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Part 1: The Warmth of Satsaṅg and the Light of Truth Hari Om and good morning, dear brothers and sisters all over the world who are with us through this webcasting from the Yoga in Daily Life seminar in Web, Hungary. We are deep in winter; outside it is freezing, but in our yoga seminar we all feel hot. Through sādhanā, through darśan and satsaṅg, through mutual understanding and being together, we all feel warm. For us, it is not a dark, depressive, cloudy winter day; for us, this is a glorious, sunny morning, and we are expecting our beloved Gurudev, Vishvagurū Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsrī Svāmījī Māheśvarānandajī, to join us in this hall, which for the last 15 years has been filled by his love, light, personal realization, strength, purity, protection, and guidance. Usually, at the end of the seminar on Sunday, our morning satsaṅgs start earlier so people can reach their homes, as some travel thousands of kilometers to be here and thousands more to return to their destinations. Sadhu Shanti is singing the bhajan, and Swamiji is just entering this hall. We are eagerly waiting—first to see him, then to feel him, then to hear him. This bhajan sings the joy a bhakta feels when Gurudev enters the home of the heart of a devotee. It sings the glory of darśan, the glory of the moment when you see a realized soul, a holy saint, an embodiment of love and light, a bond of truth, freedom, and peace. For a real seeker, it is enough just to have darśan, just to see, to be inspired, to be awakened, to be purified, even to be liberated. Gurudev enters this hall. The joy, the happiness of love is vibrating. Love is everything. Only love unites. Only love opens our nāḍīs. Only love expands through all limitations of all five kośas. That love holds the universe together, unites everything, blessing us with a sense of existence, opening all gates, all blockages in our being, from the physical to the spiritual level. Only love can open. Love is that fire which removes the obstacles. Love expands, opens. Only love can take us truly closer to the worthy aims of humanity. The worthiest of all is God, Gurudev, our own Ātmā, the Self. And we can come there only through the purity of love. Then we will express and experience the love of purity. Then purity will show what love really means: an endless, endless ocean in which all our stiffness, weakness, confusion, ignorance, pain, and complexes will melt through the fire of love. They will melt what is transient and die into the eternal. These moments when we are together with the embodiment of eternity, with Gurudev, we cannot compare with anything else. Love came to teach us, to show us what love is. Through that love, we love anything that we love. To purify our love through divine love means to make all our other loves in human life pure and safe. Love should make us feel safe. We learn that we may become that love which makes everyone around us feel safe, truly accepted, without any judgment. That is love without backup, without expectations, without guilt, without fear—direct, direct love. That is divine: endless acceptance through endless belonging. For that, we practice yoga: āsanas, prāṇāyāmas, bandhas, mudrās, kriyās, mantras, prayers, saṅkalpas. We prepare ourselves, our nāḍīs, our bodies, and our minds to get that strength and courage to love. Therefore, the highest joy is darśan—to see, to be in presence, to be with, and to unite with the divine presence, the true presence of Gurudev. His form, his body, is just an instrument, a tool, a picture which will help us so that through that vision we can enter the heart of Gurudev. The body sitting in front of us will open the gate of love again and again. So, your yoga name for what? And she was in the Himalayas and brought from the holy… And so this is for, especially for the children who are handicapped, through the Jardini school. So, please, who is responsible to take money for the Janputra who is collecting money for disabled, handicapped children? Okay, either for warm clothes, or a cycle, or education, for handicapped children. Thank you. Who wrote a letter to me that she has nothing to do? She said she has nothing to do now. Okay, sit down. Okay, the question is: "My student has a terrible headache. What technique or treatment do you recommend for it?" I think every tenth person has a problem with headaches. The main reason is this: all people who have terrible headaches, I realize they don’t drink enough water—not alcohol, water. These people, if they drink more than two liters of water every day, more than two liters, two and a half liters, and in summer three and a half liters, the headache will be 80% better. The other 20% through anulom vilom prāṇāyāma, and for better circulation, I stopped drinking coffee. There was one lady who had a very bad headache, a terrible headache in Vienna, and