TV Channel

Part 1: The Power of Thought: Theory and Practice Oṁ Brahmānandam param sukhadam kevalam jñānamūrtim dvandvātītam gagana-sadṛśyam tattvamasyādi lakṣyam ekam nityam vimalam achalam sarvādhiṣṭhākṣibhūtam bhavātītam triguṇarahitam satgurum tam namāmy aham. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ. Salutations to the Cosmic Light, Lord of our hearts, omniscient and omnipresent. In the divine presence of the cosmic self, very good evening, dear brothers and sisters. Welcome to you here in this hall. I am happy to be again in this beautiful city; this is my third time in this hall. You see, the city is so beautiful that I have to come again and again. The countryside is beautiful, and the landscape is beautiful. Everywhere around the world, when I say I am going to Scotland, people tell me, "Oh, that’s the most beautiful place we’ve heard of." Indeed, it is. And beautiful people too—that is also a plus point. Thank you for coming and thank you to the Yoga and Daily Life organizers for inviting me. Today’s subject is Theory and Meditation. One philosopher said, "Tons of theory is nothing compared to a gram of practice." But practice is also nothing without theory. Theory, for me, means inspiration, a motivation to find a direction in my life. Everything is possible for humans to achieve. Only one thing we have to change: our way of thinking. We have many thoughts and many things in our life, but one day will come when we suddenly feel a strong desire to do a particular thing. Many great personalities, from childhood, had such a thought, and they kept their life, their way, and their concentration focused on developing it, and they achieved. Anything you want to do, you have to change your thoughts for that purpose; otherwise, you will not achieve. When you change your thought, you suddenly get such inner strength and inner support, and everything becomes easier for you. Consider the story of an alcoholic man. Through his alcoholic life, he lost his family; his wife divorced him, his children became nearly homeless, and he had no money. It was a very hard life. One day he was sitting in his small rented room with alcohol in his glass. He began to think of his past life: how happy his life had been at home, as a student, and when he met his partner. What had changed in his life? He had felt happy that he could drink alcohol—one glass more, one glass less. But one glass more led to complete imbalance. That day was not a day of happiness; it was a day of unhappiness. He counted his lost beautiful family relations, children, job, friends, house, and money. He had lost everything. "Why did I lose all?" Then God gave him one intuition or message: "My dear, the cause that you are searching for is with you in your glass—alcohol." He got up, took the glass and the bottle, and emptied both in the toilet. He said, "I cannot have you with me because, due to you, I had to suffer and renounce everything, and I lost everything. Now today, goodbye. I have changed my mind." The next day he had little problems—spasms in the body, shivering—because alcohol is a dangerous drug. But he said, "No, finished." In no time, he overcame and became happy, finding again a happy family, a good job, everything. So we have to change our thoughts. You may have spiritual thoughts and want to develop spirituality in everything. Suddenly, some different thoughts come and change your life in a different direction. All yogīs, holy saints, or other people who achieve their goal had those thoughts, then clear visions, and then walked on that path. So motivation through certain tales—that is theory. If you think that on the top of a hill there is a most beautiful lotus flower, and people say, "No, there is no lake, there is nothing," but you say, "There is a lotus flower, and I will bring it for you," then you go. There is no lotus flower, but you will make a nice pond. You will let the water come, and you will put the lotus flower roots inside. And next year, you bring beautiful lotus flowers to your friends. So you are the one who can make impossible things possible through your changing thoughts and strong willpower. The moon and sun may change direction, but I will not change my thoughts or my opinion. I will achieve this, and one did it. Someone told me a story about an African man whose name I have forgotten, but you probably know him. He was disabled, handicapped, suddenly got paralyzed, and was sitting in a wheelchair. He was looking at the Olympic Games and saw the athletes all running and winning gold and silver medals. He said, "Look now, I will be the winner of the gold medal in the marathon." If he told us this while sitting in his wheelchair, we would say, "Yes, we wish you all the best," but inwardly we would laugh. Immediately, he quit his wheelchair, took a stick, and walked from here to the wall. He walked slowly with two sticks, then with one stick, then holding someone’s hand. He began to walk, and they say he won two Olympic games with gold medals as an athlete in running. Do you know who that was? I must find out the name. So, that changing of the thoughts will create a willpower in you, and that will make it possible. The body is physical. The body has its