2012 Predictions

I want you all to change in 2012. Its' a leap year so you can't get married – at least you don't have to think about that. You can think about God instead. Before we continue with bhajan I've got predictions for 2012. If you remember clearly, in 2011 on the 31 December I predicted that a prominent politician would pass on in 2011. Three days ago I was worried that prediction hadn't come through, but Rajbansi didn't want to let me down. These predictions are given not by me but by the masters.

Those who follow my predictions remember them and remind me. This is true. Even when Japan had a problem, 'Shoka reminded me that I had mentioned it.

These are the 2012 predictions: fires, houses will burn, forests will burn, everything around you will burn, fire everywhere. Earthquakes in regions that you never imagined, volcanoes dormant for a long time will become active and many lives will be lost. The financial sector will make errors with great losses to individuals and government. There will be lots of misunderstanding between countries. Bank robberies, ongoing stock market problems, another tsunami around mid-year, earthquakes in May and June, and tense situations between African countries. There will be new epidemics without any cure. Countries, especially South Africa will be in political chaos. Disaster awaits the whole world. So take this and do what you have to do.

We at the Gayathri Peedam always have anti-missiles for these missiles. We have poojas in place so that you are not affected as individuals. So please, they are not very good predictions, worse than last year, it's up to you to take heed and do the right things.

So, you have basically one full day to enjoy the rest of the year. Do what you want to do - it's 2012 the next day. So when I see you tomorrow I'll say, 'see you next year', but you must be different people. Make the change so that none of these things can effect you. Fires are not specific to countries. They can be anywhere. You know, I think we are all fortunate that we have Swami Murugesu, Agasthiarmuni, Bhogar Maharishi, Sivabalayogi and Kriya Babaji.

I'll tell you a small story. I had a dream the other night and in the dream Swami Murugesu was giving me instructions about a specific devotee who is very close to me, and how he should not make his stairway where he so desires it. And the reason he gave me was, should there be a fire, there's no way they would be able to escape downstairs. You are very very fortunate that you have such masters to guide you. What you need to do is to enjoy the masters, follow every bit of their instructions one hundred percent, and see how good your life is.

Swami's Christmas Message

Dearest immortal souls of these troubled times.

As we honour the birth of the Christ Consciousness in the form of the beloved Lord Jesus, may your heart be uplifted anew by the joy and hope so strongly felt during this sacred season. The joy of this sacred season of Christ’s birth opens our hearts to feel a new blessing that this glorious victory has brought to multitudes through the centuries. The coming of such great ones, who purely reflect God’s light, strengthens our faith so that we too can experience a re-birth from a matter-bound existence to the limitless nature of our souls. We behold in them our own infinite potential to expand our consciousness and manifest in our individual lives and our relationship with God’s goodness and love. Our souls respond to this triumph over all human limitations because it stirs within us the dormant knowing of our infinite, immortal nature.

Within every human being dwells the glorious, ever-loving image of God. Through the lives of such great ones, as the Lord Jesus, in whom God’s omnipotence and divinity are fully revealed, God calls each of us to resurrect ourselves from anything that impedes the expression of the immanence of this limitless power and blessings, from an ego- and matter-bound existence to the unbounded divine qualities and bliss of Spirit. Though centuries have come and gone since Jesus was born the power of His example and His omnipresent love continues to transform receptive souls. He, too, lived in a time of much turmoil, but He showed us how to respond divinely – to so attune ourselves with the Heavenly Father that we can feel for all as He does, that we can rise above the dualities of this world to find peace in this and be a giver of love and peace to others.

By dwelling on Christ’s life and striving to emulate the qualities He expressed, you will open your heart to absorb more deeply the spirit manifest in Him and all God-united souls. The strength that upholds the universe filled His being, yet even greater was His humility, which allowed Him to perfectly express God’s will and His love. As long as we live within the confines of our ego’s needs and opinions, we easily create barriers that separate us from God and from one another. But when we think less of ourselves we become more receptive to His wisdom - in all the ways it comes to us, thus expanding our understanding and compassion. Christ was free of any need for position or recognition. He sought only to serve and, by doing the same we can know as He did, the joys of giving. Jesus saw the divine in everyone, even in those who had erred, for He looked beyond their human flaws to see the true SELF.

Every outreaching act enlarges our consciousness, but it is by going into the temple of silence where restless thoughts and emotions subside that we can fully experience the ‘peace that surpasseth all understanding,’ - the infinite love Christ felt – the love by which God is drawing all souls back to Him. If you preserve what I tell you, you can attain ‘a communion of unutterable sweetness with infinite Grace, the indescribable glory, the eternal protection.’ That is the priceless gift God offers to us this Christmas season. May this be the beginning of a joyous soul-awakening time.

Merry Christmas to all!!

From speech at Christmas in India Fundraising Dinner Extravaganza.

Is the guru an incarnation of God?

I was asked a question by email. The question was: is Guru an incarnation of the Lord? A very good question. But we need to understand that each one of you seated here is an incarnation of the Lord. In Genesis it says that God created man in His image. So, because God created man in His image, all human beings are creations of God.

But gurus are divine creations of God in the sense that they have the ability to connect with Him. Once the ability to connect with God is established, then you are referred to as a guru because you have the potential, the ability, to start leading from a state of no-knowledge to a state of knowledge. That is why gurus are referred to as divine incarnations of God. They can connect to God and pass on a message from God to you. None of the messages that gurus give are their own. Gurus are only messengers. So, yes, gurus are divine incarnations of God, and all of you are also incarnations of God.

But is every guru an incarnation of God? No. You get IT gurus, computer gurus, food gurus, wine gurus... The word 'guru' is a divine word but the way people have started to use it have made it a very loose word. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: once you start to say the name of the Lord, you become one with the Lord. You must have a merger with Lord Shiva and dance in ecstasy with Shiva. Only when you can do that are you a guru. So only those gurus who have merged with God or Shiva are true gurus.

Another question I was asked: once a bond is created between guru and devotee, is that relationship a lifetime relationship? Not only is it a lifetime relationship, it is a perpetual relationship. The guru will see the same people lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. So don't feel smart. That means you didn't finish your job in your previous lifetime and you had to return. Eventually the guru doesn't reincarnate but you keep coming back. Krishna tells us not to get caught in the cycle of births and deaths.

So gurus come here just on that divine perception - God's created perception - that they need to take you to another level of existence. And that level of existence is called 'bhuva'. Once you reach that level of existence, called self-realization, then he takes you to 'swaha', which is God-realisation. Only a guru can do that. No book can do that. But all of us, as Swami Sivananda said, are governed by a one-eyed guru called the television. And we learn from that one-eyed guru. So we are caught in that trap and the only way we can get out of it is by following the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna tells us to recite the name of the Lord continuously.

So start to live in Chapter 2, verses 46-48 of the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna talks about evenness of mind. Once you have that you can live in both worlds - material and spiritual - simultaneously, without being affected by either. But we need to get to this. Make your change now before you go further. Read those verses and accept the truth for what it is, and once you do that you can have the experience of a merger with Shiva.

Your whole purpose here is to make that merger. But we do these things that are funny, that excite the physical only. We never do anything that excites the innermost altar of our being. And yet a total state of bliss is in that innermost altar of your being where you can dance the ecstasy of joy, the ecstasy of peace. You don't have to die to find peace in the body. Only the guru can teach you how to find that through a process of meditation.

Excerpt from Pournami Discourse

Be faithful to your path

When Swami Murugesu was alive, we had 5000 devotees in Sri Lanka on the day he took samadhi. And now we have barely have 800 devotees. They have all taken to other organisations.

The same thing happened in the Divine Life Society. When Swami Sahajanananda passed on, there were immediately problems in the organisation and membership dropped.Why is this happening? The answer is very simple. All these people - devotees of Swami Murugesu, Sahajananda and even Sai Baba - follow a man.

Too many of you are coming here because of me. You should be coming here because of Gayathri Ma. I don't want an internal struggle when I leave, where everyone wants to be the boss, and to be better than the other person. You must come here for my guru or for Mother Gayathri only.

I'm telling this so you can go home and think about it, and change the way you think. We are all thinking wrongly and following a man. He can only show you where to go but if tomorrow I leave this body, the numbers here will dwindle to nothing. No one will want to take instructions from anyone else.

But if you come here for one purpose – to get the energy and blessing from Divine Mother – then we won't have that problem. I'm not saying don't follow the guru. But don't make the guru the centre of everything, so that you can't function when the guru takes samadhi.

I see this sometimes when I'm away. It is not good for an organisation. Functioning should continue at the same pace no matter who is in charge.

What has to be will be

Hari Om.

What has to be will be. What has to happen, what has to be attained, will be attained.

Many many moons ago, I was barely 13 years old, I was sitting with my father and he was having a general discussion with me. Only now when I sit back and think, do I realise how nicely he told me how to live this life. He called me 'Dad'. He said, 'Dad, in life you can't have everything. Know that'. We were poor, battling – I had just finished washing the car on a Saturday, the rims, the polish. I had started at six o'clock in the morning.

My father taught me that there's only one thing in life you must know: what is not yours can never be yours. What you can't have, don't even bother trying to attain. I'll give u an example. If you take a drum, smear it with oil and roll it down the mountain, not all the dirt will stick. Only that dirt which is supposed to stick will stick.

When I was held up in Gateway Shopping Centre for 8000 Rand, I thought about that. It wasn't for me. The guy had a gun and I'm still important. So in this life you must live like that. We can't have everything, but what we are supposed to have we will have. No matter how you try not to have it. For example, somebody close to me had a baby. When she was pregnant she went to the gynae who said, 'We must terminate the pregnancy because the baby has Down's Syndrome'. The next day they gave her some tablets and she thought she was fine. After all that the baby was still born – with Down's Syndrome.

What you don't want, if you have to have it, you will have it. I know somebody else who was on 100% guaranteed contraception. The following month she was pregnant. There are certain things you don't play with in nature. So now, because of the type of contraceptive, the baby was affected during the pregnancy. It was born without an earlobe and one nostril was up here so they did plastic surgery.

Many people think if they don't want it, we can just go and abort it. When they play the game they are masters at chess. But if your master wishes it for you, then you'll have it – always.

Om.

Dedication to Brother Haridas Acharya

Hari om.

Some twenty-five or twenty-six years ago I had the opportunity of meeting an individual very much my junior, but whose spiritual attainment surpassed many people that I have met in my lifetime. And we spent many, many weekends together; many days; outings. We travelled the length and breadth of kwaZulu-Natal. And his name was, or he was very lovingly called, Brother Haridas. And today we remember him on this 12th of October. For on this day he left this mortal plain, his physical body, and took his abode in the astral, cosmic plane. And I find that Brother Haridas has left a legend at the Gayathri Peedam. I cannot say much about others but I know here at the Gayathri Peedam he has left behind a beautiful legend in the short time he spent with you and me.

I remember when we used to travel to Richards Bay on a Saturday to do Ram bhajan in Brackenham, and we'd finish at about 1.30. I would drive all the way to Tongaat to take Brother Haridas home, then drive back to Stanger, or sometimes to Eshowe. But there was no pain or tiredness in our driving for he would sing all the way, tapping on the dashboard or on the roof of the car; and he'd sing to Krishna most of the time.

To the Gayathri Peedam and to the Shankarananda family, Brother Haridas has left behind a great love, a great peace, and above all he has left behind a great togetherness. I think that one of his greatest desires was to see people together, be it people he met for the first time in the congregation, or his own family. He had this unique calmness when he taught. He used to say to me, 'It's not one hundred percent, say it again'. Then many years later I learned of Babaji whose guru was exactly like that. No matter what Babaji did his guru would say it's wrong. And then he would do exactly the same thing and his guru would say it's right. I used to feel the same way and sometimes would think that Brother Haridas had ego, and wanted me to say it in his voice tone. Many years later I realised we had the same relationship as Babaji and Bhogar.

He's not gone in the sense of never-to-be-remembered; he's gone in the sense of this physical plane. But wherever he is, he's guiding each one of you that have followed him. And sometimes I see him sitting in my meditation and it gives me great joy, that I could have a glimpse of my master, my guru, and because of that the Gayathri Peedam will continue to observe this day, even if it's after my lifetime. This day will never be erased from the calendar of the Gayathri Peedam.

So we dedicate this pournami, a unique pournami, to Brother Haridas Acharya.

EXCERPT FROM DISCOURSE ON POURNAMI FULL MOON POOJA, 12 OCTOBER 2011.

Navarathri 2011

I have seen so many smiling faces since the start of Navarathri. I'm thinking that maybe the bhajan was different, maybe they're really enjoying the bhajan... Then a voice in my head said, 'No. Tomorrow they are breaking fast'. So, you happy faces, don't do it tomorrow. Leave it until Saturday: nine days and nine nights.

Some of you were here every night during Navarathri. Others had to travel from Umkomaas by the bush, and Scottburgh by the beach. To you I say thank you very much for making these nine days so exciting. To mother Shobha, I don't know where she picked all the musicians from, but thank you very much. Every group entertained us.

So tomorrow what happens? We go back to exactly what we were doing ten days ago - our normal routine of fighting, anger brutality, greed and selfishness. That's what will happen. Can't we take this another nine days? Feel this peace for another nine days? You know, we think that if we come to service once a week, we have satisfied the requirement of the Hindu Sanatan Dharma. But, actually, we have not.

Just as we eat daily, just as are happy and party daily, so we need to pray daily, and our prayer should be in the same proportion as one-is-to-one-is-to-one, or two-is-to-two-is-to-two, or-three-is-to-three-is-to-three. Not five-is-to-one-is-to-zero, or five-is-to-one-is-to-one. If we party for eight hours, we should pray for eight hours. If we sleep for eight hours, we should work for eight hours. Prayer is not sitting in front of a murthi ringing a bell so your neighbours know that you're praying. Be engaged in divine sadhana, in religious books. Whenever I see our young Hindu girls they are carrying a People Magazine. It's the fashion, and they'll show you the cover when they're walking past. But if you give them a Bhagavad Gita they will put it in their bag so no one can see it. Why?

Hindu Sanatan Dharma is the most beautiful way of life ever given to man by God. Everything about it is directly from God. The Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, Talsidas' Ramayan ... The people who wrote these books were not saints but when they sat in meditation they engaged with God.

For the nine days of Navarathri I pray that you engaged with the Divinity of God. For nine days you may have fasted, but in that you have also shown your brutality through pens and paper, said things to each other that you shouldn't say during this time. If anybody asks you, you say you're fasting for Navarathri.

Let's take this to another level. Swami Shankarananda and his White dancing elephants and Indian warriors don't stop. At one o'clock tomorrow morning they will leave for Port Elizabeth. You must have this love, just to say the name of God. When they were singing, the name of Ram was resonating. That is what we need - to resonate in the name of the Lord. It's not about how you pronounce His Name, or whether you're in harmony. It's about being with God. Navarathri is not a nine-day band contest at all. No groups are better than others. There's no better group when you come to do God's work. Nobody is better than anyone else. Everyone does God's work to their best ability. God does not reprimand the child that tries to repeat his name. You don't get reprimanded for saying it wrong. Don't let people tell you that if you don't pronounce God's name correctly you will be punished. They have gone to schools to learn how to pronounce the words. You haven't. If you pronounce the names of God the way you think is correct, and with love for God, God will accept your prayer.

These nine days were about that, and about Luxmi, Durga and Saraswathi. I had hoped that all the raksha and asurik forces had left you. But no, some of you showed me those forces today. Why? Because they're there within you. You never let them go in the first three days of Navarathri, when you were focusing on Mother Durga. So where's the success in this journey? You won't have any success if you have any of those forces.

In the Bhagavad Gita, what did the blind king ask? He asked, 'What are the Pandavas and the Kuruvas doing?' How many sons were there? One hundred. Those one hundred sons are the asurik forces within you. Brutality, greed, violence, hate, lust, selfishness ... And once we have those asurik forces within us, divinity is lost.

Another thing that we all have that disappears during the nine days of Navarathri is ego. But it will be back again tomorrow. How will it start? 'Our organisation was better than yours because we had nine groups for nine days...' That is the ego. Ego is the biggest destroyer of your divinity. We should take these nine days and mirror them for another nine days, then carry on mirroring them all year. Nobody will laugh at you.

So the nine days have finished today. We have concluded. To many of you, the nine days means you've done your quota for nine weeks so we won't see you for the next nine weeks. It doesn't work like that. When you say, 'Ram,' Hanuman must be here because His name will resonate. When we say 'Durga,' you must be able to enjoy the force of Duruga. That is why the sages gave you nine nights for Navarathri.

Come next month, all the candles, all the lights, all the braais will come out. Companies will start to have braais for year-end. So already the Hindu sages and saints were too smart. They said, 'fast and relax your body for nine days'. That is what they did. Most of the Hindu prayers are done in the second half of the year. Even Purtasi was set in such a way that you can fast for one solid month and give your body enough rest so that you will survive when you abuse it over the next two months. The easiest way is become vegetarian. See, those who are laughing are thinking, 'You're joking, Guru'. But that's the truth. Become vegetarians. I can go to any temple any time of the day, month or week because I'm a vegetarian. I don't have to say to myself, 'God won't know that I've had two scrambled eggs and bacon'. The fact that the thought is in your consciousness, means that God already knows.

Hari om.

AN EXCERPT FROM SWAMI'S TALK ON THE LAST NIGHT OF NAVARATHRI

The Divine Power of Swami Murugesu

Hari om.

You know that tomorrow is our master, Swami Murugesu's samadhi. Four years ago he took samadhi at four-fifteen in the afternoon. We will be having bhajans and kirtans in memory of Mahagnanavatar Murugesu Maharishi Gayathri Siddhar.

I hope all of you can be here for that. Swami Murugesu was a small man but when you touched his feet, you felt nine thousand volts of electricity go up your spine. To those who didn't know Swami Murugesu, it is very rare to find a being of that simplicity who was also a Maharishi, a really great saint, who taught by inspiration and vibration and hardly a single word. He was a great master and teacher and he has promised me that tomorrow afternoon at four-fifteen, his presence will be very strongly felt here in the shrine. You just need to meditate on the energy of this glorious and beautiful human being, Gayathri Siddhar Swami Murugesu Maharishi. He was a saint who had knowledge of every aspect of life. No question was too difficult for him. Every question asked of him was answered in a very simple and understandable way, so that all devotees whether educated or not, would understand Swami Murugesu.

The beauty about Swami Murugesu was that whenever South African devotees went to Sri Lanka, Swami would give a discourse every evening in English - with all the Sri Lankan devotees sitting there not understanding a word, but they would continuously nod their heads in deep concentration. That really used to make me think: "They are so focused on Swami yet they don't understand..." When the discussion was finished they would ask questions in Tamil related to the discussion. That is the brilliance of this great master. He would talk to you in a language you might think is foreign and yet you ask him a question and he would respond.

Swami's blessing was given with a lot of energy, force and thunder behind it. I remember a Buddhist monk who was visiting South Africa through the South African Sai organisation, and a lady who was there, brought him here because she knew him well. And when I took him to my room he saw the photo of Swami and fell flat on the ground and said, "This is the man who cured me. He is from Sri Lanka. Am I right?" I said, "Yes!" The monk was critically sick and everyone he went to said he was possessed. The normal Indian trend was to throw ashes or something. But when he went to Swami he was asked to buy soap. So he bought the soap and Swami asked him to hold it in his hand for a few minutes. Afterwards Swami took the soap away from him and he never got sick again. This is the power of Swami Murugesu.

Very little is known about him. There are no disciples other than myself in the world. I am his only disciple for he did not want to have disciples. All his life he was looking for a disciple and he found a disciple in South Africa. And he always said that the luckiest people in this whole world are in South Africa. That was his line. There was a bond between us that was something else. At one time he was so frustrated about this bond that he asked me not to come back to Sri Lanka. He sent a very nasty fax telling me that I shouldn't come back to Sri Lanka. But somehow I was notified that Swami was going to India so I went to India and waited at the airport. He was surprised to see me when I met with him there. He realised he could not get rid of this 'fly' so he asked me to come back to Sri Lanka. He was testing me. That is how masters test you.

Hari Om.

Keep Your Appointment with God

Hari om

Friday service is your appointment with God, where you will experience God. And if you don’t experience God during service then there is something wrong with you - because I sit here and experience God and see many others experience God too.

Other places have service on other days but here your appointment with God is on a Friday. My brother's son is getting married this weekend and this appointment with God was made before the wedding date was set. My appointment is here and this appointment will remain. This is a very important aspect of spirituality. This appointment with God is your spiritual sadhana. Your appointment upstairs in the yoga hall on a Saturday and Sunday morning and Monday evening is also your spiritual sadhana. You don’t do any other sadhana. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, 'Whatever you do, do it in my name'. Even when you are cooking, sing His name.

Spiritual sadhana in so important in our lives! But we find the simplest excuses: my child in not well – that is even more reason that you should be here! This is taking a toll on me in the sense that it worries me. I don’t have to sit here, I can sit in the kripa and enjoy myself instead. I know some of you are thinking, ‘But we are here today...’ Yes, today you are here but you won’t be here on another day. I have an appointment with God every night. I die into God every night. Only those who live in my house know I am up until two in the morning, and then up at five again to walk on the beach. To experience God, you have to see God in everything, living or not living.

And then we want to be somebody. If there is another function we want to be that 'somebody'. Become a nobody and you will become a godbody. As long as you want to become a somebody, you cannot be a godbody. We have too much attachment. This attachment is such a problem it is as though we are still stuck to the umbilical cord. As long as you are attached like that, you will go nowhere! The Bhagavad Gita says two things: 'surrender' and 'expect no fruits for your actions'. All eighteen chapters contain the word 'surrender'. Why? After you have finished reading the Bhagavad Gita, you must be hypnotised by the word 'surrender'!

We must make this Friday appointment with God a very important thing in our lives - because it is very important. Know this to be true! One day a miracle will happen and you will say, ‘The one time I didn’t come!’ There are many times when wonderful things have happened here and people come the next day and find out. Then they are disappointed. Why did they miss? What were their excuses? We had an experience in the top temple when Swami from Sri Lanka came and sat in the middle of the prayer - we have witnesses - but Swami was in Sri Lanka. How is that possible? Tammy wanted to give Him food and He said, ‘I don’t need this food where I am going.’ He walked out the gate and disappeared!

Ramona, myself and Dean went to Tiruvanamalai. We walked up Arunachala mountain. Ramona was walking fast up the hill and there she saw a sadhu sitting. She was so moved by him that she wanted to give Him her watch and he said, ‘Where I am going I don’t need a watch'. On the way back down another sadhu says to me me, ‘Hari Om Shankarananda’. I didn’t even know him. It was my first trip to Tiruvanamalai. Then we realised, this is God! Then Saras, Roy and Deepak had the opportunity of meeting Babaji in Badrinath. I will never forget the watch story or the ‘Hari Om Shankarananda’ story as these were the first experiences in India. The people who experienced these miracles are here today.

The most important thing to remember is become a nobody then you will be a godbody. If you are a somebody you have ego. As long as you float on the beautiful horse of ego you are holding the reins. One day those reins will snap and you will land on the ground.

Hari Om

EXCERPT FROM DISCOURSE ON 2 SEPTEMBER 2011.

Krishna Within

Krishna says, 'Surrender to me and upon death you will be in my abode. Each one of you is a Krishna. Each one of you has a Krishna within you. When Krishna says, 'I am that which is within,' he's talking about the Krishna within you. Are you ready to become Krisnhas? What does that mean? It means to renounce and denounce everything. If you repeat the word 'gita gita gita', youre actually saying 'tagi, tagi, tagi', which means to renounce.

when you don't know the difference between heat and cold, good and bad, you see the imperishable in the persishible. Are you ready for that? Do you think you can go to that level tonight? Do you think you can dedicate this night and become Krishnas? Let's become Krishnas.

To become Krishnas we need just one thing: purity of mind. Krishna said to Arjuna, 'See the inaction in the action and see the action in the inaction'. How is that possible? Krishna goes on to say, 'I will now give you the yoga of wisdom'. And he gives to Arjuna that which many of you get here every Friday. Many of you sit here in front of me late into the night and get the yoga of wisdom. But how much of it do we live? Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, 'Do not at any time wait for the fruits of your action. If you do then you won't come anywhere near me, but will get caught in the cycle of sacrifices. Birth death, death birth. Fix your mind on me and me alone. Have me constantly there'.

Many of us have seen members of Krishna Consciousness chanting, 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare...' Is that devotion? No. They have beads in their hand and collect money in the market at the same time. When we talk on devotion it must be full concentration on the Lord and His Supreme Energy. Only then will you attain krishna.

Excerpt from Discourse on Krishna Janasthami, 22 August 2011

Finding the Truth (Varalakshmi Pooja)

Hari Om

Today is Varalakshmi pooja. I know many of you finished your prayer at home in the morning very early. Doing the prayer is one thing. But knowing what it means is another thing. Many of us just do these poojas because our parents, grandparents and their parents did, so we're just following the tradition.

One thing we need to understand is that out in heaven, nowhere is Varakakshmi sitting there giving you these blessings. There's no way. You can't go to heaven and see Lord Shiva with Parvati, Ganesha and Muruga sitting on a throne. They are sitting within you. The Ishwara within you is what you need to worship. Only that Ishwara can give you prosperity. You know the saying, 'believe in yourself', that means the greater Self within you, not the body that rots. Only by believing in that Self is prosperity possible.

Truth belongs in no-man's land. Nobody can find this truth for you. You are the only one who can find this truth, whether you have a guru or master, or not. If you don't make that attempt, show that affort, you are not going to find that truth. And the truth lies in this no-man's land; and this no-man's land is within you. It belongs to nobody, and it is for you to find it. What is this truth? It is called Atma Loka, the abode of the soul or atma. And once you find this truth, then the energies of Mahalaxmi, Saraswati, Lord Shiva, the energy of Mahavishnu and Gayathri become your personal energy. You'll enjoy every moment of that energy. And right now, in this time, in this present part of the yuga, we have lost all knowledge of this Atma Loka.

We have talked about Atma Loka and yet, in the magnitude of your physical body resides this minute aspect of God as spirituality called Atma Loka. And through worship with agni (fire) and maha meru, we transcend the boundaries that are obstacles to our finding this Atma Loka, to other realms of peace, love and beatitude. And that is what it's all about. We are controlled by our mental aspects of this material realm or journey, but life is not just a journey. Life is an experience. Life is worth remembering. Remember that. Many of you, when angry and during difficult times say, 'I don't want to be born again. I don't know why God gave me this life or what karma I had from my last life'. It is life's experiences. Whether we're prosperous or not, whether we have successes or disappointments – all these are life's experiences. Nothing is not an experience. When you go home tonight, you've had an experience. If you were really sincere, you may enjoy this experience as part of your spiritual accolades, and that is what it's all about.

We can say 'swaha, swaha, swaha, nama, nama, nama' a hundred times, but without sincerity, love, dedication or devotion, Atma Loka is not possible. Great sages have told us, 'Do not try to transcend away from this body'. Transcend into this body and when you do you'll find the great energy called Ishwara. It resides within every one of us.

Nobody seated here can tell me they don't have Ishwara, but they can tell me they have not experienced or found Ishwara. To say you don't have Ishwara means you are a zombie, the living dead. Because to have Ishwara is to have life. Without Ishwara life cannot exist: no blade of grass, nor drop of dew can move without the breath of Ishwara. The wind, the rain, the storm, your thoughts, your movement, all are based on Ishwara; and Ishwara is located in a place called Atma Loka. And once you've found this place called Atma Loka, you become a jivan mukti - a realised individual. And this is called self-realisation.

And once you have realised your Self, then God-realisation is inevitable. You are going to enjoy God-realisation. But without Self-realisation, God-realisation is not virtually impossible, it is just impossible. You need to know the God within you residing in the Atma Loka. And once you know God residing in the Atma Loka, you are a jivan mukti, a realised individual. But for many seated here, your realisation or jivan mukti is momentary, it is very very short lived, because you get caught so easily in this bhur loka, the material plane, ('Om bhur...', this is the loka we recite in the Gayathri mantra). We are so caught up in this bhur loka that Atma Loka is not possible. You could be deep in your meditation, just making that connection with God, when you realise that you left the curry on the stove. Immediately you break that connection because you realise that material distraction is more important.

So let us strive to find bliss, eternal peace, eternal love and eternal beatitude. Let us find that moment. And let Mother Lakshmi be that prosperity in your spiritual search and, using the energy of Mother Laksmi that you have today, just find it. And once you find it, just enjoy it.
Om.

Gayathri Maha Yajna

The whole universe vibrates with female energy. The first word that a child says is 'mummy', not 'daddy'. Because that is the energy that is always there and so easy to absorb. Many of us look for God everywhere else except where we should be looking - within ourselves. The body is matter or 'prakti'. The energy required to move mass is called 'shakti' - the female energy. No matter where you go in the world you will find that the mother takes the first place in everybody’s life. A child calls their mother when they are hurt. This is a natural occurrence. We might think that we're calling our physical mother, but we are actually calling the Supreme Mother. So when we have some kind of injury we call, ‘Ma’. If a child needs something, he’ll shout for his mother first.

Gayathri has many forms. One form is Hamsa Gayathri. She sits on a swan and is the deity of a movement called 'Gayathri Pariwar'. The form of Gayathri that we follow is called Kabala Brahma Gayathri. She has five heads and sits on a lotus and holds a skull in her right hand. What does this mean? This means that our five senses, our five sheaths, or five bodies, are all the same if you follow the principles of spirituality. There are no differences between the bodies, if you follow universal spiritual principles with regard to female worship of God. It also means we should not be egoistic when we worship Mother Gayathri. The mantra, and the tantra mantra, is said to be the mantra of all Vedas. Just by reciting the powerful Gayathri Mantra, no matter what you want, you will get. We have devotees who are perfect examples who, by following the sadhana of reciting the Gayathri Mantra, sixty-four times in the morning, one-hundred-and-eight times at lunch, and sixty-four times in the evening, attain whatever they desire, without exception. I, too, am a perfect example of reciting the mantra and attaining, both spiritually and materially. But you must do the minimum required number of mantras. Do not do them all at one time, but three times a day, as indicated.

The Gayathri Mantra is so powerful that it was not given to the ordinary man prior to Sri Ramacharya and Murugesu Swami. Sri Ramacharya instructed Murugesu Swami to make the mantra public. This is the mantra that only the brahmin (priest) class were allowed to recite at one time. Why? Because the benefits and destructive capabilites are so extreme. It can also be used negatively in tantra in a special mantrika formula. After you've recited the mantra a certain number of times, you'll find that the mantra becomes part of you and that you’ll resonate at the frequency of that mantra. For every breath we should do one Gayathri, all day. If this is done for five years without failure, the Mother will appear in front of you and tell you to stop. I have experienced that myself so I can tell you that it works. You should be initiated into the mantra. This is usually done with hindu males at birth, but this is seldom done nowadays. People forget that this powerful medicine should be used daily. I can tell you gain, from my experience, and the experience of some people here. Your day is not complete if you didn’t recite the mantra at least once. We must just find the time to do this.

Traditional Hindus conduct fire ceremonies. The simple understanding of this is that without fire there is no life. That might not sound right to us, but when you are dead, they say you’re cold. When you're not dead, they say you’re warm – there must be a fire somewhere. The Sun is fire and it sustains our solar system. We need to thank the fire within us for our sustenance. Also we offer all our negativity to the fire to be consumed. So 'swaha' means ‘my offering to you’ - we are acknowledging the existence of the fire within us. When we have a temperature, we get hot, over-fired. The nadis in our body are blocked, causing a heat buildup, we call it a 'high temperature'.

So, this is how fire worship came about. Food is sometimes also offered. Fire is the only thing that consumes anything completely. That is one aspect. The other aspect is – what is offered to the fire during many fire ceremonies, including the Gayathri Maha Yajna, is called samaghri – a mixture of herbs from the Himalayas. By burning it, we inhale the smoke and it clears our nadis. How the herbs are picked is also interesting. In India, priests ask the plants if they can be plucked, only the plants that lean forward are picked. After five-thirty in the evening, no plants will lean forward. Plants are not to be picked in the evening. The Tulsi plant (Holy Basil) in South Africa is one such plant. There should be four-hundred-and-eight herbs in every hawan mixture. We mix our own herbs to use. That’s where the Gayathri Peedam is different. Your whole energy system is healed by this practise.

(Excerpt from a talk on Divine Mother, October 2007)

Guru Pournami 2011, Swami's Birthday

Hari om. Everybody's so worried that I'm fifty-eight. They want to hold me up and carry me around. Actually, this is only remembrance of my date of birth. So today, with my master in mind, I say to all of you thank you very much. But what is a birthday? It's a cake with a candle on it and everybody says 'happy birthday' and everybody curses you with 'I wish you many more years'. Really, it's my desire whether or not I want to live the many more years. You should be saying to me 'enjoy this day', and I'll say the same to you. To all those people who came with those good messages, thank you very much.

We have thirteen full-moons in a year, not twelve. The blue moon is the thirteenth full-moon. Out of the thirteen full-moons, God has found one in the month of July and dedicated it to all gurus. The nakshaktra (constellation), the position of the yug, and the dasi, determine the character of this moon. So they've found that everything about the July pournami is in line, is in order. So they said, 'This is the one we dedicate to the guru'. Next month is Agasthiar pournami. August comes from Agasthiar. Then January pournami is dedicated to Ganesha. January comes from the Greek god Janes, with an 'e', but if you take the 'J' out and put a 'G' there you get Ganes. The Greek god Janes had two heads to see what comes in and what goes out. January is the first month of the year, the remover of all obstacles like Ganesha. Buddha's enlightenment was on the 8th of April, so April pournami is Buddha pournami. November pournami is called Akhanda Sasti. At this time Mahavishnu was testing Lord Shiva, and Lord Shiva said that nothing could move him. So Mahavishnu tested him by changing himself to a woman, Mohini, and danced in front of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva thought he was a woman and just by energising through his third eye, Skanda was born. Skanda is Lord Muruga - Puranic story. That is the lunar month of November. But the most powerful pournami is today, all over the world.

God created this day and everything around us. Not a dewdrop or blade of grass can move without Him thinking it. Remember, whatever you do, think of God in it. That is the only way you will be able to experience this great uniqueness, unity, togetherness and love for God. There's no other way you can love God. Don't think that God is a part-time lover. God is not a part-time lover. God is a full-time lover. Just as when you have girlfriend or boyfriend, every five minutes you are messaging, 'I miss you, I love you,' you can only remember God in the same way if you love Him with the same intensity. I'm in love with my guru, madly in love with my guru. I only think 'guru, guru, guru,' - that's the only thing that resonates my being. As Dean always says, 'Whatever is possible in his life is through the grace of God and Guru'.

While I was driving today someone said on the radio, 'Get connected to DSTV, only R599'. You can connect to God - and it's free! Enjoy God. I can't tell you more than that on this day. You are not enjoying God. Your faces are miserable. God. You have all this tension and misery because you don't have God as part of your life. You have God once a month on pournami. After that you forget the Peedam unless you have a problem. Have God twenty-four-seven. God is ever-present, ever-willing. No man is like that, no human being is like that and, in that beatitude of loving God, knowing God, and having oneness with God, you'll not experience God in any other way. You're not going to sit in front of a murthi and say 'Come Kali, come. Come kali'. Kali won't come because you don't have the dedication, devotion and unity. It must really be intense. This superficial thing doesn't work. In the Gayathri Peedam we have no Christians, no Hindus, no Moslems, we have the divine children of Gayathri, of God. All of you all live in that divinity, that beatitude of Gayathri alone. Find a guru and hold onto him for dear life. I know you all came for my birthday. But find your guru and hold onto him for dear life.

One thing I must tell you about gurus: at the lowest ebb they'll kick you and pretend they don't care. Your weakness is what is determined then. So some of you might be thinking, 'I've got questions, I'm going through hell. Guru, you know everything, why don't you know that?' My job is to put on the bait and catch the fish. And when I put the bait on, if you are interested in sardines and I'm using different bait, that's your problem. Even in their worst situations people go to Suncoast Casino with their last ten rand, and say 'Om Mahalakshami,' and put their money. God is not a gambler. Some people even come and ask me for the lotto numbers. Do you think I'm stupid? If I knew the lotto numbers I'd take them myself!

Somebody said to me they're not coming back to the temple because Every time they come here Ashok takes the mic and asks for money and it's not right. I said, 'What do you think? God is paying my lights account?' Two weeks later he lost fifty thousand rand at Suncoast and He wouldn't even give us fifty rand! Don't play games with God. And if you have an appointment with God, don't come at eleven o'clock for a three o'clock appointment. Keep your appointment with God. Just now when I was doing the pushpum, my master said to me, 'We don't know how to bless you for the energy you've created in the ashram - it's so unique'. I said: 'You blessed me with the downpour tonight'.

Just Remember God

Hari Om.

Some of you might be wondering why I'm such an idiot to sit in the middle of a fire. I'm trying to heal myself so I don't have triple bypass surgery next week .My gurus said it's possible that I can heal myself. This is the third one like this that we've done and I really feel today that I'm cured and that I won't need major surgery, minor surgery maybe, but not major. And tomorrow I might feel even better. But right now I feel on top of the world. I feel lots of positive energy and I feel healed. So, to all of you, I say thank you for even being here. Your energies also make a difference to my healing.

Sorry we had to start so late but some things we have to do. And this is one thing that we had to do. And the same time while I was there I was also healing some of you – conditions that you have now and that may arise in the future. For example, there's one child here today, a teenager, who will be involved in a major accident, so that healing was also done today. All that is part of our job. I have a big job but you have a small job and your job is to make yourself present here. That's all, and that for some of you is even such a difficult task. We have so many situations to not join in pooja.

