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)