Sharanagati

Swami Tirtha: It is said: you cannot really understand yourself without parallelly understanding the Supreme Lord. May I ask you where is God?

Answer: Somewhere here.

Swami Tirtha: Somewhere here? Maybe closer than we expect. There is a beautiful verse in our tradition: naham vasami vaikunthe… – “I don’t live in My divine realm. I don’t live in the meditation of the yogis. But I live in the heart of My pure followers.”

Of course God is not only there on the inside, He is there on the outside also. If we have the eyes, we shall see His creation, we shall see the result of His beautiful actions everywhere. And also we shall be able to perceive His presence in our heart.

In our secret teachings it is described that the body is compared to a tree. And the main branch of this tree is the heart. And on this main branch two birds live. One is the individual soul – we ourselves – and the other is this divine presence, this divine soul. The first one is picking the fruits of this tree. And you know, the fruits are sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour – different. So until we are engaged in trying to enjoy the fruits of our body, of our bodily actions and we don’t come to a spiritual platform, we have to reap the harvest, we have to take the consequences of our actions. But as soon as this bird who tastes the fruits turns its attention to the supreme presence, immediately all the suffering is finished.

Actually this is our only duty in this lifetime: from the external go to the internal, from material come to the spiritual. “From the unreal lead me to the real; from the darkness lead me to the light; and from death lead me to eternity.”[1] This is a beautiful general prayer, which will help all of us. And as soon as we get rid of the material contamination, we shall have a personal realization of the higher truths and the higher happiness.

Now you can say: ‘Ah, again empty words.’ Or ‘Now I am suffering; maybe in the heaven I will be happy. You say that now I am in limited consciousness; when my consciousness is purified, then I will be happy – but it’s so far away!” So, don’t believe in promises! Try it for yourself! It’s free, this process is free. And this is not a joke, although we sit here in the House of the Satire. So, if we try the spiritual process of self-realization, then we can come closer to our original identity of being an eternal, conscious and happy living being.

Our meditation or our prayer is focused on a very ancient mantra. Mantra means a kind of prayer for the liberation of your consciousness. There is unlimited number of mantras, but there is one special mantra, this is called the maha-mantra, or the great mantra of liberation. This mantra consists of the names of God. You see, in the Gita Krishna is speaking – so He is God Supreme. And the words in this mantra are: Hare – which is divine bliss or the love energy of God; then Krishna – Krishna is the Supreme Lord; and Rama – which is, let’s say, the happiness that you can feel if you are connected to the Lord. So, this is a very ancient mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare – and you can find it in unlimited places in India also. There are some temples where they have sung this mantra for five hundred years permanently. And this is a very direct way of connection with God.

[1] Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28