Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Krishna Janasthami talk

Hari Om.

No matter your religion, whether you're Islamic, Christian, or Hindu, there's one thing that everyone says: 'When are you going to tie the knot?' The only people who literally 'tie the knot' nowadays are the South Indians. But we've moved away from that. In Phoenix and Chatsworth they no longer have a thali, They have a gold thali. So that's where 'tying the knot' comes from. The mantras were recited silently while I was doing the prayer because it's a special mantra. I was asking the Mother for permission to do this. The mother accepted, and that's when I went around and got all your blessings. So don't feel that we did something new, and because Radhika is wearing a blue sari that she's Krishna. Nothing like that.

So today is Krisnhna Janasthami, and many of us understand it differently. My understanding is very simple. If Shiva didn't have a birth, if Vishu and Brahma didn't have births, did Krishna really have a birth? That is my understanding. So Krishna Janasthami is the appearance day of Lord Krishna – in the Bhagavad Gita, when he appeared in his Vishwarupa form, that form was janasthami which means appearance – in the form of God, not in the form of Krishna. Many say he was born in Mathura, but it is not that way. Someone said to me yesterday that Krishna's house is in Mathura. Very good for them if they believe that. Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita talks about two things: dharmashaktra and kurushaktra. Those are references to this physical body. Sanjaya talks to the blind king – the mind, which is always blind. And he talks about his thousand sons. Those are brutality, violence, lust greed, everything attached to the mind are sons of the mind. Krishna is within each one of you. Each of you is a Krishna in your own way. You are that light, that spark. So today is Krishna's appearance day. In one temple they say it's Krishna's birthday. We have birthdays. We are human forms, not manifestations. Supreme personalities do not have births. Jesus was the only personality who had a birthday, but his was unique and divine. Krishna is that which is within each one of us.

In the Bible, Jesus says 'the Kingdom of God is within (Luke 17.21). In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says 'I am that which is within' (10.20). He's saying the same thing but in a different way. What does 'Krishna' mean? Does it mean 'God'? It means 'black', or 'deep blue'. That was his colour. We have a South African apartheid Krishna – he's white. But he's supposed to be very dark in colour. What does it signify? It signifies depth in divinity, in spirituality. Through the Bhagavad Gita, the 'song of God', we can attain the state of Krishna-consciousness, not how they do in Hare Krishna temples, but in self-consciousness. We can attain that just by following the DIY given to man by God which we call the Bhagavad Gita. It is a very important manual, and very significant for this life, this kali yuga. Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna more than a thousand times, to surrender. Surrender what? Surrender yourself. He also uses the word 'sacrifice'. That does not mean you must do Kali pooja with a goat, or Amman pooja with a chicken. It means you must sacrifice yourself, your bad habits. Sacrifice them at the feet of Krishna and surrender totally to him. Once you surrender totally to God, everything you do in this life will be divine. You don't ever think about what you do, it will automatically be divine – because your general is God. How else can you surrender? By reciting the Gayathri mantra. Krishna says 'Of all the metres I am Gayathri' (10.35); the Gayathri mantra is written in the gayathri metre – 3 lines.

So Krishna claims in the Bhagavad Gita to be everything that we know. 'Of all the light I am the sun' (10.21). We know the sun. He says, 'Whatever you do, do not do it for the fruit of your action, but do it for me' (2.47) . Do not do it for the fruits. Don't do something and wait for a handout. Just do it in the name of Krishna. All work we do must be done for him. Whether you're helping your husband build a house, or digging a trench, you are not doing it for your husband or yourself, you're doing it for Krishna. If we work like that our work becomes divine. Not, 'I go to work every day but when I go to work I don't feel like working'. When you get up in the morning, offer your work to Krishna, place it at the feet of Krishna. The great Mahavatar Babaji says that Krishna is the ever light – a light that does not dim or go out. And that is why you'll find that at Self-Realization Fellowship, together with their photo of Mahavatar Babaji, they have a picture of Krisha. He is everywhere, in everything, outside, inside, above, below. 'In the depth of the ocean I am there, in space I am there'.

