Meditation with the Hridaya Mudra

Sri Swami Vishwananda: Meditation:

• Sit straight. Inhale deeply and exhale deeply, continuously without any break in between.
• And, if possible, put your hands in the Hridaya Mudra, which is the mudra of the heart.
Do you know it? Take these two fingers [middle and ring] and join them to the thumb. Put the index at the base of the thumb, here.
Can you see? Turn the index and touch the base. The little finger stays straight. The ring finger and the middle finger go together.
It looks like a deer, then the index touches the base of the thumb.
This is called the Heart Mudra - the mudra that opens the heart and awakes the Love inside of you.
It’s one of the most powerful mudras.
Do you know other mudras? The Gyana Mudra is famous. It is for knowledge.
So, the Heart Mudra is very important and this mudra is also very good for people who have physical heart problems. It heals.
For people who feel pressure, it helps them to heal.
And for people who have a heart that can’t love unconditionally, it helps them to love unconditionally. Simple, eh? It’s a flow of energy.
• So put your hand in the Hridaya Mudra and inhale and exhale.
• Close your eyes. Focus on your third eye and don’t listen to the music outside, but listen to the music inside, the sound of your inhaling and exhaling, the inner sound, the cosmic sound of OM.
• Now bring all your focus in your heart.
• Slowly open your eyes.
So this is one technique to calm the mind.
Of course, you will not get the effect just by practicing it once. You know you have to practice it regularly.

More meditations are described in Just Love

Watch this highly interesting Mudra Talk by Sri Swami Vishwananda: Mudra Talk

Guided Meditation- Realise the Cosmic You

Sri Swami Vishwananda: A guided meditation
We will do now a simple exercise.
I love to do this little meditation.
• I ask you to take your hand and place it in front of your heart chakra - not on, but in front.
• Feel each beat of your heart.
• Focus your attention on your breathing. Listen. God has given you ears, so listen to your inhaling and exhaling.
The more you listen to your inhaling and exhaling, the more the mind will get calmer and calmer.
• And, at the same time, really feel the vibration emanating from your heart to your hand and from your hand to your heart.
• Relax yourself. Concentrate on your breathing and you will feel it.
• When you are inhaling and exhaling, just inhale and exhale, don’t have a pause in between.
• Now, place your hand on your heart, without any pressure. You can feel the millions of thrills going through your heart.
• You can come out of this meditation. If you felt it, this is what I am talking about. That’s Life.
If you have not felt it, keep practicing it.
Once you have felt it inside of you, touch a plant, touch a tree and you will see how Life flows.
Hold an animal and feel what is going through that animal.
Then you will know what Life is and you will realise your Self not in a limited way, but in an unlimited way. You will realise the Cosmic You!

More guided meditations by Sri Swami Vishwananda can be found in his book Just Love

Maybe this Cosmic Meditation Music will help you to relax more

Guided meditation- Focussing on positivity

Sri Swami Vishwananda: I would like to do a little meditation with you-a very simple one.

A guided meditation:

Take a few deep breaths and when you breath out, drop your shoulders; release all the pressure from your shoulders.
Close your eyes. Focus your concentration on your third eye.
And then, with the power of creation that God has given you,
create the OM sign or any Divine symbol or aspect - the cross or any symbol you feel close with.
And concentrate all your attention on this point, on this aspect.
The mind will think; let it think. Don’t try to stop it; don’t use force to stop it. But don’t hang onto this thought.
In the same way it comes let it go.
Focus on this Divine aspect, and, with your ears, listen to your breathing.
Listen to it carefully. You will hear, when you inhale - if you listen properly - you will be inhaling OM in and the same when you exhale, the sound will be OM.
After some time, you will feel a pressure point where you are concentrating.
Let it expand. Let this energy expand, covering your whole head.
Let it expand to your upper part of your body - your arms, your chest, and your back.
Let it expand to the lower part of your body - your legs, your feet.
If you have any pain or illness, focus on that point.
Let it vibrate.
Now, focus on the heart. Let the OM vibrate in your heart.

Let it vibrate more and more and at the same time, choose the image that you created, that you like, and make it go inside your heart.
So come back to yourself.

You see this form of visualisation is very simple for practicing anywhere you are. In place of thinking or talking of things, which are of no use, learn to sit quietly, keep the mind busy, but keep the mind focussing on positivity.


