Become your own Guru

Good morning.

This morning, I want to talk about why we do all this... this life, this spiritual path.

What's the goal? Where is it going? I want to tell you a little bit about that.

Normally, we live our life, we have our joys and our suffering, and then there comes the point in life where you notice: this can't be it. This makes no sense at all, and you wonder, why you are here. And that's when you start on that which is called the spiritual path. You start searching. You don't know what you're searching for. You just know: there is something, but you don't know what, and you don't know where.

And then, you come to a teacher or master or to a Guru, and from him or her, you learn.

And then, normal people think: what is this good for?

Normal people think: "The important thing is that I am able to control my life, to have it together, to know where it's going, to know what I'm supposed to do.

After all, this is my life." But then, once the spiritual search starts, you end up with a master or a teacher or a Guru. And there, it looks like you do exactly the opposite. It looks like you give yourself up: you surrender yourself to some kind of other entity, just the opposite of what you ever wanted.

And you wonder why are these people doing this? Or maybe you wonder: why are you doing this - if it happens to you... And then, what you learn from a Guru or a master like Jesus is... that's how it feels: to give yourself up, to surrender yourself. Jesus said: "Put God first." Jesus said: "Not my will, Thy will be done."

And for normal people, this feels stupid, or maybe even insane, and I want to talk a little bit about where this leads to; why this is happening.

I have a Guru. I have a master. I have both of them. I have a really funny life, although I never wanted either of them. 24 years ago, I met my spiritual master, Soham, although I was not looking for a master. It just happened. I met him and I knew: this is my place. I didn't know why. I didn't know where it would lead to. I just knew: this is right. It's just like when you fall in love with a woman: you don't know why, you just know: this is the way. She's the one. Or, if you're a woman: he's the one. And with him, I became happy.

I became quiet and strong and big. And then, six and a half years ago, suddenly, this Indian Guru called Swamiji came into my life. I was not looking for a Guru, but suddenly, he was here. And although I was completely happy and content and fulfilled before... At that point in my life, I thought I had found everything which is possible. But when he came, I discovered: "Oh, I'm just at the beginning. Now, the actual journey starts!"

And with him, I learned surrender. With my master, I had learned surrender. But then, when a guru came, I learned real surrender, something which sounds completely impossible and stupid for most people: "Why should I give my life... why should I give myself in the hands of somebody else, in the hands of a Jesus, oh God, or life? Why?"

Swamiji, my Guru, says: "My only goal is to make your soul your Guru."

Now, you don't know what your soul is.

And because we don't know what our soul is... we have heard the word, but we can't feel it. We can't see it. We cannot touch it. As long as we don't know our soul, we need a substitute, and that substitute... it's like a wheelchair... that's the Guru, that's the Jesus, that's the master. And then, something very interesting happens, and I'm speaking out of my own personal experience.

Slowly, slowly, you learn surrender. You learn to entrust your life not to yourself, to your thoughts, to your knowledge, but to something which is bigger than you.

It feels like it's something outside of you. It almost feels like another person.

That's how it feels when you pray to Jesus or when you pray to God: "Dear God, take my life. Your will..." It feels like: here I am, and there's God, or the master, or the Guru.

And then you learn this, with the help of this wheelchair, with the help of this guru, and practically, what I found the biggest help in all those years I am on my path is the Samarpan Meditation, which is now also called the Himalayan Meditation, because this meditation was developed in the Himalayas.

That's where it's coming from.

There, in a very simple and easy and very playful way, you learn this surrender Jesus is talking about, this "putting God first", this "Thy will be done". That's what you can practice during meditation, during this particular meditation I'm talking about. For half an hour every morning, you put your attention here at the crown chakra, here at the highest spot of the head. That's all. And when you do this, you can't think.

And when you do this, it's like you have to let go of your thoughts. And when you let go of your thoughts, you will notice: with the thoughts, all the wishes and goals, all the worries, all the problems are also going away.

And when you meditate a little longer, after a few weeks or months or years, you notice: "When I let go of the thoughts, while I'm resting with my attention here... where am I without thought, without wishes, without preferences, without opinions, without worries, without problems?"

There's nobody to be found.

And while you're meditating, without noticing, that which Swamiji is talking about, your soul, becomes stronger. When you rest with the attention here at this spot of your body, the highest spot of your head, it's like you nourish your soul awareness, and that which normally feels so important, your body, your life, the thoughts and everything connected with it, your feelings, everything connected to the body, that gets less and less important.

And you learn this surrender through the meditation and through the example of somebody else. That was the role of Jesus 2000 years ago. That is the role of my Guru in my life. That's the role of my master in my life. A Guru is not somebody who wants something from you. A Guru is not somebody who demands your surrender to him, or your faith.

A Guru is simply a human being who has learned to surrender himself, who is totally surrendered. And you can see this with Jesus. He was totally surrendered to God, and that's what he taught everybody else.

And a Jesus, a Guru, is the peak of surrender. When you meditate, when you practice putting God first every day, you will notice: the more you do this, the more you let your thoughts and your body disappear and just rest here, the more this "I" is gone. And a Jesus, a Guru, is like the peak of this. There's nobody left, just pure surrender. And this is very, very powerful. That is why we are so much attracted to a Jesus. We can still feel his energy today.

That's why some people feel attracted to a master or to a Guru, because this emptiness, this absence of "I", this peak of surrender... with it comes a tremendous energy and attraction. So, a Guru doesn't care whether anybody believes in him or surrenders to him. He is busy surrendering himself all the time, and that is why when we are connected to such a human being, we learn it ourselves very easily, very, very quickly... and through the meditation.

