Swami Tells Story of Guru Nanak and the Needle

Sri Swami Vishwananda at Darshan June 9 2012

Swami Vishwananda once told this story:

One day a great king, who used to take everything from people, even the poor, visited Guru Nanak. This Guru Nanak gave him a tiny needle and said, “My dear King, keep this needle with you and when you reach Paradise, you give this needle to me.” The king returned to his castle, so proudly, and said to the Queen, “You know I'll go to Heaven.’' Then the Queen said, “How?” The king replied: "It is Guru Nanak, who told me that I must give him this needle when I reach heaven!” The queen said, “But do you not know that when you die, you leave everything here? Go back and see him tomorrow and ask how you can give him the needle."

Early the next morning, the King went to the door of Guru Nanak and said, “Guru Nanakji, yesterday you gave me this beautiful little needle and you told me to give it to you when I reach heaven, but how can I take it there?” “Guru Nanak said, “I gave you something so tiny and asked you to bring it back to Paradise, and of course you cannot accomplish this. So, then how can you take all this wealth and all the things you have accumulated? All you can take are the good things you have done here. How much have you helped people? How much love have you given and how much have you opened your heart. These are the only things you take with you.”

It says in the Gita that you came with nothing and you will leave empty-handed. You only will take your Sadhana with you. Then work for it. And it's not for me to tell you, but it's up to you to do your best to open your heart. Try to love sincerely. Try to love with a pure mind and, then, slowly but surely that love will one day become unconditional. 

Even Raja Yogi, Mahavatar Babaji, Walks Around With People, With Disciples

Swami Vishwananda with Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Bathing Murtis in Sacred Ganges River Water from India
Kumba Mela in America 2007















Swami Vishwananda offers a substitute for meditation:
I met a yogi in India who is about two hundred years old; even more than that. Of course, among all the yogis, the Raja Yogi, Mahavatar Babaji is more than five thousand years old. Raja Yogi means the king of all yogis. But even Mahavatar Babaji walks around with people, with disciples [does not meditate all the time].

Meditation is very good. Once you start the spiritual path, the first thing you are told is to sit down and meditate. But you can’t meditate twenty-four hours a day. . . So, we can’t meditate all the time, especially here in the West. But there is a substitute for meditation and that is the thought. The mind that God has placed in humans is very powerful. You can create or you can destroy with it. It’s up to each one of you to control the thoughts. So the first thing and the best thing in spirituality that you can do is to control the thought... First, we have to change the negative thoughts about ourselves and then we can change the thoughts towards other people. As long as we judge ourselves, we only look at the negative parts of our own self.

Thought is very easy to control. You don’t need to sit down to control it. When the thought is passing through your mind, you know about the thought. You know whether it is positive or negative. So if it is positive, it will be constructive, then feed it and let it grow! But when the thought is negative, do not to feed it. Then you say to yourself, “This is not me.” And you let go of the negative thought.

When you let go of the negative thoughts, you will see how beautiful your own life is and how great this life is that God has given us. Also your meditation will be easier. The powerful thoughts are the positive energy in human beings. Through thoughts, whatever you wish for yourself, whatever you think about, you will receive it.