More meditations guided by Sri Swami Vishwananda can also be found in his book Just Love

Just lean back, close your eyes and enjoy this wonderful  Meditation music

The power of Om

Sri Swami Vishwananda: By chanting Om or meditating on Om, you reap the vibration of peace, joy and happiness.
This vibration helps humans to achieve their Real Self, let´s say, to realise the pure Consciousness of God within oneself.
You can feel it, even when you say it.
When it vibrates, when you say Om, let it vibrate on the solar plexus.
All the power of creation, all the whole universe is present deep inside you.
Let it vibrate in each cell of your body.
Every time you have a little spare time, sit down and just breathe Om in and Om out.

There is more information on: "Just Love"

To find out more about "OM-Healing", an ancient healing technique by Sri Swami Vishwananda click here

Watch this beautiful Om video with pictures : click here

OM Meditation by Sri Swami Vishwananda

Today Sri Swami Vishwananda shows you a special meditation technique:
Sri Swami Vishwananda: If I show you a very simple meditation that you can give to anybody, will you do it?

A guided meditation:

Try to sit straight. Your spine should be straight.
First of all, I will ask you to take a normal breath, breathe normally, a few times.
Now that you have breathed, concentrate yourself.
Focus on the third eye. Close your eyes.
Use your creative power now, because, as I said, you are a child of God. As God is the Creator, you are the creator also.
With your creative power, the power of creation that God has given to mankind, to all of you, create the Om sign, or any divine Sign, the Cross, the Crescent, any sign that you feel close with.
Create it on the third eye.
And with your hearing, with your ears, listen deeply to your breathing.
Listen to it. And breathe Om. Take your time. Do it in a relaxed way.
Breathe slowly Om in and breathe slowly Om out.
But keep your focus on your Ajna Chakra, on your third eye.

After some time you will feel that on the third eye it is a bit ticklish, like something is working.
Go deep into it. Let this vibration go down the spine from your head to the base chakra.
Let it flow.
With your breathing, breathe Om. Let it vibrate.
Let the Om sound vibrate on all parts of your body.
Now, reduce the size of the Om. Bring it back to your third eye.
Bring it to your heart.
Let it stay in your heart. Let it vibrate in your heart.
Chant with me: “Om”

Tomorrow Sri Swami Vishwananda will explain more about the power of OM

More meditations can be found in Sri Swami Vishwananda latest book "Just Love"

In this video Sri Swami Vishwananda is telling more about the significance of OM: Om Healing - Astral sounds

If you want to realise God, try to meditate

Sri Swami Vishwananda: We breathe every day so many times.
How many times do we realise how important this breath is?
Not many, because it´s so normal, isn´t it?
It´s a routine; it happens automatically.
So if you really want to realise God, try to meditate.

Tomorrow we will post here a guided meditation from Sri Swami Vishwananda's book Just Love

For the time being stay tuned with this deep tibetan meditation music

Meditation to lose yourself in the divine bliss

Sit down everyday, for 15 minutes, and lose yourself in the divine bliss, which is deep inside you. Forget the world; forget even your body, but concentrate on the Divine deep inside you.

I will teach you a small meditation, which is very simple. You can practice it anywhere you are.

MEDITATION

First, I will ask you to sit straight. It is very important that the spine is straight.

· Take few deep breaths. Breathe in and breathe out-quickly. And when you breathe out, drop your shoulders. Let them relax.

· Now, concentrate on your third eye, in between your eyebrows, on your forehead, here. Close your eyes. Bring your mind’s concentration to your third eye.

· At the same time, with your ears, listen to your breath. Inhale slowly and exhale slowly. Listen to it.

· Being the creation of God, you have the power to create. So, use this creative power and create with your mind, in the third eye, any Divine aspect that you feel close to.

· And with the breath, inhale the name of this Divine aspect and exhale the name of this Divine aspect.

· Look how beautiful this Divine Being is, with lots of light shining through Him.

· Now, you see the Divine Being increasing in size; little by little, it’s becoming bigger and brighter. First, it fills your face completely, then the upper part of your body and, finally, the whole of your body.

· You feel His love deep inside your heart. You feel an inner peace, calmness. There’s nobody else, only you and the Divine-you in Him and Him in you.

· Now, slowly reduce the Divine Being and bring it to your heart. And let it merge deep inside your heart. Whenever you need Him, call upon Him.

You can slowly open your eyes. It’s relaxing, isn’t it?

So, by practicing everyday, you will be able to master that. You will be able to realise this oneness with the Divine.

