Swami Vishwananda Darshan

Sri Swami Vishwananda: Jai Gurudev! There are two questions that people often ask me. Last week somebody asked me “Swamiji, have you ever seen God?” This is the first question and the second question was “Do you believe in death?”. Good question. For the first question: Yes, not only one time, actually everyday. Everyday I see the Divine Mother and I see God, because the Divine is inside of all the beings which breathe. So the Darshan of the Divine is ever present. If you have the eyes to see that, you will see. That’s what Christ said no? Where does the multitude of beings all around come from? Does it not come from God? And where are they all going? They are going towards God. Some say we are doomed, which I don’t believe at all. We make ourselves doomed. We make ourselves being miserable. When we are far away from the light, we are in darkness, no? We have this choice: If you want to be in the light, you will see the light. But if you refuse to see the light, don’t complain that you are not seeing the light. If you sit in the dark room and say “It’s dark, it’s dark” and you don’t want to move to the next room, where there is light, then why do you complain? The same thing: the Divine is ever present. If you want to see the Divine, you will see It, but you have to be sincere in your wish. Many people say ”Swamiji I want to see the Divine, but… it’s difficult.” Well, just by knowing that the Divine is ever present, you will have the Darshan of the Divine. Like I said once: It’s not by seeing a light that you can call that light the Divine. It’s good if He comes in the form of the light. Be happy about it. But yet the light has a limit. The Ultimate doesn’t have a limit. You are breathing the Ultimate. You are living in the Ultimate. You are part of the Ultimate and this is the real Darshan of the Divine. So there is no use of looking for something which has a limit. It is inside of you. So: Yes, everyday you have Darshan of the Divine with each person that you meet. With each work that you are doing, you are serving the Divine and if you just say to yourself “Yes, I see the Divine Mother everyday in every being”, you will see the Divine Mother in every being. (Here Swami Vishwananda told a story from his Cousin Ravi and the Divine Mother. This will be on the blog tomorrow)

Coming to the second question if I believe in death: Well, no, I don’t. How many of you believe in death? Please be sincere. Lift your hand. How many of you believe in death? Nobody? Oh at least one person, who is sincere. Very good. Are you sure you don’t believe in death? Sincerely I said, eh? Be truthful a little, little bit towards yourself. Give me an answer please. (Person 1: Guruji, it depends on what we are looking. When you are looking at the body, well there is some change, we can call it death. If you look at the soul, it might be different.) (Person 2: Yes, similar answer. I would say I believe in death, but I believe that death is changing everything. And what remains then is transformed and this is God too.” Yes, very good. Well, I said I don’t believe, because I know it doesn’t exist. It’s one of the illusions, like many other illusions that the Divine created. That’s why I said “I don’t believe in death.” I know that I am eternal and immortal. Of course I don’t refer to the body. The body has it’s limit. It reminds me of Sri Paramahamsa Ramakrishna. If you don’t know him: There is a beautiful book called “The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.” Read it. It’s very inspiring. It will help you a lot on the spiritual path. Sri Ramakrishna lived in the 19th century. He died on 16h of august 1886. So when he died, in the Hindu tradition it is like that : when the husband dies, the wife has to break or remove all the jewellery. I guess it’s the same thing here also, no? Or they put more jewellery on? So in the Hindu tradition it is like that: You have to remove all the jewellery. So Sarada Devi, the wife of Ramakrishna was always wearing the bangles, which she received from Ramakrishna when they got married. When he married Sarada Devi Ramakrishna was 23 years old and she was five years old. Shocking, isn’t it? But that was normal that time. So till Ramakrishna died, he was 50 years old. For 27 years she had these bangles in her arm and never removed them. She grew up and of course the bangles became were very tight in her hand. So she was wondering how to break these bangles and decided to cut them. As she was going to cut the bangles out, she heard the voice of Ramakrishna saying “Sarada Devi, what are you doing? Why are you breaking these bangles that I gave you? Do you think I am dead? I am not dead. I am still alive. I just moved from one room to the other.” It’s like the sun. When the sun is setting, we all say that it is dark no? But when the sun sets, it’s day somewhere else. Same: When death happens there is birth somewhere else, in other spheres or another level of spirituality. So in reality you are not dead. Coming to your question: We refer death so much to the body, but the consciousness has the power of God to create a new body at will. You can see it in the lives of Saints, that even being dead, when they appeared to somebody who was praying to them, they appeared in body and flesh. Death is something that nobody can escape. We all know about death, but we don’t want to see it, we don’t want to believe in it. When we believe in it, we see the most terrible and terrifying part of it, but we don’t see the beautiful part of it. We don’t see this bridge, when the Beloved calls you and says “Come, Cross over that bridge and attain me.” So it’s not terrifying at all. Like St. Francis said; at the time of his death “Welcome sister death”. That put death to a shock, because you take away all the power of fear and create this great joy. This great joy that you are moving towards the higher plane, you are moving towards your Beloved (God). Jai Gurudev!