And then, the soul in you grows, and it grows and it grows. And it doesn't take long, and you notice: "Wow. That what I feel I surrender myself to, this Jesus, this Guru, or this God or life...", whatever it is for you, everybody has their own feeling for this... You notice: "I feel this inside." You begin to discover: "Wow, this is not actually an entity outside of myself. This is inside of me!" And then you notice: "This is no other entity, nobody separate from me. This is a part of me. I'm one with this."

And that's when you become your own Guru.

That's when your soul becomes your own Guru. I like the way Swamiji describes it when he says: "I make your soul your Guru", because in actuality, it's not that "I" become my own Guru, because at that point, this "I" is not there. I could also say it this way: the more this "I" disappears, the more the Guru is here.

And then you have the Guru inside of you. Your soul is your Guru. And then you notice: "All this time I was surrendering myself to God or to my Guru or to whoever....", the path of every person is different... "All this time, I actually was surrendering myself to my own soul. There's nothing else!"

And then it is like you are your own Guru.

That's the path. That's the possibility. And the exciting thing is that it's possible for everybody these days. You know, in the past, it used to be like this that if you want to become your own Guru, if you want to discover God inside of yourself, if you wanted to discover Heaven, you needed to leave normal life. You needed to renounce life, to leave society and live alone for years and years and years. And then it was possible for rare human beings in complete aloneness to find this path.

But these days, this is actually becoming possible for every human being, for normal people, for people like you, for people like me, who live in society, who have a job, who are married, children, friends, everything.

There's nothing special with me. I had and have a totally normal life. My master is a normal human being with a normal life. He's married. He had kids. He had a job. Now he's busy doing Satsang all the time, but he had a job just like you. My Guru, who is a rare human being, who is right up there with Jesus, with this amazing energy, he's a normal human being.

He's married. He has children. He lives in society. He used to have a job. Now he's busy being a Guru, but he had a job, and he found this path, and he is in society. Now, this is the special gift of the times we are living in now, that this is becoming possible for people like you, for people like me.

And the tool to make this possible, without leaving normal life, without leaving society, is the Samarpan Meditation, the Himalayan Meditation.

By beginning each day with meditating, the soul in you grows, and in no time, the soul becomes your Guru.

Right now, it is like you feel you are the victim of the world. You are at the mercy of the circumstances of life.

You are the victim of your own mind and your own thoughts, like a slave.

And when your soul becomes your Guru, then you're free. You're still living.

Life still happens. Work still happens. Relationship, children, everything still happens. But you are free, free from thought, free from worries, free from suffering.

You became your own Guru.

And although life happens, and it feels like life happens more than ever before, more profoundly than ever before, you are not part of it. You are not touched by it. You are not ruled by it.

You're free. You're still living in the body, but you're free from the body. You still have a mind which can work, but you're free from the mind, free from your thoughts. Something else grew in you, and that is the Guru now, that is the boss now in your life. And then, things become possible that you cannot imagine. All the problems disappear, and life becomes really miraculous. This is my personal experience every day.

Often, I experience it during the day... sometimes I feel like: "Oops. I feel again burdened. I feel a little stressed." And then, I remember: "Oh, wait a moment.

I am a Guru, inside." It's like I return to that, what I truly am, to the soul. And then, in an instant, I'm back in this guruhood, in this masterhood, and I'm free again. And that what I was doing happens easier and effortlessly and quicker and better than before. Just recently, I talked to a lady, and she is in a difficult situation, and for her, it feels like, hopeless. And I told her:

"For a moment, just be enlightened. Just be enlightened for this moment."

And if you ask me to explain what that means, I cannot explain it to you right now, but maybe you can feel it. Just be enlightened, just for a moment, and then see what happens.

And I do this in every moment: remember who I am. Remember who is in charge here. Not this "I", which consists of thoughts, wishes, preferences, worries, and fears, but the soul, this Guru inside.

That's the path. That's why you are here in this life: to discover this, to discover who you truly are. You become your own Guru on this path, and it's easy. It just takes a little bit of time.

And it's possible for you, as a normal human being.

You don't have to change for this. It's not that you have to become special for this. I'm not special. I'm ordinary. I'm more ordinary than you because I lost all the specialness. The specialness is up here.

Swamiji, my Guru, says: "Don't change yourself, but meditate." He says: "Don't change yourself, but surrender."

Everything will happen by itself. That's what Jesus said. Jesus said: "When you put God first", meaning: when you surrender, "everything else happens by itself". That's my experience. So, you don't have to change yourself. You don't have to change your life. It's not that you have to give up certain things or start doing other things. It's not that you have to give up things which you might think are not spiritual. You don't have to start doing special spiritual things... nothing of this. Your life can remain the way it is. You can remain the way you are.

Just meditate every day. The rest happens by itself. That's the magic of the times we live in. That's the magic of the Samarpan Meditation, of the Himalayan Meditation.

And then you become your own Guru. Your soul becomes your own Guru. And then, you have the choice in every moment of your life. Then you have a choice: "Am I this 'I'? Am I in my thoughts? Am I a victim of my thoughts and the world? Or do I want to be enlightened in this moment right now?

Am I resting in this Guru inside?"

That's the choice you have then, in every moment, and then, life is different. Then you reached your goal.

I'm so happy that you're here.

I love you.