The Shakti Mudra

I will ask you to sit straight, but if you can’t, you can also stand, it’s no problem. Take your thumb, the ring finger and the middle finger, join it together like here, you see? This is a shakti-mudra. Turn your index down; by bring that, you divert in the cosmic energy that you receive, to your heart. Leave your small finger straight. Face it upward and let a small pressure at the tip of it. And close your eyes, concentrate on your third eye and breath slowly Om in, and Om out.

I will say again: your hand should be faced pointing upward – like this. Inhale Om – slowly – and give some time and exhale Om.

If you are sincerely wanting your heart to open, you will feel this slight pressure by your heart side.

Now bring all the concentration. Focus it on your heart. Try keeping the concentration focused on your heart. Open your eyes.

Why do you meditate?

Sri Swami Vishwananda: What is the purpose of meditation?
There are many purposes. Now I ask you to give me some reasons why you
meditate?
Someone: to still the mind.
Someone else: to go in the inner depth.
To still the mind, to go in the inner depth…Okay, more please.
Someone: To reach God
“To reach God” Yes…
How many of you meditate? Lift your hand please.
(Many people lift their hand)
Okay, out of all of you, why do you meditate?
(Someone: To find oneself)
Good answer.
Like I have said before, this question will have hundreds of answers because each person is trying to find something that is corresponding to what they want; what they need.
Like she just said, ‘meditation is to find oneself’, but the question is how?
It’s not just by sitting and closing the eyes one will find oneself.

Give yourself 10 minutes a day with this simple meditation. Music: Jonathan Goldman " Crown of Creation".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmA-dWdaI5k

Let Love work through you

If Love is given, Love has always to flow.

But what happens, what people do always is: when they receive love, they feel it, but they close themselves. They want to keep this love. They think that they will always feel the same Love, but now Love makes you sick, after some time. Because if you try to keep it always inside of you, all the time pride, arrogance, try to control- all this feelings will awake, because you want to have more, but yet you don’t want to give.

Someone: And you feel fear because of it.

Sri Swami Vishwananda: Yeah. All these qualities will come, fear- all this.
Then it becomes only receiving. What happens? The love inside the body becomes sick and starts to make you sick, makes your mind sick, because the love wants to go.
It’s like a bird in the cage, you know?

The bird wants always to go, doesn’t want to be in the cage, but yet you are trapping it inside.
So the more you trap this Love, the more you are doing harm to your own self, actually. But if you receive Love, well everybody does receive Love, let this Love flow. 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 sent 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, which many people don’t do, because it’s easy, just to receive the Love and then to keep it.
So, open up- you know! That’s what is important.
Know that every moment, every second, every time, like I just said before, 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, also out, then it will grow.

Watch and listen here to antoher nice Christmas sung, that we practiced recently in Center Springen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xde54wwncSM&feature=related

The manifestation of the Hiranyagarbha Lingam part 2

We are very happy to provide you today the second excerpt of Sri Swami Vishwananda's Speech on Monday, the 30th November in the Babaji Cave in Springen:

Sri Swami Vishwananda:
What you’re experiencing now, means for sure – in general I am talking - you have done really
good things because it’s not always that you see the Hiranyagarbha Lingam. Even the Devas, they long for that. Because it cannot even be created by Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh; it can be created only, well…by somebody living… Well they [Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh] live also somewhere (laugh). Today we are celebrating Babaji’s day. Who knows what it is today? Today we celebrate the decision of Mahavatar Babaji to stay on earth. You see, Babaji wanted to leave this planet. Then his sister interceded, and said “It doesn’t make any difference for you whether you are there or here. So why don’t you stay?” Actually it’s on this day, 1800 years ago plus some years that he chose to live and immortalized himself here in this world. So that’s what we are commemorating today. It’s like a renewal that he will be always there to help humanity whenever it’s needed.
So it’s time now for the changes to happen. It’s time that humanity calls upon him and receives his help. Whether humanity calls him or not, he will help. But from us it’s a nice gesture to do so. And you all get the blessing of the Hiranyagarbha Lingam, so I hope all of you will profit. And whoever is in your thoughts, in your prayers will also profit and the whole world as well.
Jai Gurudev!

After the ceremony:
So you can meditate on the Hiranyagarbha Lingam. Meditate and see the Lingam here, on your third eye, then bring it into your heart. Just see the image first in your mind and bring the image in your heart, and let the Lingam merge into your heart. You see it's equal blessing even just to see a picture of the Hiranyagarbha Lingam.
So you are blessed to see the Lingam itself.

