To those who are new: this is a mahameru. It's something that the priest class kept for themselves. Any priest from Sri lanka or India will have a small glass container with a mahameru inside and they keep it for themselves. They don't share it with you because then you won't use their services. But you can also have one. We just have to wash it on a Friday, offer kumkum to it, and and recite the Gayathri mantra, or any mantra you are comfortable with, and it will increase your prosperity. There are some devotees here who will give testimony to that. It's something we should all have in our homes, and we should offer to it every Friday, abstaining from meat and alcohol, for good prosperity. It's not good if you do the pooja for Sibaya or Suncoast. It won't work. You have to put some effort into it. Pressing the button at Sibaya is no effort – just one movement of your arm and then that machine makes a big noise. This is a Sri Chakra Mahameru. When you look at it from the top it looks like a sri chakra. From the side it looks like a meru. Anything that is raised is called a meru. Anything that is extraordinary is called a maha meru. And because it looks like a sri chakra we call it a 'sri chakra maha meru'.
I was asked a question: does God ever get angry with us? It's a thought-provoking question, with all the things we do to avert God's anger. So I pondered and thought and meditated on the question. And God said, 'I don't get angry with you but I express my distress by giving you floods, storms, tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes. I'm expressing my distress, but I'm not angry. And we are going more and more into these difficult, uncertain natural calamities. We have all these things happening to us and now we even have a plane that mysteriously disappeared. I really thought Sundrie and Warren were on that plane because they didn't come to service on Friday. All these things are happening and science is having a difficult time trying to keep ahead of everything. But our great rishis have given us all these predictions in the Nadi. If you look at the Agasthiarmuni Nadi it will give you the exact date and time of our next calamity. All our disasters have been happening according to it. Our rishis have given us ways of avoiding disaster. One of the ways they said is to pray. What is a prayer? Prayer is not what you do in the morning, 'Om nama Shivaya' three times, put the ashes on your head and think you've done your duty. No, prayer is about crying out to God. We need to cry to God and show Him that we are communicating from our deepest selves.
The time has come for all of us to start praying sincerely, madly, and intensely. It is time that we should be in love with God. Everything that we do in this life, and I've mentioned a hundred times already – is focused around our cell phone. Our whole life revolves around that small gadget. I think the person we should go and attack now is Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the first telephone. Today we are in a mess because of it. As long as we centre our lives around that gadget called the cellphone, your whole life's journey is a waste. What is this life's journey about? It is about seeking God. And to attain the grace of God and – I say to you always – go and find yourself a guru, and hang onto him for dear life because he always sees the light at the end of the tunnel. And he's the one who, through Gods' grace, through Gods' divine energy, can guide you out of your worst situations. And your worst situation is right now in 2014, not anywhere else. Forget about 2015 and 2016. The uphill is only going to be after 2020. Until then it is downhill, and this is the worst time.
We need to pray intensely, madly and sincerely. But we are praying without devotion and dedication. It is just a habit, something we developed as we grew up: light the lamp in the morning; go outside, poor the gel on the janda; come inside – 'I've done my duty'. It doesn't work like that. We need to recite mantras. Through meditation and mantra your body can be healed continuously. Financial problems can be healed continuously. Nobody seated here can tell me they don't have some problem – emotional, material, financial or physical. And we have problems so we can become aware of God, so we can remember God. You accidentally kick the wall and say, 'My God!'. Your child falls and you say, 'Oh, my God'. For the moment He's your God but you forget Him when your child stops crying, and He become just 'God' not 'my God'. Become personal with God, fall in love with God, be with God continuously. Many of you are thinking that you do that, 'Yes, we do all that', but is there any devotion and dedication in it, or is it just lip-service you're performing? Is it from inside of you, from your deepest self, that temple within you? Does it come from there? These are the things you need to think about and that are affecting you in this life. But we are destroying everything in our path just to be successful in life, physically successful.
Success can only be measured at the spiritual level. On the physical level it is only attainment, not success. You strive and attain. But if you do sadhana, spiritual practice, what comes out of it is success. And every day you get closer to God. We cannot be buried if we have not seen God or felt His energy. Then you have wasted your life. And 2014 is the ideal time for you to seek God. Because as we get deeper into the year, our problems will become stronger and worse. And we can make the change by worshiping God. Rituals are necessary so don't let anybody tell you they aren't. They are the feet to spirituality. Without them you can't walk the spiritual journey. They are a necessity on the journey. If you want to follow the journey you need to start.
Read the Bhagavad Gita – it is the ideal book to attainment. It talks about how we can find ourselves. In Timothy (4.15), in the Christian Bible, it talks about meditation. Every religion in the world talks about the same Eastern philosophy. And that is to find the Self. That's all. And once you've found the Self, stay with the Self and your journey will be one blissful occasion filled with eternal peace, joy, bliss and love. And from that you can say, 'I've seen God; I've felt the vibration of God; I'm in the presence of God'. Other than that you cannot say you're experiencing God, or anything. The pure sadhaka of God, the pure devotee is one without hate, brutality, violence, lust or greed. That is a true sadhaka, a true devotee of God.
The faculty of the mind should be rearranged. We should have mind without a mind. The sad thing about the mind is that it is the master of bringing back the past at the most difficult times. And you need to control that master and reduce those past memories. Do not let the mind activate your past in any situation. Then you can regard yourself as a child of God – and that you are close to God. But as long as you have material mind and no spiritual mind you are not close to God at all. So 2014 is the year for you to make that change and attain peace, beatitude of being in the presence of God.
Hari om and God bless you.
