Guru Poornima 2007

This year, we celebrated Guru Poornima for two days. On this festival, at the full moon in July, Guru is paid tribute to throughout India and the world. People came from the local community, from across India, and from several countries especially to honour Swamiji. The first day began when teams of people gathered from 4 AM onwards to prepare, over open wood fires, a langar, a special meal for everyone. The celebration  included the singing of songs, mostly composed of Swamiji’s poetry and accompanied by a variety of instruments, the offering of garlands to Swamiji and his offering them back to each of us, meditation, as well as speeches. The highlight of Guru Poornima was Swamiji’s talks, excerpts of which follow here.

July 30, 2007

… Today it is Guru Poornima, the day of the fullness of understanding and awareness. Human understanding is either of a child or of a young person, with all his relations, earning and learning, and age-old stories, history, and geography. But full knowledge is when Guruji says that you should know that by your efforts, you couldn’t know it. Therefore, at least today you should be able to listen to Guruji, who says that you are that who is Full, who is Pure, who is Free, and who is Eternal. You are that which is Pure Space, Free Space and Forever Space. Space is not aakaash [physical space]. Even the aakaash is made by you, so you are the Originality. Thus being a human being, you can easily know the source of your own existence. If you are the Source, then you are the Source throughout.

Intelligence has been given to you to discriminate what the purpose of this human tool is, and then to pick up the kind of action, thinking, qualities, and relations accordingly. Intelligence has been provided to you, and those who became pure, intelligent Being came to know that the body does not remain forever, nor do food, things, your house, and even the builder of the house. That which remains forever is You or I. That I is not the body that you have to identify with, and you are not the body that I have to identify with.

Today, when I have heard you singing Guru Param Pooran Avinaashee, Sakal Srishti Sab Sukh Kee Raashee [Guru is supreme, perfect Indestructibility, and Guru’s manifest form, the whole creation, is the treasury of happiness ], I’m delighted. As soon as I reached you, I became you. You saw me, you became me. Unity has taken place. You have been doing this purification for the last forty years—it is not an ordinary work that you have done. A human being can do anything, he can make anything, but he is unable to unfold his Purity, his Awareness, his Truth, his Pure Existence. That is why Guru is very important in your life. It is Guru who has given the knowledge or the grace to me and to you. So it is not that my ego speaks, as an individual person. No. That ego is not the doer. The one who is the Knower is all in all.

He doesn’t do, doing is just because of his presence. Just as due to the sun’s presence the whole universe began to move, in the same way as soon as the Knower appears in you, the whole body begins to move and you come to know that this work is to be dedicated to that Guru. So today, all the work which you have done with your ego-consciousness, your mind-consciousness, your I-consciousness, your you-consciousness is surrendered to the almighty Lord, the true Guru, the Sat Guru. I am very thankful to you. The message is over. Close your eyes for five minutes. …

This is God’s day, Guru’s day, so you are no longer anything else but Guru or God yourself. I have been telling you all the time that if you remain Guru Consciousness, that greatness, you will always be with Me. Any thing, any difficulty does not belong to you. You are Pure Free Forever. Surrender to Me. If any trouble comes, give it to Me. If any worry comes, give it to Me. If any joy comes and if you cannot retain it, give it to Me. [Laughter.] Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Thank you very much. [Applause.] …

Whether you realize or not, if you practise Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum, then the first thing will be that whatever you think to be, you will become that. If you want to be bound, the power will come and give you bondage; if you want to be free, the power will come and make you free. Wherever you are caught, wherever you are bound, wherever some unfortunate happenings took place, you have never viewed them, never seen them: when you remember Guru, when you remember God, they will always be gone, and you will have peace of mind. …

The highest service you can do for humanity is to you yourself evolve to the extent that you realize that your being is Immortal and Blissful. Then, from that same Space, you distribute Immortality and Bliss to all those who come in your contact, or those who need it. What will happen? It will be the highest service of the Self. Because God does not want you to remain, poor, worried and agitated. He himself is your own body, and he wants to be freed from this body-consciousness in which he is sitting and has forgotten. Nobody can remind him other than Guru. That is why Guru is talking to his own Higher Self, that “Dear one, you are my Self, you are Me, and your nature is Pure Free Forever.” In this context, you will be able to hear certain songs that I have written and people have prepared and are coming to sing. So now, begin with your songs. Thank you. …

Get the information that it is one Reality. The imaginative God will never come on earth who will tell you anything. Rather, he sends himself to become knowledgeable in the form of Guru, the informer, who becomes free from ego, and free from the mind, intellect, and senses: they do not bind him, so he’s called free. Yet he is the power that he moves the ego-sense, the mind, intellect and senses, and they get the order and begin to work.