The last time we did this we had a chakra in the hawan and afterwards one of the twins removed the chakra and there was a perfect image in the chakra of me sitting in the centre of the ring. So we don't just have to believe in God. For us that is impossible - to believe in God. But we just ask for one unit. You are made of many units. We are just asking that you remember God, one unit. And once you have that one unit, the beatitude, love and togetherness that you experience with God is never impossible.

We are involved with many things in life, some of them not spiritual at all. You go to a doctor and he tells you to abort your baby. That's not spiritual at all. God has His purpose and knows why he's given you such a baby. God knows that. Doctors don't, but we do it because we think it is the right thing to do. Everything you do in spirituality is right, but everything you do on the material plane may not be right. On the material plane if you want to go to Stanger you need to use a motor vehicle. In that process you are destroying things in the atmosphere. But in reality you don't need a motor vehicle to go to Stanger. In that process you are destroying nothing, but are strengthening your spiritual abilities.

Today the temperature in the fire was way past sixty degrees Celsius. You believe that God will encapsule you, and you keep the brain cool. Once your brain is cooled nothing else can happen to you. You might get one or two burns but that's just on your body. It'll get burnt later anyway. So again, thank you very much for being here to help me heal, to help yourself heal.

Om.

How to Know God

Hari Om.

How to know God. This is something that's been bothering me for some time now, but somehow we need to know God and we need to find a formula somewhere in our divine mathematics, and create a spiritual equation to find God.

Many people have given you many different ways to find God. Some swamis teach you how to levitate and in they say 'Get up, get up, up, up, up! And they want to find God. God cannot be found in movement.

In Psalms 46 verse 10 it says 'Be still and know that I am God'. That means you should be still, not jumping all over like a chicken without a head. That's what's happening, and South Africa has become a haven for Swamis to come from India, a great haven. And when they come from India we flock to see them. We listen to them and we still remain the same. That's the sad part. I've not met anybody enlightened because he went and listened to some swami from India. I was listening to a recording the other day that said, 'Only the first five minutes of a talk is what you remember, and after that you remember nothing because you're not interested'. You only look interested. Looking interested and being interested are two different things.

So how do we know God? Where can we find God? How does God look? The Bible says man was created in God's image so God must look something like us. He created man in His image, so each one of you resembles God. Then why can't we find that God in the people around us? It's because when we see the people around us we try to look for their faults, how to bring the person down, even in our praises. How often have you heard somebody say, 'That's a beautiful dress you've got on,' or, 'a beautiful sari'. What about you? You spent one hour on your face and they comment on your dress! Why didn't you do a good job? Because you don't know how to glorify God. If you knew how to glorify God you'd be beauty personified. But you only know how to glorify the physical body, therefore people don't even see you, they see your dress, your pants, your glasses, whatever.

So how do we find a way of knowing God? Does anybody know? What's the point of having a japa bag with one finger sticking up like a hold-up and reciting 'Hare Krishna, Krishna Hare,' for thirty years and you never see Krishna. For thirty years you're calling this man and he has not even given you a speck of enlightenment. So we're doing something wrong. Looking for God in the wrong place.

To find God you need to shut your eyes, close your mouth, and dive deep into yourself, the deepest you can. Forget every existence in this universe: your family, the building. Just Be. And in that time you'll find God. But we can't just Be. All of you seated here can't just Be. There's an itch or a scratch somewhere, but we can't just Be. Why? We have too many sons of the blind king in our head. And those sons keep coming to you and telling you things while you have your eyes closed. Get rid of the blind king and his sons. How do you do that? By reciting the Gayathri Mantra.

The Gayathri Mantra has twenty-four tatvas (divine elements or sounds), not one. 'Sri Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay Ram only has seven tatvas.. 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare, Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare,' only has five, and it is powerful. The Gayathri Mantra has twenty-four tatvas. What does that make it? Most powerful. Recite the Gayathri Mantra 'till you become transcendental, 'till you leave this physical body, 'till you have no body. But do you think you want to do that? As soon as you have no body you are lost. You are too attached to this body, and as long as you are attached to this body you're going to get nowhere.

Paramhansa Yogananda said: 'To know God, dive to the innermost altar of your being, and there seated will be Ishwara, God'.

We all need to know God. God is the only happiness that we have. Everything else is apparent happiness. We have this apparent happiness that we live every day. But we need that absolute happiness, and that is to know God, the truth. God is the truth. Can the truth change? No. God can never change. Whether you're Christian, Hindu, Islamic, whatever, even if you have no religion, God does not change. There is nobody in this whole universe who does not believe in God. Nobody. You cannot point out a man to me and say he doesn't believe in God and he can't tell me he doesn't believe in God. The fact that he says 'I don't believe there is a God,' means he knows there is a God, he just doesn't believe it. God is there for all of us. The same God, the same energy. We need to go inside and enjoy that God.

Hari Om.

The Purpose of Life

Hari Om.

So, what's the purpose of this life? What's our purpose here? Our purpose in this life is to become a jivan mukti. And we've failed miserably to become that jivan mukti. What's the meaning of jivan mukti? It means total liberation of the self. And why can't we become jivan muktis? Today, Sujana, the little baby girl who runs around here during service, stayed over and I was playing with her for most of the day. I looked at her and said, 'she can become a jivan mukti'. Why? Because she doesn't have a mind. She didn't ask for her father, or cry for her mother. She just was.

There's one factor called the mind that stops us from becoming jivan muktis. The only reason the mind affects us is because the mind is controlled strongly by our sense of ego, which does not allow our mind to function in any other way. And our ego is so big that some of us drown in it. Others suffocate in it, because the more egoistic we become, the more idiotic our behaviour is. We lose all sense of logic and intelligence, and we follow this thing which seemingly makes us better than anyone else, and this ego stops us from becoming jivan muktis.

When I said jivan mukti just now, you heard one lady laugh here. The only reason she laughed is because it is most difficult for women to become jivan muktis, They have too much mind. The emotions and heart rest in the mind. All human beings are supposed to have a connection between the solar plexus and the medulla oblongata, but women have everything connected to the mind. Therefore you'll find there's a limited number of female jivan mukis. You can count them on one hand. Why? Because women work from emotion and not logic. Many of us are married here – we are a victim of tears. As soon as you see the tears you give in. That's emotion. Not logic.

So we want to become jivan muktis, but we don't want to give up this thing called ego. What does ego stand for? Enlarged Growth of the Oblongata. Because your mind is also there it's so big. If you look, you'll see there are more women here in service than men - so they're going to catch me in a corner afterwards (laughs). Give up your mind and all the stories you carry in your mind. Give them up. I have a saying: just worry about today, worry not about tomorrow because tomorrow will become today tomorrow. Take every day, second, minute, hour, as it comes.

We have a habit of living in expectation. And then when the expectation is not fulfilled we are a wreck, a nervous wreck. Live without expectation. Live as though you're walking into town. Do you watch your steps? No, you don't even know you're walking half the time. Your right leg goes, your left leg goes. It's automated. Live like that. Your legs are in total rhythm and you don't have control of that. There's no mind involved. It just happens. And that's the rhythm we all need to get into to become jivan muktis.

So our purpose in this life is to become better people. Are we becoming better people? No we are not. We always have something negative to say about somebody or something. Always. I can speak to any one of you and after a long discussion you will have spoken about somebody else. There's no exception to the rule. Somehow, some name will come into the discussion. We live like that because we live in the ego. Our ego is based on many aspects of our lives. The house we live in, the clothes we wear, our car, our profession - all that creates is opportunity for our ego to get bigger and bigger. And as long as you have that, your jivan mukti state is decreasing. We always have to make a comment, and most of the comments you make are sarcastic. But it doesn't matter. Don't let people affect you by their nasty comments and nasty remarks. Just smile and carry on.

Do you know why people make nasty remarks and nasty comments? Because they are reflecting themselves on you. They are trying to justify themselves, so they reflect themselves by making comments about you. Stop accepting it by fighting back. Change. Let us all become jivan muktis. You're staring at me like it's an impossible task. Already you've failed. Let us all become jivan muktis. You are afraid of it because you don't have evenness of mind. Your mind is telling you that you're going to fail.

How many of you here want to become jivan muktis? You are halfway there. You are a jivan, a being, a Self. To liberate the Self is to give up this physical self. When I say you must give up this physical self, what I mean is don't get caught with glorifying this physical self. It's nothing. Life is so short. Before you know it, it's ended. Look at those four young kids coming from work who had an accident. All four died here at Ottowa. All died, aged 24, 22, 26. Think about it and we still want to go and glorify this body. It's useless. Right now one of the bodies is lying in a mortuary for a funeral tomorrow. Can that body get up and look in the mirror and do all the glorifications for the funeral, then get back in the coffin? No it can't. The self is missing. It's that self that can make you a jivan mukti.

If I die tomorrow, you'll all come here. Not one of you will ask Seelan, 'Is Guru here?' You'll ask Seelan, 'Did the body come'? That will happen to all of you, whether it's your father or your mother. Think about it. The moment the Self leaves the body, you are just a body to everybody – to your wife, your husband, your son, your brother. They all look at it as one of the most useless things, yet we glorify it. Every minute of the day, we are busy. If we don't have one of those small mirrors, we've got lip ice, or something. That is because we have this thing called ego. And as long as we have this we're not going to run away from glorifying this body and making this body the most beautiful thing there is. And when it comes in contact with fire in the cremation hall, it's nothing. But we'll glorify it. Because that is the only thing that gives us some kind of justification that 'I'm beautiful'. Beauty doesn't lie in all this. Beauty lies in the self, the inner self, the greater self the bigger self. The self within. As Krishna says, in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All beauty is beyond me'. What does that mean? This is not beautiful at all. This is just temporary. Tomorrow morning you're not the same person. You have one more crease added to your face and you try to cover it up. So, every day this body is getting older and changing. So when it's changing there's no reality.

What is the definition of reality? Anything that doesn't change, the eternal truth, Self. I am not real because when I was younger my hair was black. After I met you all, it's grey. Every morning it takes me longer to get out of bed because there's more pain in the body. So if I am changing I'm not real. I am an apparent reality, a changeable reality. So we need to get away from this concept of 'I am real'. This body is real and if you've got one more crease, you add a little more foundation. We must change from that. The only difference, when you're younger, is that creases are painful. When you're older, there's no pain. So why do we worry?

Let us now get rid of this thing called ego. Start slowly. If I have to start I'll go to my room and write the word 'ego' on my mirror – the three most powerful letters – and every time you go there, you'll leave the mirror and start to look at the other self - the self that will make you a jivan mukti. That is the self. Or write on your mirror, 'This is not me'. And see how you can change your life.

You want to know how you can change? Kill the mind. How do you kill the mind? Start with your taste. Kill your tastebuds. Have no taste. Then go to the other senses. When you go now, I'm going to put a box there at the gate. Put your ego inside. Don't put your name - I don't want to know who you are - and start to live life simply.

Simplicity is the ultimate spirituality. You can't have ego and be spiritual. It won't work because somehow the ego becomes bigger than you. So I'll leave you with that. What is the purpose of this life? It is to become a jivan mukti.

Hari Om

Special Sani Navagraha Pooja

Hari Om.
What you experienced today is just for you. The chance of seeing it again is not going to happen. Enjoy the energy and I'm sure you'll experience some different emotions. Just enjoy that because it's not going to happen again for a long time. This must be after twenty years. Enjoy that energy that went through your body.

What they're going to do now is padio pooja, washing the feet. After that we'll have some bhajan.

It is believed by the great seers, nothing that was written in the last hundred years - actually it was written 5000 years ago - that after every major pooja the greatest energy you'll get is from your guru's feet. So all the disciples in the olden days used to wash their guru's feet. And why don't all of you get a chance to wash? Some devotees think they're forced to wash the guru's feet. That negative intention is no good for the guru. So we have the same people washing voluntarily all the time, unless some devotee requests to do it on their birthday. Normally children will come in the morning of their birthday and wash the guru's feet.

So how do you know that your prayer today was answered? We had that slight drizzle and then it stopped. Only then do you know that even God is happy about your prayer and those are God's tears of joy. It has nothing to do with what the Fifa chairman said. When he opened his big new place in Geneva it was pouring with rain so he said, 'It doesn't matter if God is upset when we open this place. Even during rain soccer has to live'. And now it's hot there and he's battling to live. Am I right? So that's why I'm saying 'tears of joy'. It's because we did this prayer properly and I think everyone of you is blessed today. So were going to resound the name of the Lord once more this time in bhajanayoga If Brother Haridas was here that's what he would say. In bhajanayoga we're going to resound His name. I won't take long. I know that for some of you from 4 o'clock to 8 o'lock is a long time to pray. But before I start I have one short story to tell you from my son. I want to tell all of you because it's important to know.

His lecturer asked him, 'Mahavisinu, tell me how many hours do you sleep?' He thought he was going to show his lecturer a point so he said, 'I sleep for 8 hours at night and 2 hours in the day time'. The lecturer said, 'Not good. If you have a history of diabetes in your family it means you will become diabetic'. I'm telling you this because some of you sleep for fourteen hours! When I told the yoga students that I sleep for four hours they thought I was crazy. So Vishnu asked the lecturer how much we should sleep for and he said, 'Anything from one-and-a-half to four hours. Fours hours in bed resting and one-and-a-half of those hours for sleep'. This is a lecturer in a medical school.

I'm telling you this because I'm an example of dying slowly - a perfect example. Every day my body is telling me another sloka and its not any better than yesterday's sloka - ya ya ya yama. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's worse than having cancer. With cancer the doctors give you three or four weeks before you die. With diabetes they can't tell you. They just give you these tablets and tell you to take them. So don't get diabetes. I carry two pens in my pocket. Everyone passing me thinks I'm a clerk but those pens are my injections.

You get up in the morning with diabetes and every day this is what happens to you. On the first day the front of your toe will be in pain. You think it's nothing. On the second day the back of your toe is in pain. On the third day, the side of your foot, then your whole foot, then slowly your knee, then your hip, finished. You have to take a chair to the toilet. You don't want to go there. So from today, on this lovely day of the lunar eclipse, take a vow to sleep four hours a day only. Really, I have practised it. Too much sleep is really a problem. Start to a sleep maximum four hours a day. Try it. The Bhagavad Gita says, 'He who sleeps too much, he who eats too much, is not a yogi'. I'll add to that: he's a boghi, and when he eats more than too much he's a roghi. You don't want to go that route. You're not diabetic yet. There's a medication called Chromium. All of you go and get that. It prevents you from getting diabetes.

So please, I just wanted to tell you this story because diabetes is very, very uncomfortable. You kick something and worry until it heals. If you have an open would you worry 'till it heals. Just now I had a red mark on my toe and I got Nirvana to check. It was just kungum. I was scared, really. So, please, if you want to consult with Vishnu I'll charge you all later. Don't get diabetes, it's worse than cancer. With cancer you know when you're going to die. With diabetes you know you're going to die but you don't know when. One good thing about diabetes - as soon as you see chocolate you forget you have diabetes. Mine is different as soon as I go behind a sugar truck my sugar goes up.

Before we do aarthi, many of you here, or some of you here seated here, received special pavitrums from Swami Murugesu, and I see that u don't have them on. I see only Jo and Saras have them on. Its very, very important that you have a pavitram in special poojas, if the guru gives you a pavitram - and in many cases it was given by swami murugesu. Its a very special, it has great significance for this kind of pooja and if you received one from the guru you're very lucky. Thats why I stopped giving thiings, I say 'wear this' all the time and you throw it away.
Hari Om



Click Here to view images from this unique Sani Navagraha pooja.

On Sacrifice

Hari Om.
There are three very import aspects in our life. And these three very import aspects that I'm going to talk about are the easiest way to get to God; the easiest way to accept God. God is not attained by sacrifices as many of us know. We want to sacrifice for every little thing. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, 'It is by your sacrifice that you can become dear to me'. He doesn't mean to literally sacrifice any creature. It means sacrifice your self, your mind.

My very first guru, Gurudev Narayansami, used to do many sacrifices in his life and none of those sacrifices gave him any joy. He would tell God continuously that he wanted to be a healer of an extraordinary status; that he would not charge anybody any money. He would do these services for free. And God would say to him, 'I need a sacrifice'. And he would sacrifice and get no joy out of it. He did not attain what was supposed to be given to him by God but he continued to sacrifice. Then one day in his frustration he said to God, 'Stop playing games with me. I need this power'. And God said, 'I want sacrifice'. And he said to God, 'I've given you so many sacrifices already. What else do you want? My whole family?' God said, 'I want you to sacrifice your eldest son'. And he did. He did that and he served five years in prison for the murder of his son. Now, are any of you here prepared to do that? Sacrifice your child? No, we won't. We will never do that. And the only reason is because we love our children. We have an attachment to them. That's why we don't do it. When a father murders a son and a son murders his father, they have no love or attachment between them. They have nothing between them.

Your attachment and love for your child causes a point you can't think beyond - that everyone else is wrong and you are right. You won't sacrifice because you have this intense focus, attachment and love for this child which is yours. But, should a priest tell you to go and sacrifice a chicken, a goat or a pig, you are quite happy to do that. And the only reason you're happy to do that is because you have no love for the creature – nothing at all. It doesn't live in your house. You've only had it for four hours - it has just come from wherever. To you it means nothing. To many who attend the function it means a sumptuous meal. I'm not going to argue that our parents and ancestors did this prayer - because they had the most powerful mantras ever. They could recite a mantra to bring rain in two seconds. We don't have those people like that any more who can nullify the consequences of that sacrifice. You get a maharaj, a priest, a pandit, and when its time to sacrifice he hands over to you. He's too scared to tell you he doesn't know the mantras to nullify the karmic consequences of killing that animal.

My mother used to sacrifice. I come from a family that sacrifices and I'm going to tell you a story of why I refuse to sacrifice. I was about twelve years old and our neighbour in Stanger - I lived in Stanger - was doing what is known as Amman prayer (we call it porridge prayer) and they were sacrificing. At twelve years of age, I enjoyed meat, and chicken was my favourite. So I was watching them sacrificing and at the top of my head appeared a huge hand that turned my head away from watching the sacrifice, and I collapsed. Now when I think about it, that was God telling me I was not made for that. This is not a story, it was a personal experience. I've already had the experience of the touch of God telling me not to sacrifice. I was carried to the house unconscious for, maybe, six hours. So there must be something not right in the way we pray. Not in the way our ancestors prayed – we are so weak in comparison to them. We are the weakest link to our ancestors. We know nothing. Our ancestors knew everything. We've changed so much. Don't get caught in that karmic consequence. If you have a parent at home who is equal to your ancestor, living a long time, then follow for as long as they are here. They have not taught you how to do it.