Israel trip part 5/ Trust your inner voice

Here you can read the fifth and last excerpt of Sri Swami Vishwananda's speech, after his trip to Israel.

Sri Swami Vishwananda:
If I ask everybody now "What do you want?", some will say “I want love”, some will say “I want God,” “I want God-realization”. Well, it’s beautiful. But do you really want that? If you really, sincerely want it, then be strong and have faith. Trust; trust what the Divine is giving to you, trust what you feel inside of you.
Like it is said: One has to have faith like a child, no? When you look at the children, they are free. They don’t think too much. But what happens afterwards? Where is the child gone?
The mind has taken over, eh? You think you have known more, so you need to reason. Sometimes you don’t need to reason. You just need to sit quietly and feel. Feel and listen, because when you feel, of course it’s not just feeling. When you are completely in silence, there is also the voice of God. The voice of God will not talk to you like in ancient time. He will talk to you from within you. Learn to trust this inner voice and if you still have doubt about it, ask Him questions. Ask Him if it is really like that or like that. Then you test it yourself, so that you can learn to trust this inner voice. It’s not that you just hear it and accept it, „Okay, yes, it’s fine. It’s good like that.“ No, you hear, ask certain questions and if it is really happening this way give your full trust to it. This is one way of listening to your inner self and to make it stronger and stronger.
This example is given by the Virgin Mary Herself. When the angels appeared to Her and greet Her „Hail Mary, you are blessed among all the women.“ The Lord has favored you, that you will bear the son of God inside of your womb.“ But yet She didn’t say „Okay, cool, I like that“ (laughter), no, She said „How would this be possible? I have never been with a man.“ So the angels were pleased with it, because this confirmed Her faith. She didn’t have doubt, but She questioned it. And this is what the angels said „It will be done according to the will of God. The spirit shall came over you and overshadow with you.“ So it’s important to learn to trust this inner voice and to know for sure if it is real or if it is just a fantasy of one’s mind. You will do that by putting certain questions to that and yet you will be the observer of that conversation. The atma, the soul will be the observer of that conversation. I tell you something: This is the most beautiful thing you can do. To observe how the mind is talking to the Higher Self and what you are hearing inside of you. And like i said to you before: This will happen only when you are in silence. So introvert yourself as much as possible and be silent. Because when somebody talks, talks and talks, like i am doing right now (laughter), what happens? Of course it is joyful to talk, but afterwards you are getting tired. I am not saying i will get tired, but in general it is like that. Of course you will say when i sit down quietly, i also will get tired. But when the mind is calm, you will not be tired. This is where meditation leads to. Meditation is not only to sit in one place and close one’s eyes and meditate, like we know it in the traditional way. Meditation is every time, when you can look inside your heart and see the Divine.
Jai Gurudev!

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.

Looking at the World with Divine Eyes

Here another excerpt of one of Sri Swami Vishwananda's Speeches: Looking at the world with Divine eyes, you will see that the world is simply the radiated light of God shining through everything. Keep trying until you have come to that realization and never loose hope. The moment you loose hope, you loose everything. The moment you say, “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 always will be nearer to you than the breath or the air you are breathing in.

You try to imagine how close God is with the mind. It’s difficult, isn’t it? The mind will never let you imagine God. When you start thinking with the mind of the heart, then you may realize Divinity completely. How does one think with the heart? Meditation is an important element in thinking with the heart as you sit with yourself in silence. Jesus said, “When you pray, go to the darkest corner of your house, close yourself in and talk with your Father.” Christ meant for you to go into the inner chamber of your heart and speak with God. Talk with your true Self, and you will receive an answer. So, what exactly is in this inner chamber of the heart? Therein is just love, nothing else!

How to master the mind

If you want to master your mind, chant the name of Narayana.

Like yesterday, during the Satsang I was explaining the power of the name of Narayana. How powerful is this Maha Mantra. If you want to attain Him, chant it. The more you chant it, the more you will draw Him closer to you.
When you call somebody, you will not just say “Come here”, but you will call the person by his or her name. Likewise the Divine also has many names and many forms. When you call Him, He will come in that form. Often people ask me “But listen, if I pray to Shiva, should I really change?”Actually no, you should not, but your love has to grow more and more. If you call Him as Shiva, He will come to you in that form. If you call Him as the Divine Mother, He will come as the Divine Mother to you.

