Swami Brahmananda Saraswati is the teacher we honor as the representative of the Holy Tradition, that lineage of men and women who have carried the wisdom of the Vedas down through the ages, the wisdom within which is found this meditation we practice. We call him Guru Deva, which means something like 'The Shining Teacher.' 

You may recognize the words:

Jai Guru Deva. Om. 

Nothing's going to change my world. 

Nothing 's going to change my world. 

This, of course, is the chorus of John Lennon's Across the Universe, his own homage to Guru Deva.

Though Guru Deva passed on from this world in 1953, his gift to us lives on in us each time we meditate, each time we de-excite and touch that place in consciousness that is the place of oneness, where we indeed find ourselves at one with the deepest wisdom of the Vedas. From there comes the wisdom by which we may correct our intellects away from the negativity so many of us have gathered over the course of life.

This is the quintessence of that wisdom:

You deserve the best.

Never feel unworthy or 

    not justified in having the best.

I tell you, this is your heritage;

but, you have to accept it.

You have to expect it; 

you have to claim it.

To do so is not demanding too much.

Guru Deva,

Swami Brahmananda Saraswati

Today I will remember these words of Guru Deva, and I will know they are for me.