limitations, but it has its helper and supporter: the mind. And the mind, being subtle, is more powerful. So, a way of thinking can change our entire life. Our way of thinking can also destroy our entire life. So, theory is that which should inspire us and give us a clear vision. Then, off you go. Practice, practice... practice makes perfect. We have in India one poem in the Hindi language, which I will try to translate: Karata karata abhyāsa pyāre, jaḍamata hota sujāna, rāsī kī āvata jāvata śila para paḍata niśāna. Clear? Karata karata abhyāsa pyāre—while practicing, practicing (karata karata, abhyāsa—practice), while doing, doing the practice or sādhanā, jaḍamati hota sujan—even an ignorant person can become a sage, a saint. Practice. Rasiki avata javata śilpar parat niśān—that you don’t have here. You don’t need this one. We have got a water well. You have a lot of water everywhere. You don’t need a lot of water. For us, water is some hundred meters deep, or twenty meters deep, or thirty meters deep. Now it’s two hundred meters deep. And the deeper you go, it’s salty. For us, water is a question. When it rains here, you say, "Oh God, again, terrible weather." But for us, in parts of Rajasthan and the middle part of India where we live, when rain like this comes, we say, "Oh, today God is most blessed." That rain for us is life. It drops a little bit and goes away, and we say, "Oh God, please, a little more." You don’t know what water is. You don’t know. We know what water is. Two months before, there was still summer and no rain. We used to say there is not even water left in the eyes, as tears. So we know what water is, and we don’t know what the sun is. But you know what the sun is. When the little sun is shining, you say, "Oh, beautiful weather." And we get up and see again the sun shining. So, we have to bring water out of the water well. What we do is tie a bucket with a rope and let the bucket down—about three to four liters of water or five liters—and then we pull it out and fill the water pot. The rope is like this, touching the stone. The stone, which you have everywhere in the world, has the power to cut the rope. You can cut the rope with a stone, but every day, slowly, a little bit, the rope is rubbing the stone, and it cuts the stone. The rope cuts the stone. Why? Because every day, a little bit touching, but it is touching, so it will cut the stone there. Similarly, this example shows that by everyday practicing and keeping your rules, your niyamas, you will achieve what you want to achieve. But karmic... do you know what karma is? Who has not heard about karma? You know all about karma, very good. For those who don’t know, I can tell you in two words. Karma means to do something, anything. If you inhale, exhale is also karma. Digestion in the body is karma. Walking is karma, talking is karma, cooking is karma, washing is karma, working is karma—everything. What is happening through you, physically and mentally, is karma. Now we go a little deeper. Every action has its cause. Bāyu, breath in, because you need to live. Bāyu, exhale again, because you need to exhale all the toxins. So cause, action, and every action will have a reaction. Everything will bring the fruits back. So karma is a law of our actions. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. So good deeds in life will have good fruits, and bad deeds in life will have bad fruits. Sometimes what we call destiny, good luck or bad luck, is our destiny. And destiny is created by our actions, the karmas. And so suddenly there are negative energies which try to influence you in the other direction. From the very beginning of creation in this universe, two tendencies developed. Āsurī Śakti is called negative power, or devils, or whatever you call it—negative power. Devī Śakti is positive power. All the time they are fighting. The Asuras, the devils, want to have their kingdom, and the Devas want to have the kingdom, and they are fighting. So, Āsurī Śakti is our bad quality, and Devī Śakti is our good quality. But the Āsurī Śakti has more power and becomes quickly visible. It takes time to clean your shirt, but it doesn’t take time to make it dirty again. Similarly, it takes time to collect good spiritual energy and karma through prayers, following discipline, and leading a life like that. And it doesn’t take time to destroy your energy completely, quickly. It takes time to climb up the hill, but to fall down, it doesn’t take long. And the higher you fall from, the more painful it is. Therefore, karmic disturbances will always come. And that’s what we call: man proposes and God disposes. Man decides, but the gods do something different. Our decision is not final. Therefore, what we decide positively, we pray to God to help us. Keep your thoughts in your mind and always get inspiration. If you are going on a particular path—let’s say the yoga path—then read some nice yoga books. That is theory. And keep practicing according to your yoga teacher or your master who told you what to practice. So theory is an indication, a direction, a landmark. Part 2: The Union of Theory and Practice in Meditation And now, going there is a practice. Without theory, you cannot practice; there is