There are only three words that can stop rain. And three words can bring the rain down again. But they are so powerful and intense that if you say them, it won't work because there's a way to say them. Do we have those people who know those mantras? We don't. So, therefore, we need to look at the whole thing and see where we're going wrong. Why are our children having problems?

I was in Sri Lanka when I got a call, or when I remembered that a certain devotee's niece might be dying of cancer, and I was standing in front of the seven metre tall Hanuman statue in a place called Rambara, a Chinmaya Mission ashram, and it is a principle that whenever I go to Sri Lanka I visit the shrine. If I don't it's a miserable trip. So, on this occasion I looked at the statue and said when I go back home I must get positive answers. And when I came back home I got positive answers. No sacrifice was needed, just strong faith, devotion and love. Faith, devotion and love. Faith in your dedication. Once you have those three, whether we believe that God exists or not, everything will be possible. Do not doubt. And we lack this. We lack this sense of belief that God is there and as soon as we come to the weakest point in our life we blame God. We blame God when we are down and we never praise God when we're up. I've not heard anyone say, 'By the grace of God I'm a millionaire. But when that millionaire falls down they say, 'What has God done to me?' Why? Because we don't have dedication, devotion and love. We need to have all three to dedicate the time to be with God, to have a sincere devotion towards God with the greatest and most intense love. Only then, whatever we want in life is possible - only then.

I've been bankrupt in life. When Tammy was still arguing about why we should pray so much when we couldn't make ends meet, I was sneaking out to do prayers at other people's homes. That has brought me to where I am today. Our karmic consequences are ours, and only by praying to God will you be able to work our those karmic consequences for your benefit. I'm not making this statement for you to give up the way you pray, don't get me wrong. My mother sacrificed all her life. For fifteen years before she passed on she was blind. And I argued that every day of my life for fifteen years. 'What did the sacrifice do to you, Ma? You sacrificed all your life, every prayer, and for fifteen years you've been blind'. Do we understand this? I realised afterwards the prayer has caused her blindness. She was blind to the prayer as well. When I was telling them not to sacrifice they would argue with me. When they did sacrifice I would go out and come back when it was finished. I didn't die yet. Everybody said I would have a miserable death because I didn't respect my ancestor's pooja. But I didn't die yet.

We must be bold and strong enough to accept the Bhagavad Gita as a testament. Take one book and make it your God. See the Moslems, they only have the Koran. The Christians only have the Bible. What do we have? You name the book, we have it, for every letter of the Alphabet. It's called 'the ABC of Hinduism'. Why? Because we want to know everything. Read the Bhagavad Gita and somebody will tell you the Upanishad is better. So you read the Upanishad and somebody else will tell you to read the Puranas. Take one book only. I only talk to you about the Bhagavad Gita. You know why? It is the only Hindu book written without errors. Where you cannot point a finger at anything that is said there. You take all the other books and you can get into trouble. All eighteen chapters are repetitions of the first chapter. Whatever they tell you in the first chapter is in other chapters too. It's the most powerful book. Take it and read it. If you have any doubts or questions in life, open to the pages of the Bhagavad Gita.

I'm going to tell you a story that happened in the Drakensberg on our retreat. Some of the students were playing a game from the Bhagavad Gita where you think of a question, then flip the pages of the book and the answer will be there on the page you land on. This is something that was taught to the world by Mahatma Gandhi. Clinton and all of them were playing. Deepak came along and asked, 'What time will I sleep tonight?' They flipped the pages and it said, 'Those that sleep too much are tamasic.' Now, you see? It said, 'He who sleeps too much...' For those that sleep too much, it's no good. And for those who sleep too little, it's also no good. You must have equal sleep. That is the power of the Bhavagad Gita. You must test it. Try and get one with one verse per page.

So, make the Bhagavad Gita your book. That's all. If you want to know who you are flip to the Bhagavad Gita it will tell you at any time.

Hari Om

The Yoga of Life

Well, firstly let’s discuss the words yoga and life.

What is yoga? The Sanskrit word yoga translates to ‘union’ or ‘to yoke or harness’. Simply put, yoga is God-union. However, the word yoga also refers to the scientific spiritual method of physical and mental practices, originating in the land of Bharat (India) more than 3 000 years ago. The purpose of the system of yoga is to help you to achieve your highest potential and to experience good health and everlasting joy. The ultimate aim of yoga is to reach emancipation.

According to many great yogis, yoga was passed on from Lord Shiva to Parvathi. Parvathi then taught the technique to Muruga. Muruga imparted this knowledge to Agasthiar Muni and Boganathar Maharishi who then taught Babaji. Babaji is now passing this information on to all of humankind. Yoga is the scientific way, spiritually, for God and Self-Union. Yoga is made up of eight requirements or means to achieve this:

yama - universal moral commandments
niyama - self purification through discipline
asana - posture (exercises for the body)
pranayama - rhythmic control of the breath
pratyahara - withdrawal and a freeing of the mind from the senses and external world
dharana - concentration
dhyana - meditation
samadhi - ‘to bring together completely’ - a state of super-consciousness in which a person becomes one with God

Of all of the above eight stages, the yoga of life is pranayama.

What is pranayama? Pranayama is the scientific art of mastering breath control and is a very important part of yoga. Pranayama is also mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita and in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. We say that pranayama is breath control (‘prana’ means breath, life force, vitality or energy and ‘ayama’ means length, stretching or restraint). So pranayama entails a modification or regulation of the normal process of breathing.

Usually breathing is an automated act in which air is taken into the body, into the lungs, oxygen is absorbed from the air in the alveoli (the lungs’ microscopic air sacs) into the blood and carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood into the alveoli out to the atmosphere. This complete process or act of inhalation and exhalation repeats itself every four seconds. Each process takes about 500 ml of air into the lungs. So for every 60 seconds, 7 litres of air is taken into the lungs.

Prana has a double meaning, one is breath and the other is life. As long as breath is there, there is life. It is said that a yogi’s life is not measured by days but by the number of breaths. How you breathe determines how long you are going to live. For a yogi it is ideal to breathe about 15 times every minute. Here is a theory I put together: God gives you 788 400 000 breaths at the time of birth. How you use this breath determines how you will live. Breathing 15 times a minute or taking one breath every four seconds gives you a life span of 100 years. So, breathing 10 times a minute will give you a life span of approximately 150 years.

Prana is indispensible to life. Because of prana, every tissue, cell or atom has constant energy. Prana is the essence of all bio-chemical processes in the body. When a living being dies, he has no breath. The soul exits the body, but people don’t generally say the soul left at a certain time, they say “he took his last breath” … and call this the Time of Death. We breathe to live. Prana is thus the yoga of life.

(Excerpt from retreat discourse from 20th to 22st May 2011)

Yoga with Q and A

We think we understand this term “Yoga”. Yoga is that union or yoga is that to unite with God, and there are many ways to unite with God. There’s Bhakthi Yoga, Jnana Yoga, there’s Karma Yoga, there’s Kriya Yoga. Together with that there is Guru Bhakthi Yoga, Agni Yoga, there’s Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga and Ananda Yoga. But if you look at it carefully the word bhakthi appears more than once, so because the word bhakthi appears more than once, it means it is one of the easiest ways to have union with God.

So we going to start with Karma Yoga first. Karma Yoga is yoga of action. So what is the meaning of the word action. In this sense the meaning of the word action is to do something in righteousness, that means something without harming anybody in mind, body or soul. So let’s identify Karma Yoga that relates to the Gayathri Peedam and Jadatharaya Institute of Right Living and Yoga. Abisegam to the murthi is Karma Yoga. Cleaning after the Abisegam is Karma Yoga.Washing the cloth that was used on the murthis is Karma Yoga.Dressing the murthi is Karma Yoga. Cleaning the hawan kund, be it portable or fixed is Karma Yoga. Cleaning around the hawan kund is Karma Yoga. Maintaining the grounds of the temple with regards to cleanliness is Karma Yoga. Feeding the poor is Karma Yoga. Clothing the poor is Karma Yoga. So anything related to goodness externally is Karma Yoga, but giving R1 at the robot is not Karma Yoga, don’t think that is goodness, that is just bad.

Q: (Devotee) Can you explain that Gurudev?

A: Generally those people at the robot are capable of working, they just damn lazy. For a moment I thought they just can’t get a job, I think they just selective in what job they want, they can do any job. So that which we discussed now is Karma Yoga.

So I am going to go now to Bhakthi Yoga. Bhakthi means devotion, dedication. Writing your Japa is Bhakthi Yoga. Clapping your hands in ecstasy during a bhajan is Bhakthi Yoga. Singing bhajan as a lead or chorus is Bhakthi Yoga. Giving 10% of your salary is Bhakthi Yoga. Only a devotee who is devoted will make that 10% available. So you got Bhakthi Yoga.

Q: (Devotee) Guru can I ask you on that point, about clapping your hands, could you explain?

A: First of all we need to understand I said in ecstasy, everybody can clap their hands, somebody is called for a nomination we clap our hands. Here when we clapping our hands we create an energy in your palm, by clapping continuously, and that energy is dissipated into the whole room, that’s Bhakthi Yoga, that is devotion. By clapping your hand in a function because the rockstar sang well is not Bhakthi at all, it just that you are in one of those states like everybody else. The state of clapping your hand in total ecstasy is Bhakthi Yoga.