But in reality, you will find Him deep inside your heart as the form of love, pure love, unconditional love and there you will have to find Him. This is something that the mind can’t understand, because the mind always expects something. The mind always has a limit, so you have to cross over this limit.

It happens so often in the life of people, that when the grace of God comes upon them, they don’t understand anything. They try to understand, but yet they can’t understand. I have met So many people who have told me “Oh You know I love God, but I don’t understand Him, I don’t know why I love Him so much.”
So you have to become that state, where even if you want understand Him, you can’t understand.
You see Him in front of you and want to grasp Him, but you can’t. Imagine what would happen?
It would drive you crazy, crazy for Him. That's the best, because deep longing makes it even sweeter.
Our soul is always longing for Him, always. There is not a time, where the soul does not long for the Beloved. Even if we are conscious, we are aware of it or we are not aware of it. But in our true self, in our consciousness, the soul-consciousness is always aware of that.
So, try to see. Like Christ always said “If you have eyes to see, you see”
Try to see with the eyes of the heart and try to hear deep inside of you.
Whatever is inside of your heart, there will be no doubt about it. But whatever comes from your mind, will create a lots of question. Even if the mind says the same thing, but there will be many, many questions and the mind will not feel free.
That’s why in meditation, you try to go in the calmness of yourself and try to listen deep inside of you. You try to attain this calmness and you try to attain this love that you have inside of you.

Self-analysis

Doing our daily Sadhana is also to self-analyse us and our day. Sadhana is not only to be practiced morning, but the whole day. At night before you go to bed, just sit down and reflect on the day. What you have done good and what you have not done good. Because what you have done good will bring joy to you and what you have not done good leaves a trace of uncalmness inside of you, because you try to rectify it. When God sees that you are trying to rectify it, He will help you through His grace and love. He will remove all the pride and ego that you have, because He is merciful. We say God is merciful. And as He is merciful, He will give you what you ask for. But only as long as you know what you are asking, because some times you are asking for something, that will put you in trouble. So know what you are asking for.

The temple of your heart

Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about the temple of our heart:

The Saddhus and Saints always said: "Whenever you meditate, whenever you do your prayer, always try to do it on the same time at the same place." Let’s say you go to a spiritual place, you pray or you do your Sadhana in a special place. Why are these places special, why are they sacred?
There is a merging of all the energies through the centuries, where people have prayed. Sages or Saints have come and prayed to that places, that have made God manifest Himself. It’s true that God is present everywhere in our self. Each part of our body is the Divine itself. It's like with water: Everytime when you need water, you don’t need to dig a well.
There is a big reservoir of energy. Whenever you go to pilgrimage, you just take the energy from that reservoir and just drink from it. All parts of your body are part of the Divine, but everything is centered in one place, which is our heart and when we go there, we can feel this. The heart becomes also a temple, where the Divine can manifest itself. So when you go to your heart, through Sadhana, through devotion and through your spiritual practices, bhakti, devotion starts to manifest itself, because you receive the source of the Divine itself. The Source is there and you don’t need to dig more wells in yourself.

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.

How Sadhana can help us to focus on our heart

Discipline helps us to calm our mind, because when the mind is very agitated on the spiritual path, we can’t concentrate. We can’t really focus ourselves on our heart. So even if you want to focus yourself on your heart, your mind is jumping, jumping, jumping. So we do our Sadhana. We chant, we practice Yoga or we do Om Healing or Atma Kriya to calm the mind. It helps that we can listen more clearly to ourselves and realize the Divine within ourselves. Not just tell somebody “Just do your Sadhana and meditate and you will attain God"... It’s true: If one is sincere towards oneself, one will attain God, because God will come to that person and will manifest Itself, the heart will manifest itself. But yet we look at the world and ask “How many people really are sincere towards themselves in that way?” We are so busy with what we see outside, what we think. We want to always analyze everything with our mind, that we give so much less importance to the heart, even when we know that “Yes, we have to be in the heart, but we see how dominant our mind is."So without saying “Yes, I want really strongly to follow, I want to change and I want really to attain my goal, it's difficult.”We can outside say “Yes, yes, yes I want this”, but inside we say “Wow, it’s far away”. As long as you see this distance and are discouraged, you will not enjoy your practice. It doesn’t matter how big the distance is. Keep trying. And never loose hope.

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.