What happens to everyone is that when work is pleasant to the body and the mind, you think that the experience which resulted in dearness, attachment, and love is likeable, and that which did not result in this, rather which has brought unpleasantness, you think is not likeable. In this process, the very Being becomes attached and one with the senses, and then with the mind, intellect, and body, and that becomes the relative field. It then has body-identification, and the body is changing. But you are supposed to be identified with that which is never changing: that is your reality.

Somebody has to tell you this. Without information, you can never seek and you can never understand. However hard you try by yourself, you will never be able to get unhooked. So Guru says that you are just Me—You/Me. So Me should be with Me. The body should be with the body and bodies, but Me should not get attached to bodies. That is why even on Guru Poornima day we are giving you the same information as on other days. For we know it is a colossal amount of ignorance, like a mountain. A small mouse like you cannot eat the whole mountain, however hard it tries. But there is the way for you to remove this ignorance and darkness, this complete ignorance and imperfection, by bringing the unfoldment of the Light. …

You unfold that Light. Without using a matchstick, you become aware of Awareness, and thereafter all the manifestation is nothing but Awareness. But the mind is wheeling in such a way that it keeps making forms and forms, and you become a form and begin to love and then get attached. Guruji says, “Look, there is a way for you.” In a very simple form: close your eyes. Nobody is there to tell you anything. You yourself are independently realizing. …

In this lifetime, when all of you met me, the very moment when you met me, you attained that Space which is birthless and deathless. This will remain with you throughout. You will never care whether the body changes or does not change, places change or do not change, friends change or do not change, marriage takes place or divorce takes place, diseases take place and cure takes place, whether health comes or health goes—there will be no such thing which is the functioning of the mind to create duality, to understand duality. Your mind will be absorbed in Me, the Self, which is God Consciousness, Pure Consciousness, Self Existence. That is why we pray to Guru, “Oh my dear one, give me your knowledge so that I should also be that much aware as you know.” That’s why Guru’s company is very appreciable. …

[As he is getting up to leave] I love you all, I have enjoyed the day, and all the grace has been showered on me. I wish that you will not mind when I get into your heart and inspire you to remember. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

August 1, 2007

… You already know the significance of Guru Poornima, that when we are born, the first guru is our mother. Without Guru, we cannot take birth, and without Guru, a mother cannot have a child in her womb. So Guru is before your birth, Guru is at the same time as your birth, and Guru lives with you your whole life in the form of Knowingness and the Knower. But when a human being is born, he forgets Guru. It is only when Guru comes on earth, or realizes in the form of a human being, then he tries to tell you about your forgetfulness—that you just remove it, and you are there. So everyone is the manifestation of Pure Intelligence, Guru Consciousness, and Guru Bliss. It is Oneness.

We are tuned in to our own Self today, which is Guru. What will we do? The outer part of the manifestation is changing; it dies. A hundred years before, there were millions of human beings, but they are not there now. How does this happen? You never know. The continuance of Guru Consciousness in manifestation is going on. We can understand that a hundred years after, these people will not be there. But what is that which remains forever? That is why it is said Gururu Brahma Gururu Vishnu… [Guru is the creator, maintainer, and dissolver, the Supreme Being, who I want to unite with.] Guru means all-permeating: nothing is devoid of Guru, nothing is free from Guru, and nothing can exist without Guru.

In modern days, people have forgotten their own true Self, the Guru. They know their manifest Self—the manifest chair, the manifest position, the manifest family—all that they know. And they know death. Everyone wants to know how to avoid death. But without Guru, you’ll never know that you are deathless, you are birthless. Guru gives you the technique, that this is the way for you to know that you are deathless and birthless. Where do you exist? You can see, for your realization. For three minutes we close our eyes and watch.

This is Space—I said Space, because it has no name. It is not darkness, it is not sleep, there is nothing in it which is taking birth, and in it no form is getting old and dying. In this Space, there is no earth, no ocean water or waves, no sun or moon, and no sky. How fortunate we are as human beings that we carry that Guru Space just by birth. Before birth, Guru has taken care of you in the womb of your mother, where there was no breath, no doors and nothing, yet you were wrapped up in Guru’s grace.

Thus anybody who knows what the Life is and what the source of this human life is, that is Guru. Why has the word “Guru” been used in Sanskrit? Because there is darkness or ignorance. Just as sleep takes place in the night, the night is called a dark night, its darkness is removed by the sun, and so the sun is guru to the night, in the same way there is the darkness by which you do not know who you are. As a person you can say you are male or female, a son or daughter, a friend and a citizen, you can say you are a sentient being as a human being. Yet when you have closed your eyes, you are ignorant of the fact of what it is. But Guru has realized that it is the source, it is the originality, it is subtler than the subtlest. Like space, it is indivisible. It is formless, having all the forms in it, having the whole universe in it—because when you open your eyes, you will be able to see the whole universe, including space. At this time, it became Pure Guru. …

What is that which is making you alive, which is making you breathe in, which is making you see things with the help of your sight? What is that which is making you hear and what is that which is giving you words and their meaning, and who is knowing that? That Knower is Guru. That’s called the Light which removes the darkness—gu means the darkness, and ru, the knowledge, is the remover of the darkness.

At least once in a year you have the time to celebrate Guru Poornima. As the moon starts and little by little you see its form, but at the full moon you see a round, full globe, a full moon, full light—Guru Poornima, in this way you know what Poornima is [the full moon, also perfection or fullness]. But why is it “Guru” Poornima? Because when that Guru Poornima Consciousness dawns in your heart, at that very moment you know, “Oh, the whole world is nothing but the manifestation of that fullness—sometimes young as a child, sometimes big as a person, sometimes as the majority of people, sometimes as many countries, as the whole universe, as many universes. It’s all that. But it is all contained in that very Light, which is your Awareness. That Awareness rests in the heart of a human being.

With that Awareness, you have remembered me, because I am your Self, as I tell you that I welcome your Self. For me, it is God’s gift that has been opened in my heart and in my mind, that whoever comes to this place is nobody else other than Me. Because without Me, the Self, without Guru, your thought will not come. When the thought comes and becomes powerful, that “Somehow I have to see Guruji,” it means it is your own Self.

In the mirror, you cannot see your Guru, you always see your face. So even if you have a mirror, or if you have water or other means, whenever you look at your face, it’s only a face and form you see. Thus, identification comes as a human being, whose face and form one day grow old and are not there. Thus, your mind becomes a changing vehicle for knowing names and forms. But that which is permeating the mind is Guru Consciousness. I salute to all of you and all those who have the greatest awareness of the highest Self, their own Guru. …

Thoughts come, but they are all from Guru. They get dissolved, they go to that Space which is Guru—formless, at that time. They again arise, it is just the waking state, thinking state, planning state, remembering state. Whenever you need to take some decision, and suppose you are in a state of, “What can I do? What can I do? What should I not do? What should I not do?” at that time, if you close your eyes, the technique is, Guru Mantr is. In just about three to five minutes the answer will come and you will take the decision. So this power is the help to your deciding factor of the intellect, and this power decides the whole of life’s problems. …

When you are intelligent and aware, you can meet Guru, who explains to you that Guru is everywhere: in every atom, in every stone, in every mountain, in every grass blade, in every fruit and flower, in every heart of a human being. So Guru’s information is about unity. You have already read that unity is strength. Strength is that power of God from where all the powers came into existence and into which all the powers, in the end, get dissolved. This thought will keep you alive. Whenever you go anywhere from here, remember that God is always with you, the power is always with you. The power resides in your eyes, in your speaking, in your thoughts. At this time, you can recognize it is in a silent form. For two minutes, I will again be quiet. … You have met Guru without, in the form of the sun and day. At this time, you got together and you are meeting Guru within. There is a formless Being, but it is all Pure Power, Pure Existence, Pure Consciousness.

Always take your time according to your strength. Don’t press, don’t suppress, just take easy. Whenever you feel exhausted or you feel you need to fill in energy, or a kind of gas in the tank of the head and heart, at that time just close your eyes, and, without any expenditure, Guru will enter in your heart and for the whole day you will remain fresh. It is such a beautiful technique that the world over people are attracted to do it. Sometimes they have come to know as if I have given the technique, they become grateful, and they come to thank me. Today, they have come over here and have come to know that whatever they have realized, it is marvellous, it is Guru Consciousness, it is Pure Consciousness Pure Existence. …

That sameness is Oneness. This has been the message of Oneness, the message of Guru Poornima, and all of you got it. Be established in that. My blessings are that you retain the power of your own Self, your own understanding. Whenever you feel that there is a kind of confusion and conflict, close your eyes for a minute and remember me. I am saying: never quarrel, never fight, never get confused, never become blind. This is all mental, friends. But when you go behind the mind space and touch the Source, you’ll find your Self is nothing but love. That is where not only should you live this and be a miser for yourself, rather be generous enough to spread it. And never get shrunk, never feel bad, never feel sorry that I have lost something. or something has disappeared, therefore it is not with me. Your Me is ever the same Self. Shyam is forever with you. Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Sing with us, Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum…

You can realize. Your Hum appears, your Hum disappears. But your Awareness remains forever the same. I thank all of you who shared these moments with great delight, without any hesitation, with no resistance, with no question of age, status, or anything. It was one Space, one Shyam, everywhere just the same. In dancing, he is. In singing, he is. In music, he is. In all the instruments, he is. In earth, he is. In water, he is. In sun, he is. In showers, he is. In air, he is. In space, he is. That Chidaakaash [Space of Pure Consciousness] is Shyam Aakaash, Shyam Space. That is Perfect. …