If Krishna is such a unique, powerful energy of God, why do we only observe Krishna Janasthami, and not think of Krishna 24/7. That's what we should do. But if I told you that tomorrow is also Krishna Janasthami, no one will come. When Krishna says we must surrender, he means that we must think of him, surrender to him, pray to him, pray with him 24/7. And if you do that - you can remove the name 'Krishna' and replace it with 'God' – then you will attain. Today is Krishna Janasthami so we're using the name of Krishna. It's only a name and in that name we'll find some solace, joy, happiness; and some of us find states of bliss just by saying 'hare krishna'. Caitania Mahaprabhu was an example of states of ecstasy. The only mantra he knew was 'hare krishna, hare krishna, hare rama, hare rama,…'. We've heard of people who've had great states of ecstasy and solace. Why can't we? Because we are caught in this material junction in front of us. We want to go to Gateway, to Sibaya, Suncoast; we will spend hours there, and in that time are you thinking of God? Not unless you want to win. But nobody can tell me you are thinking in a favourable way – only so you can gain some money, saying, 'Oh Rama, Krishna, I'm pulling the one-arm bandit now, I want all sevens'. And when Krishna doesn't come, you think he's not listening. He's not for that. You need to call his name continuously - Just the name 'Krishna'.

When we look at the Ramayan, if you call Ram, before Ram comes Hanuman is there. Just the name of Ram is enough to excite Hanuman. In the same way with Caitania Mahaprabhu, 'hare krishna' was enough to get him to states of ecstasy. For you, Suncoast is enough to give you states of ecstasy. But we should be getting ecstasy from God's name. So we need to rethink our lives, to sit back and say, 'Where have we gone wrong in the worship of God? Has God become part-time? For many of us God is part time. Once a week on a Friday; once a week on a Sunday, or twice a week. But when we've done our twice a week, our quota, we don't come again.

So on this day, in the radiance of Babaji, the glory of Christ, and light of my gurus, I pray sincerely that each one of you can find in your heart, in your being, to have God reside there, and for you to be conscious of that. If you can do that you'll come back here in two month's time, and tell me, 'I feel so good', and that is called the state of bliss.

Hari Om. Shanti.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Agasthiar Pournami

Last month we had Guru pournami, this month we have Agasthiar pournami. Many of you may not know this but August is named after Agasthiar, and January is named after Ganesha. It was named after the Roman god called Janus. If you remove the J and replace it with a G it's Ganus, Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. He had two heads in Roman mythology. They named the first month month January so we start the year removing obstacles. Then we come to the month of August, named after Agasthiar, but they very cleverly also had someone by the name of Augustus.

So this is Agasthiar pournami. There are only four very powerful pournamis. The first one is the pournami of January – Thaipusam pournami. The Second is July – Guru pournami. The third is pournami in August – Agasthiar pournami. And the next one is in October/November during the time of Navarathri. These are the four most powerful pournamis, when the energy of the moon is totally different. If you saw the moon last month on Guru pournami, you would have seen it was the brightest moon. Of all the pournamis, God has created certain ones to energise the body, to give us divine energy. But this is not for everyone, it is dependent on your karmic consequences, the karma you accumulate in this lifetime.

The greatest karma is children abusing their parents – this is the highest karma. Second to that is wives abusing husbands, and husbands abusing wives. Let's look at this: generally husbands abuse wives more. If you abuse your wife, the karmic consequences for this lifetime of abuse is 50 lifetimes to come. You already have 33 000 lifetimes against your name. You're going to add another 50 lifetimes. So it is very important, if we engage in abuse, to think about it and try to make peace with that. The only way to make peace when you've abused your father or mother is before you leave this physical body, to do padau pooja, wash their feet, and drink the water.

When a husband abuses his wife, that's a tough one. It depends where you live. If you live in Umhlanga you buy a Mercedes; if you live in Verulam buy a Toyota. If a husband abuses his wife, very rarely can those consequences be nullified in this lifetime. You really have to change you life 480 degrees, looking at everything upside down. And if you are that individual who doesn't abuse, but who just gets abused and doesn't worry about it, really you're a gentleman. Generally abuse starts from one side and ends on the other.

So please, why I'm saying this is because respect and duty for parents from children seems to be falling by the wayside. We have places to take care of the elderly now, so we think, so we go and dump them in these places. In the Hindu sastras, the Law of Manu (Manu was  great lawmaker), it is said that when a girl child is born she is taken care of by her father. And you'll see also in this life that girls stick to the father. And when she grows and marries she'll be taken care of by her husband – not abused. And when she becomes an old lady, and a widow, she will be taken care of by her sons. All the time there is supposed to be a male taking care of you as a woman. But if you put any abuse in between, really, karmically … they might make me the parole officer for that on the astral plane – I don't know.

This is a very powerful pournami, this is the pournami you can mentally take your vows and say that this is when you want to stop – from here you must be a calm individual. It's a good month to make that change. We make mistakes in life. This material, physical, and spiritual journey is very difficult. As you sit here you know its not very easy. If you're living in South Africa, it's more difficult – you have to keep going to the windows and doors to check nobody is breaking and entering. We've become very insecure so the only thing we can do now is leave it in the hands of that supreme energy, light, soul, we call God.

Hari Om and God bless you.