we found out that she was hardly drinking anything except 20 coffees per day. Coffee is very good, said against cancer and against many things. I don’t know, please, my hands are up. But too much is too much; for the liver it is not good. Also, Sarabhītāsana every day; this exercise will keep us better, not to have the headache. Some people, by nature, have a headache at the time of the weather changing, innerly and outerly. So mostly ladies who have more headache, you can see they are inside, so they should relax. They should learn to love others, not oneself. Vivek Purī, okay? I mean, you don’t have a headache, and she doesn’t have a headache. But this is a normal analysis: time of the weather changing, time of the menstruation, or pressures, and like this. So we are on these are the exercises. And in the worst case, you can have a painkiller, though it is not so good. Doing everyday nāḍī śodhana prāṇāyāma, doing primary prāṇāyāma, doing some exercises, bending forward to release and stress the back muscles and neck muscles will release their tension enough. I can talk for a day about headaches; I have a lot of headaches. There’s another question someone asked. They have a 50th birthday; who was it? So, all the best. In some days, he will have a birthday. One question was: "What is a religion?" So, you were in the religious class, so you must know what’s religion. In every school, there is a religious class in many countries except India. India is a country of the origin of the religion, but now, unfortunately, the constitutions are different. Religion is coming from relation. Sanātana is a relation. This Ātmā, this Jīvātmā, is related to God. This is a relation. And our duty is to realize this: that we are a part of God. So, to realize your relation becomes religion. So they said, "Why is yoga not a religion?" Because yoga is the father of religions. There are three: universe, consciousness, and uniting energy, and that’s yoga. Any more? Nothing. You can ask questions. No questions? There are no answers, very clearly. So we come to our program. This weekend we had a very interesting program. Day before yesterday, Friday evening, according to spirituality, what was, means Christmas or every holy festival. Morning, yesterday, we had a meditation. And after I spoke about meditation: to come to the inner clarity, to solve certain problems, to get the answer which you are waiting for many years and so on, is through meditation. Meditation is the way. And meditation cannot be done without having pure antaḥkaraṇa—manas, buddhi, citta, and ahaṅkāra. This has to be purified through karma yoga, through bhakti yoga, through jñāna yoga, through rāja yoga. Then comes meditation. Then we had a third meeting yesterday evening. His Excellency, the Ambassador of India, spoke about the meaning of the sun, the importance of the sun in our life means for the whole planet, means for existence. Those who read the Mahāśiva Purāṇa and who saw the Mahāśiva Purāṇa, many have it at home. Many we saw in Strelki in summer last year, and how the Swayambhū Śiva appears. Because everything is coming from Swayambhū, who has manifested himself to make the creation. Before, there was only Śūnyākāśa, and there Śiva becomes the creator of Viṣṇu and tells him, "Go, Viṣṇu, and make tapasyā, do tapas." And through the tapasyā of heat, the fire—Viṣṇu is the fire—the water element was also created, and so how important is the air, water, five elements, tattvas or mahābhūtas. Now, what happens when we do something extra? Okay, the sun is there, we know. Okay, the sun is very important, rising. It is a fire, and so on and so on. Okay, everything. There were two worlds, which the ambassador told: when one dies, there are two paths, Chandrāyaṇa or Sūryāyaṇa. Chandrāyaṇa means the moon, Sūrya is the sun. According to the yogic science and wisdom, it is actually those yogīs who discovered this all. What the science is accepting also now, they have to accept. So it was already discovered long, long ago. And so, according to Kuṇḍalinī Yoga, there is the Candra-nāḍī and Sūrya-nāḍī. Then there is one psychologist who wrote a book from America, Life After the Death. And he wrote too, "Life Beyond Death," where he speaks of his experiences, that he interviewed people from different parts of the world, from different cultures, religions, believers and non-believers. Those people who had a kind of death. The doctor declared he died, this person, and then after half a minute or one minute, he came back to life. How do they call it? Clinical death. Now he interviews the people, "What happened?" And someone else, the first main thing everyone tells: they saw a tunnel, went through one tunnel. One tunnel was full of the light, one tunnel was cold and blue light, a little, and one just appeared into the light. So this is when the soul leaves this body. Prāṇa, actually, when it goes through the Iḍā Nāḍī, Candra Nāