am sure you are your last time here.” The boy said “Oh, my dear Sadhuji, it’s not like that. Do you see this tamarind tree?” [ A leaf of the tamarind is very, very, very smalll, so there are billions of it] "I have to take as much births and then only I will attain Him." Then the Sadhu looked at him “ Are you stupid? Why are you so happy?” Then he said “Well, it doesn’t matter. I know that at the end I will attain Him.” At that moment he heard a Divine voice saying “Throughout all these tapasya the Sadhu had been doing, all the lives of this boy with the pure heart are erased and he attains ‘mukthi’. This shows that it’s not about how much one has done, but how one is doing it. Love has to be there. If you do things out of love, the Divine will run to you. You just need to do one step. This one step is to do it with love. Then He will do everything. She will do everything. But as long as there is not this one step from your side, it will be difficult. The Divine Mother will help you to become like that, so that this one step can be done with a pure heart. Jagadamba Mata ki- Jai!

The two rivers or how to be absolutley pure

Here is a story that Sri Swami Vishwananda told us on the 27th August 2009 before the Darshan. On this day we also celebrated Radhasthami, which is the appearance day of Radha.

There was once a Saint. He was passing by the Kali temple in Dakshineshwar and stood in front of the temple. As he was looking to the temple, the whole temple started to shake. At that moment Ramakrishna was there. He was looking what was happenng. Then he said to his nephew: Do you see this sadhu, this man, who is dressed with not so nice clothes, like a beggar? Did you see what he just did? Can you go and find out who he is? The nephew ran to the Sadhu and when the Sadhu saw him coming he started running. So he started to run after the Sadhu and finally he caught up the Sadhu, called him and said “I want to be your disciple.” The Sadhu said “What? I don’t want you. Go away.” The Sadhu started walking very fast. Then again he hold the Sadhu’s feet and said “I will not let you go, until you take me as a disciple.” So the Sadhu said “Okay, get up. Look there, do you see these two rivers?” There were two rivers flowing, one of them which is very filthy and the other one was very pure and clean. Then he said to him “Come to me, I will accept you the moment these two rivers seem equal to you.”

Do you get it? The moment your mind is completely surrendered to God, there will be no judgment; there will be only pure love. As long as there is judgment in the mind you will see the difference. And as long as one sees the difference, when a big storm comes, it can be uprooted. So work on your faith.

Your body is Divine

Sri Swami Vishwananda is talking about Sadhana: All Sadhanas and all the practices that you have been doing are not only mere practises. It’s not about to say “I did Yoga today or I did Atma Kriya today or I did Om Healing today." It’s not only about that. It’s also about realizing that you are Divine. When we say that each atom in our body is the Divine, don't only know it here in your heart, but realize it. He is pervading everything, but until you become the channel of it, until you start beaming it, there is a lot of purification.

The single-minded Fisherman/ Concentrated Sadhana

What does it mean to be single-minded? I will tell you a small story: Once there was a fisherman sitting on his boat, on the river bench actually, throwing his bait inside the river and there he was waiting for the fish to eat the bait. The focussed that he was, he was just looking at the bay, well at the floating, when he was sink inside. He knew there were a lot of fishes around. A stranger was passing by and said to the man “Mr., can you tell me where Mr. X stay?” He was too concentrated, no answer. Second he repeated again this question one time, two times, three times -no answer. This stranger really got angry and walked his way. As he was walking away, the fisherman was very satisfied...he saw the floating go down, he pulled and caught the fish. Then he called the man and said “Hey, you were calling me. You were telling me something. Tell me. What were you telling me? What were you asking? “Then the man, the stranger said “I repeated my question several times to you, but it was as if you didn’t hear me or see me. Why should I repeat it again?”
That was one-single mindedness, focus. When you meditate you can achieve this state. When you do your sadhana, you can achieve a state, where nothing can disturb you. No left, no right. No hearing, no seeing, because in the deepness of meditation or deepness of your practice, you have to really focus. But if you are not disciplined with yourself, do you think you will have this focus? No, this is where everything get’s uncertain. You will do prayer and you will be very superficial, because you are not satisfied with yourself. With self-discipline you have to work for it. It’s a purification of the mind and senses.

Life is Divine

Here an excerpt from Sri Swami Vishwananda's Pre-Darshan Speech in Finnland on August 8th 2009:

Life is Divine. How many know what life is? How many know that it’s Divine? How many people know how precious life is? Once you realize what life is, you will see life completely different. Life is not just working, eating, sleeping. That’s what people think very often. People enslave themselves in work, enslave themselves in eating. Most of the time they don’t eat properly. They enslave themselves in just sleeping. Life goes on. When the time comes for their depart, they will realize “Oops, I have missed something.” When they look back how many opportunities they had of realizing the beauty of life, they regret. Because they realize how many opportunities have come on their way, where they can realize themselves, where they can realize how great this gift of life is that God has given. And yet they have wasted it.

Again I ask the question: What is life? (Someone: Love) That’s it! Divine is far away. For the mind to understand the Divine, it’s very difficult. Until you have really cleansed the mind from thinking, until you have really purified the mind completely, the Divine is quite difficult to understand. Life is love. And love of course is Divine. Love is God. But the feeling of love, that’s what life is about. To realize this great love. Not just partial love. Not that today I say “I love you” and tomorrow “Who is that person?” Not that love. But just love which is beyond expression. Love which is unconditional, which is in everything around you. That’s what love is.

The shiny pot

Swami Vishwananda once told us a story about another great Master, whose name is Ramakrishna. He lived in the 19th century in India.
Here the story, that was told by Sri Swami Vishwananda:
You all know Ramakrishna, no?
He was a priest in the temple of Dakshineshwar, where the Divine Mother resides. Everyday he will go in the temple to clean all the vessels there, which are used for the prayer. Among the vessels there was one very shiny pot, that everyday he will give special attention to and clean it till it shines. Everyday it was very shiny. So, one day the people were wondering “Why does he clean that vessel? He gives more importance to that vessel.” Then they said “Ok let’s go and ask him”. So they went and asked “Swamiji, why do you clean like that?" and he looked at them and said “I clean this vessel specially, everyday and the way I clean it, is that it shines what I have inside, that it brings forth what I have deep inside in reality”. So he said “Cleaning all the negativity from this pot is like cleaning what is around the soul. " Remove all the negative qualities and let shine the good thoughts. Let shine the purity of Your mind. Let shine the purity of Your action and let shine Your true self.
Like that in daily life we also have to purify and analyse ourselves, because we have a mind. A mind that continuously judges, a mind that continuously sees the fault in other people, sees the fault in whatever we don’t accept. Human will not accept their faults, because human like to put the blame on somebody else.
For more information read:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna

Bhakti Yoga

All that we do in our daily life, what we work, our spiritual path is only to attain one thing – to attain the purity of Love, to become self-realised. But to attain this purity, to attain and to realise the Self, one can’t without devotion. Only through Bhakti. Without Bhakti it’s difficult. Like Shree Krishna said in the Gita; “Cast away all dogma. Cast away all from the mind, and surrender to me.” Then only true love can be realised. Otherwise, if you see, with Jnani, it's only in the mind. I don’t say it’s not good, its good. But it will lead you only to a certain level. Karma Yoga is very good to help. But if you’re not helping with the right attitude, it still brings you only to one level. Whereas Bhakti; devotion, what Shree Krishna said to Uddhava; “ Above all the Yoga, I prefer Bhakti Yoga. I prefer the Yoga of devotion. Where the devotees and the Lord become one, when there is no difference that stays.

Purifying chanting

As long as man is stuck in the mind, as long as he doesn’t purify the mind, Love will never shine. You will never realize this love. You can read about it, somebody or Swami can tell you about it and you can say "Yes, i know this love is there." But as long as you don't purify your mind, as long as you don’t purify yourself, it will be difficult to realize this love.

And how do you purify the mind? The easiest way to purify the mind is to chant. Chant the name of God continuously. You were chanting the Maha Mantra, “Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.” It is said by just chanting this mantra, one can gain liberation. But one has to chant it with faith. Mere chanting alone will not help, but chanting with the heart, will help.

And how do you chant with the heart? How do you train the mind to calm itself? By focusing it. It happens when you discipline yourself and say, "Okay, today I will chant." Let’s say you start by taking your japa mala or rosary, and you chant your mantra. By focusing yourself on chanting, you’re disciplining the mind to focus on the mantra. The more you do it, the more it will be chanted automatically inside your heart and you will not even need your japa mala or rosary.

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.

Purity of love

Swami Vishwananda satsang

Whatever He does is right

The power of chanting the name of God, it's not only purifying the mind, it’s purifying the body and it's purifying the soul. When your mind is purified, you have a healthy mind. Your mind is positive. Eventually, your body will also be in a positive way. Your body will be healthy. How many times people who are ill surrender completely and say, “I’m fed up now. God, I’m praying to you and I surrender to you. Do whatever you want to do with me.” What happens then? The miracle happens. The miracle of faith. The miracle of love. The miracle of surrender.
But nowadays people are so scared of surrender. They say, “I will surrender, but... what will happen? I will surrender, but how will I live?” This insecurity is already present. How can they trust when there’s insecurity? Only when there is complete trust in God, complete trust in your self, when you ask God for Himself, will He give Himself to you. And trust what? Whatever He does is right, even if the mind doesn’t understand it, it is right.

Be sincere towards yourself

There was once a Saint in India, who was living as a hermit in a small hut made from grass. A couple came to him and said, “Guruji, we love you so much. We’ll make you a nicer hut, much stronger. Please, come with us.” The Saint said, “No, no, no, no. I'm happy where I am, I don’t want to come.”
After a while, the Saint thought about it, called the couple and said, “Yes, I will come with you, but only if you do me one favor.” The couple was very happy and said, “If you are asking, we'll do anything for you.” To that the Saint answered, “Let me come and live in your toilet.”
The couple was wondering, “Why do you want to come live in our toilet when we want to build a nice hut for you?” The Saint said, “I’d rather stay in your toilet than among devotees or people who are only looking for fame and glory. These people come to me looking only to end their misery, but they are not really looking for God. If I stayed in the toilet, I’d rather bear the smell of the toilet than bear the insincerity of those people... and also the smell of the toilet would keep them away.”
This made the couple realize how people are. People are searching, yes, but they are not sincere toward themselves. Only when you are sincere towards yourself, you will you find your path. When accept yourself, when you accept the will of God, you will accept whatever He gives you as right. When you surrender to His will, when you surrender to His love, then you say, “Yes, God, I believe in you and I trust in whatever you’re doing for me. I trust in your love. I don’t doubt you.”
But when we doubt Him, we question Him, and we are not truthful. Then we say, “God, you have made a mistake.” But how can God make a mistake when He’s so perfect? How can love, which is the purity of your true self, make a mistake? It can’t. It can only be a mistake when there is doubt, when there is fear. But when all of these things are cleared, when all of these things are put away by the holy names of God, which are thousands of names.. then you will see His glory. You will feel His love.

To really shine, you have to clean out all of the negativity

We try to exteriorize the Divine, we try to make God something apart from us. But God can be realised only within yourself. When we talk about God, very often we say, “God? Where – outside from us – is this person?” We think, He is there, we are here. We are different.
Whenever we talk about God, we have also to know that it is our own Self! We are actually talking about us, about each individual person. Because we are a part of God. Even if we all look different, when we remove the veil of illusion we are one light. Like this beautiful chandelier, it has many different bulbs, but the electricity is one! If you put a small bulb in it, of course we’ll have a small light, but the electricity will still be the same. It’s the same for you: all of you can shine the same light, the same divine light, more and more. You just need to let go. To really shine, you have to clean out all of the negativity.

Training the mind

As long as man is stuck in the mind, as long as he doesn’t purify the mind, this love will never shine. You will never realize this love. Even if you think you know it because you have read about it, or somebody has told you about it, or because Swami has said it, and you say, “Yes, I know this love is there,” as long as you don’t purify your mind, as long as you don’t purify yourself… it will be difficult to realize this love. How do you purify the mind? The easiest way to purify the mind is to chant. Chant the name of God continuously. You were chanting the Maha Mantra, “Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.” It is said by just chanting this mantra, one can gain liberation. But one has to chant it with faith. Mere chanting alone will not help, but chanting with the heart, will help. How do you chant with the heart? How do you train the mind to calm itself? By focusing it. It happens when you discipline yourself and say, "Okay, today I will chant." Let’s say you start by taking your japa mala or rosary, and you chant your mantra. By focusing yourself on chanting, you’re discplining the mind to focus on the mantra. The more you do it you will see, and you will not even need your japa mala, you will not need a rosary because it will automatically be chanted inside your heart. When you become the mantra, you reach a point of realization. You reach a point of elevation, but it’s not the final one. There is still more to go. And how you get there is only through abandoning yourself in the hand of God. When you say, “Lord, I surrender to you. I surrender myself, my body, my mind, and my soul completely to you.” Not superficially, but sincerely. And how do you do it sincerely? When you're sincere with yourself and say, “Yes, God, I want you. I’m surrendering myself to you.” When this comes from your heart sincerely, it will happen.