Is the guru internal or external?
The guru is in you. Your consciousness, your atma, your spirit is your guru, and that you always have in you, not outside you. Now, you can visualise that guru in whichever form you like, the form is not important. It can be in the form of his body or in another form, it doesn't matter. But it is better to have one form.
But it is not true to think that the guru is outside you. The guru is in you. You have the guru instinct, you have the guru element, you have the guru explosive. I am just the trigger. You can use me as a trigger but if you think that I am the stuff and you are the trigger you are wrong.
Does it disturb you if we think about you?
Even it you abuse me I cannot be disturbed. Nothing can disturb me because the praise, the insults, the love and the hatred are all vibrations. Alter all, if you call me a donkey I don't mind, because I don't become a donkey. If you call me God I don't mind. I don't become God because you call me God. I am what I am and I shall be what I am and therefore you cannot disturb me. But if it is helpful to you, if my medium should be helpful to you, so much the better.
Please explain how a sannyasin disciple who has worked for the mission for many years and projected his feeling for his guru to inspire others with devotion is now required to make an adjustment out of respect for his guru's wish to no longer connect with him?
I have given up all my responsibilities. I am no longer a guru. I don't have any chelas (disciples). Those people who hang on to me don't understand the truth. I mean if you have a wife you can live with her lifelong, but not me because I did not marry anyone. I just gave a little path. When people take life so seriously then they have to solve their own problems. And why should they be so fanatical about guru? Some people are fanatics. They are fanatics about religion and when they become disciples they become fanatics. When they are non-vegetarian they are fanatics and when they become vegetarian they become fanatics. No. Keep yourself open.
I had to be a guru because I had no choice, because the soul and the spirit which was within me was not this man who is sitting talking to you. The spirit was different. I was possessed for a period of twenty years by a learned saint and I am not responsible for what he did. What do I care? I didn't even know! I never wanted to be a guru, I never even believed in the tradition. I did not know about yoga at all. In fact I have read hardly any books on yoga, but I have read books on Vedanta. I have read books on classical philosophies which I did not teach. The point is I was possessed and I did something which I did not personally believe in.
One should look after one's own destiny. One should be a light unto oneself. The light does not come from outside, the light is within. You only search in vain for the light outside, but the light is within oneself. If you think that there is some light outside, it is your view but it is not true. The Self is enlightened, the Self is effulgent and brilliant. If you need a guide have it, but do not stick to the guru as you stick to your wife. If I Were not alive what would be the relevance of your question?
I don't have any intimate disciples, I don't have any close disciples. Nobody should be offended when I say this. Swami Niranjan became President of BSY because he was capable. He was President for eleven years and now Swami Gyanprakash is President because she is capable, not because I have any love for Niranjan or Gyanprakash. A sannyasin must live like a lotus leaf in water. A lotus is born in water and lives because of water but it is always one hundred percent dry. That is exactly how a sannyasin must be.
Swamiji I'd like to ask you about the effects of Om chanting, amaroli and homeopathic drugs on cancer patients?
I do not discuss these things now. My subject matter has changed. I do not talk on yoga. I do not give guidance. I only talk about God and bhakti. I have no other topic in my life. I have written books and you may read those books. Swami Niranjan will guide you, but I do not talk about those things now. It is the instruction of my Lord. I think only about God and devotion, God and bhakti. I talk only about God and bhakti, nothing else.
Such questions are absurd to me here. Outside they are real but here they are all absurd. If anybody asks about amaroli, vajroli, asana, pranayama, chakra, kundalini, moksha, sankalpa, samadhi, I will not talk. about it. I only talk about God and devotion to Him, how a man can become close to God, and what the ways are by which you can feel God in your heart. Just as you feel pain, as you feel joy, as you feel sleep, as you feel hunger, likewise you can feel love, and once you've begun to feel that you'll be the happiest person in the world.
The only person who is happy in this life is he who is thinking of God, who is living in God, for whom the subject matter of life is God. For him there is no cancer, there is no poverty, there is no difficulty. For him beyond is light, behind is light, to the right is light, to the left is light, for him everywhere is light.
Therefore, that is the only topic I will attend to. All other topics are extraneous. The whole world can't talk about God, but Satyananda will talk about Him whether you like the subject or not.
Please can you give us some advice while we are here with you?
I stopped giving advice when I came here because that is not a part of my spiritual life. One who enters the order of paramahamsa should not make disciples, should not act as a guru, should not give advice, should not share anyone's karma, should not even meet people. There are four stages for a sannyasin: kutichak, bahudak, hamsa and paramahamsa. In kutichak he lives with the guru. In bahudak he is wandering and comes to your door for bhiksha. In hamsa he opens an ashram or mandir or hospital and you go for guidance; he'll give you mantra diksha and much good advice. Then finally he enters the paramahamsa avasta (stage) where he has nothing todo with anyone.
Therefore, I don't give advice to anyone because my mind does not work like that. People have come here and I talk because I have to entertain. It's entertainment. In spiritual life a disciple should not keep hanging on to guru for a lifetime. It's not right. We have bad habits. We want our children, even if they are grown up and married, even if they have children, to always hold our fingers and ask us what they should do. This hanging on business, this moha (infatuation) business doesn't work with paramahamsas. It didn't work with me even when I was in Munger, but now it doesn't work at all. I don't care if anyone gets angry with me.
I called the people here for one simple reason. For the last four years people have knocked on my doors at any time of the day and night. People used to sleep here on the road. And there were even people who used to scale the walls. Some people used to go to the next door neighbour and look in over the top. So I thought, "Now, once and for all, let me meet all of them and tell them the facts."