Now we going to go to Jnana Yoga. The word Jnana means intellectual, knowledge, spiritual intellectual. Spiritual knowledge is Jnana. One who has bliss in spiritual knowledge is called Jnanananda. You can give him any question, he will give you an example in the material plane first and then from there he will take you into another realm. Jnana means reading the Bhagavad Gita, reading the Ramayan, not only reading, reading and absorbing and practicing. Jnana is a very powerful term in the Hindu scripts, as soon as you are referred to as a Jnana means you do not compare to anybody else, you are just beyond comparison of the normal individual. That is why it is a very, very important term Jnanananda, Jana Giri, Jnana Guru, Guru Jnanananda, all these come from that yoga, means full knowledge of all aspects without generally even reading the books.

We going to go now to Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga is yoga based on the eightfold of Patanjali. Kriya also means action or to do, but it is based on Patanjali. Everything we discussed now is Kriya. Karma, Bhakthi, Jnana all that is Kriya, because if you do not have Yama and Niyama, Yama and Niyama generally refers to Karma, Bhakthi and Jnana, then you can’t be called a Kriyaban. The most important aspect of Kriya Yoga is Samadhi. The most important aspects leading to samadhi in Kriya Yoga is Pranayama and Meditation.

Now we going to go to Ananda (Blissful) Yoga. What is Ananda Yoga? You are in Ananda Yoga when you practice Chapter 2 verse 48 - perfect Ananda Yoga, evenness of mind. Nothing bothers you, nothing, whether it is good or bad you just smile. Chapter 2 verse 47/48, very important chapter, with that is Chapter 12, the whole of chapter is very important. The questions are asked about man’s illumination, how is man illuminated? Illumination means a state of Ananda. Chapter 12 gives you a full description of 24 or 25 verses.

Let's look at Agni Yoga. Agni means fire. Agni Yoga means offering to the fire. Why do think it is called Agni Yoga, why I am not saying hawan? What we do here is hawan. What you do with devotion and love and not just throwing like that, when you offer it, you have this connection with the fire, God and yourself. It’s a triangle you create and when you making that offering that is Agni Yoga. Where you hold a mudra (Maan Mudra), so you take the samagri and you offer it like this (Gurudev demonstrates how to offer to the fire holding the mudra). That is Agni Yoga. When you throwing like this, is hawan. Maan means buck.

Q: (Devotee) Gurudev you taught us that it is very important to only offer only with the right hand, why is that?

A: Because the right hand is always the positive hand. Left hand is always the negative hand. I did that in Ida and Pingla. We need to offer with the positive hand only, but if you have a disability there is nothing wrong with your left hand, you can change it to positive by thought only. Negative is cool, positive is hot.

Now we going to where we all fall short. Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga. I am going to do both they just fall into each other, as much as they are two different yogas, you cannot separate them when you are talking about it. You can practice them separately, but when you talking somehow Karma comes into Bhakthi and Bhakthi comes into Karma. Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga and Guru Bhakthi. We defined earlier the meaning of the word Bhakthi. Bhakthi means devotion, dedication. Karma, action.

Action with devotion and dedication to the Guru is Bhakthi Karma Yoga. Yesterday we described, don’t know where it came from but it is a perfect definition of a Guru: “One who helps navigate the rapids and turbulences of the material ocean to enter the spiritual ocean”.

Q (Devotee): How can you accept that navigation If you do not have Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga?

A: Only with Bhakthi, only with devotion and dedication you can have the Guru Bhakthi. Without that you can’t. So if you do not have Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga, navigation for you is a very difficult one, absolutely, terribly, and all of you are now stuck there. You have come here and you looking at your Guru as an item, identifying as a body and working towards it as a body. You need to now take that out and work towards your Guru as an intangible being and then Guru Bhakthi Karma yoga will become very, very easy.

Q: (Devotee) Guru could you explain more along the lines of intangible being?

A: Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga, your Guru must become intangible. What that means is, you must see your Guru as a soul and not as a body, because when you look as the Guru as a body, the body relates to sex, the body relates to intake, the body relates to excretion, the body relates to arrogance, the body relates to hate, the body relates to jealously, the body relates to ego, the soul relates to none of those and the soul is not tangible at all.

Q: (Devotee) How do you do that?

A: Very easy to do that, when you sit in the presence of your Guru, when you stare at your Guru, you must be looking inside his body and not at his body. In Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga we have desires - that means 'I want to become like the Guru'. I’m striving in that way to become like the Guru. 'I want to be able to preach like the Guru' - and this is having desires. These desires are accepted in the spiritual journey.

Then you have people or devotees who want to have the Guru under their control, so what they do, I am showing you were Guru Bhakthi Yoga does not come in, what they do, during the Guru’s times of difficulty, when I say difficulty, for example let’s take Deepak: Tammy and I were in India and Mellisa phones me and said she needed to pay her fees at UDW first person I phoned was Deepak, remember Deepak, I don’t forget, I phoned Deepak and told him to do this for me, he said 'no problem', he got the details and paid it through the computer, when I came back, I said Deepak I owe the money, he said, 'don’t worry about it'.

Now that is the Guru Bhakthi in the beginning, now just say Deepak needs from me, now I am a commissioner, a justice of the peace, now Deepak needs to stamp a document by the justice of the peace, but the document he is giving me is not correct, but he wants me to stamp it, sign it to say it is correct, I saw the original and I saw the copy and then I tell him Deepak I can’t do it and then he reminds me of his favour to me. That is not Bhakthi at all. That is giving favours and waiting for the fruits some time when you need it.

In Chapter 2 verse 54/55: When one has put away the desires of the mind, what is the desires of the mind? The fruits of the action.Chapter 2 verse 56: That one who is without sentimental attachment, what is the attachment? I gave you money then, that is a sentimental attachment, I did the Guru a favour. Who does not rejoice because of present circumstances, why doesn’t he rejoice? He needs the present circumstances to fill the past action. So that it something you need to be aware of. Don’t do something for the Guru, with the Guru or the Guru does something for you, or with you and you use that to get the better of life. It will come back in a boomerang and you won’t be able to take it. I’m saying this to you now, not long from now you will recall these lines.

Q: (Devotee) Gurudev, if can just go to understanding Guru and the role when we undertake the journey to call a Guru, do we call a Guru into our lives or does the Guru come into our lives?

A: The Guru knows beforehand whether he is part of your life or not. There is no higher Guru and there is no lower Guru. Guru is Guru. Rain water is rain water, you can’t say in India they have better rain water, neither can you say in South Africa we have bad rain water. Guru is like that flow, Guru is like the Sun, he does not pick were he has to shine from. Whether you are a good person or a bad person, the sun is equal on you as well as the good person. Light will fall on everybody good or bad.

Q:(Devotee) Does the Guru pull the disciple into the ashram? Do we have a pledge , when we undertake the spiritual journey, do we undertake all the instructions that go with that particular path?

A: When you enter into an ashram, the fact that you entered and already accepted the ashram, you made a pledge. You don’t have to write out a pledge. “The Pledge is : I will follow this man, called Guru through thick and thin, through any speed whether he is going fast or slow, I will follow him”. That is the pledge. “We also make a pledge that at no time we will bring him down”. Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga is talking about your Guru, positively, that’s all.

Q: (Devotee) Gurudev, does that relationship grow, it does grow, but at what point is it a relationship, I’m not sure I quite found the right word?

A: At what point you find yourself connected? When the Guru starts to haunt you must know that point is there. When I say the Guru starts to haunt you, you cannot think of anything else, nothing else, you can only think of your Guru, you working you thinking of your Guru, you eating you thinking of your Guru, every person you meet you want to talk about your Guru, and you stop strangers and you talk about your Guru, that means your Guru is haunting you. That means this the time you need to make that connection.

Q: (Devotee) What is that connection, are we not connected?

A: You are connected, you didn’t pay subscription, but you connected.

Q: (Devotee) How does that work?

A: It means you did not acknowledge the connections always there. There’s a spiritual umbilical cord between us here, we all linked with that spiritual umbilical cord, but we have not used that cord to interact. Like if tomorrow Seelan doesn’t pay the DSTV, we are connected, but we won’t have DSTV. We need to make that payment and that payment is use that umbilical cord, the spiritual umbilical cord. Through the spiritual umbilical cord you need to absorb , you are not doing that.

Q: (Devotee) How? I don’t get that.

A: When you are in meditation, and if you meditate intensely, with the deepest desire to have this connection, deepest desire, you got to do it everyday, because everyday you will see slowly, slowly, slowly, from a dim light to a bright light, to a brightest light, then it will explode on you. The globe will burst on you. The connection is made. That is what you need to do. It is repeated practice. We had a settee, a long settee, somebody took it for storage and he took it for himself after that. On this settee, one day I was lying and meditating on my Guru, Tammy remembers the day I got a fright of my life. Inside my head something burst, loud, when it burst without voluntary movement I sat up, just that explosion in my head picked me up in a sitting position, it was a involuntary thing, the fear I had when it happened and I just looked, and I’m trying to say things, write, to see that everything was normal, went to the kitchen talking to Tammy, see if I am making sense because I thought I bust my brain. That’s the feeling I had, a strong, strong explosion in my head, and I just sat up in the settee, so what it means, that thing burst up here, that globe that I’m talking about and when it bursts on you it covers your whole body with this Divine nectar.

A Divine nectar is called Ambrosia. It covers your whole body, you feel it dripping inside your skin and your bones, you will feel it. It is like this gland, this organ just burst and the fluid is just dripping down. You will feel it like it is outside, but it is inside you, the world body. So coming back, the intangible Guru is beyond this physical body, he lies in the innermost self of this body. He is a pure unit of knowledgeable consciousness. One of the greatest things about the disciple- Guru relationship, many people have not had that, you must have a complete merger, a complete union with your Guru. If he thinks, you must be able to know what he is thinking.

Guru Bhakthi Karma Yoga is the easiest way to attain that state of Ananda Yoga.