no practice. But without practice, there is nothing. Let’s say we are all very hungry now. And I show you very nice pictures of eating—a PowerPoint of delicious dishes, good food and drink, water, mineral water, good water. Scotland’s water is clean water. Milk, juice. And you are very hungry and thirsty. Now, what’s happening? I show you a picture and keep on talking, and your stomach thinks something is coming because we think about food. Immediately, in the mouth, the water comes. The digestive system prepares itself. Something is coming, but nothing is coming. You become more and more hungry. Then what do you do? You take a chewing gum and put it in your mouth. But chewing gum is very unhealthy for our stomach. That can cause a kind of ulcer or many things, because you send a wrong message to the stomach. It is waiting and waiting and producing the hormones, the fire, but there is nothing to digest. Now, instead of only talking about food in front of a hungry person, I give you some nuts. That will calm your digestive fire. It is practical, something to eat, not only to see. So, to show you or talk about eating is a theory, but to give you something in the hand to eat, that is practice. So both are going together. Now, after this, we will have meditation, because this is the theory and practice of meditation. Self-inquiry means two things. The first is: How am I? A good or bad person, happy or unhappy? And what is the cause of my happiness, or what is the cause of my unhappiness? What is the cause of my goodness, and what is the cause of my bad qualities? If my life is comfortable and happy, or my life is miserable, where is the cause? How can I know this? And if it is good, how can I develop more? And if it is bad, how can I overcome or try to correct myself? Secondly, the self is that ātmā, the immortal one. The body is mortal, but the ātmā is immortal. Body, emotion, mind, intellect, consciousness, and soul—these are individual, but the cosmic consciousness and ātmā are the universal ones. We all exist as an individual soul, and that’s why we have individual luck or bad luck, happiness, or unhappiness. But on the day when we will have only good karmas, good things, and we get realization of this—that I am a part of the universe—then this individual soul will dissolve into the universal one. So, at that time we will know what is God or what is the Self. There is one poem: When I was here, he wasn’t here. Now he is here, but I am not here, there. Because the street of love is so narrow, two cannot walk together. Two have to become one, meaning our individual soul and the cosmic one have to become one. So this is the purpose of the meditation, Ātmā Jñāna, or self-inquiry. But we cannot have Ātmā Jñāna until we have purified those qualities which disturb us. The self-inquiry meditation in your yoga and daily life has many different techniques and theories written in your yoga book. We had a meditation last weekend on how to develop compassion or love, and how to overcome or remove fear. It was in London, and today is the first step of the meditation we will do. Okay, now you see here is the water in the glass, and when the glass is motionless, the liquid is also motionless. As soon as I touch the glass or the glass moves, the liquid also moves. So the glass is our body, and the liquid is our mind, our concentration. If you move, then again your concentration will be less. So, try to find a comfortable seat that you can sit in comfortably without moving. Make yourself very comfortable. Of course, you can sit on the chair, on the sofa, or on the floor. And make sure that for about 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes, you will not move your body. Of course, if you feel very uncomfortable, you can move it. Otherwise, you concentrate on the knees, and I say concentrate on the eyebrow center. But you concentrate on the knees, and Swamiji, when you will finish, I have pain. In that case, of course, you can change your posture without disturbing others. In this room, there are many things to see. Through the door, through the windows, this side, that side, also me. But during the meditation, we will have our eyes closed. So whatever you want to see in this hall, do it now. Afterwards, nothing will be new here, so you need not open your eyes and look. Okay, I will open my eyes from time to time to see how you are doing. Okay, good. So make yourself comfortable. These two fingers, index fingers and thumbs, are together. These are the energy centers, and it helps us, really it helps us to relax mentally. Sometimes they press the thumb from here. Here, with the index finger nail, because his energy center, and you can feel it through the whole body’s energy. Now, symbolically, what does it mean? This is called a mudrā, chin mudrā. These are the three qualities: tamas, rajas, and sattva. We will talk tomorrow. This index finger symbolizes the individual self. The thumb symbolizes the universal self. The aim of the yogī is to become one with the universal One. But you cannot, unless you have mastered or purified these three guṇas. So you have to be above the three guṇas. Jealousy, hate, conflict, anger, greed, this, that, many things. They are in these three figures, so this is the symbol. If we keep the palms open and upwards, we receive more energy, and energy flows in the body. Or we can have palms like this and touching our thighs or knees. So that energy will circulate in the body, feedback, biofeedback. Shoulders should be relaxed, and the shoulders can be completely relaxed only then. This is the theory now, okay? When our elbows are relaxed, if elbows are like this, then you have tension here, then you have tension in the neck, then you have tension in the face muscles, then you have tension in the eyebrow center, then you have a headache, and then you have back pain, and what not. But as soon as we leave our elbows relaxed, everything is relaxed. And it is said, when you smile, then 62 muscles of the body are relaxed. 62. And when you don’t relax, you sit like this. Then only three muscles are relaxed; the rest are in tension. So then, why should we not relax? Smile, okay? But of course, during meditation, you should not smile all the time. Okay? Good. So, now please, sit comfortably, take Chin Mudrā, relax your body, and close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax your whole body, from the toes till the top of the head, and from the top of the head till the toes, relax. We all will chant Oṃ three times, and during the chanting of Oṃ, withdraw yourself from the external world and come into this hall. Be aware of your being in this hall, physically and mentally. Take two or three deep inhales and exhales, and now inhale deeply and chant Oṃ with me. We will chant three times. Inhale. You are being here in this hall with closed eyes. Slowly move your head forward, as if you are looking toward your stomach. Your eyes are closed. With closed eyes, look to the ceiling, then to the stomach. Try to look at your navel with closed eyes until your chin touches your throat. Collar bones, and again up, ceiling, till your chin touches your throat. All the collar bones, and again up, ceiling, till your chin touches your throat. All the collar bones, and again up, ceiling. In the middle, eyes are closed, and slowly turn your head. Bend your head to the right side and to the left side. Don’t turn your face, only the head. The face is in the middle, that’s right, from the neck. Perfect. And slowly move your fingers, close the fists, open the palms, thumb inside, close the fists, and stretch your elbows, and relax the elbows, open the palms, close the fists, thumbs inside, stretch your elbows, and open the palms. Your hands are still. On the thighs, not lifting. Again, close your fists and stretch just the elbows, and relax the elbows, and open the palms. Close the fists, thumbs inside, stretch your elbows, and open the palms. Your hands are still on the thighs, not lifting. Again, close. Close your fists, and stretch just the elbows, and relax the elbows, and open the palms. Close the fists, thumbs inside, stretch your elbows, and open the palms. Your hands are still on the thighs, not lifting. Again, close your fists, and stretch just the elbows, and relax. The elbows, and relax the... elbows, and relax. Elbows and open the palms. Feel your palms, feel the circulation in the palms, and now fold your palms together and press your palms. Press your hands and relax. Once more, press hands and relax. And once more, press together your hands and relax. Now, rub your palms and place your hands on your face. Slightly rub your eyelids and face muscles. Open your eyes and lower your hands. Just for a while, you bend forward. You may place your hands on the floor, on your knees, or on your back, and feel the circulation towards the head. After meditation, it’s very important that more blood flows again toward the head. It’s very good for the eyes, for the ears, for all the jñānendriyas. And slowly, with the help of your hands, come up. So you can change your seat if you want. So, you were sitting nearly 35 minutes, some 40 minutes. Very good. It’s a great achievement. For today, it is finished. I will not ask you any questions, because you now have such a beautiful energy and are relaxed from meditation. So I think we stop here. Tomorrow morning we are going to plant a peace tree, the world peace tree. So be a part of world peace. And these trees I will initiate, give some blessings, mantras, and anytime you have any wish, you go under the tree, hold the tree, and say your mantra or your wish; it will be fulfilled. If you have some problems or are sad, go and hold the trunk of the tree for one minute. You will feel such a strong vibration. You will become happy. So be a part of that tree. Our life is short, but the life of the trees, I hope it will be long, a long life. 21st September is declared by the United Nations as the International Day of Peace. And on the 21st of September, also, your yoga teachers will organize a peace prayer. It can be morning or noon time. What is the weekday? The 21st? Do you know someone? Tuesday. So it can be lunchtime or evening after office hours, come with a candle. That will be beautiful. That’s all for today. See you tomorrow if you have time. Otherwise, I wish you all the best. God bless you with good health, happiness, a healthy and long life, and good night.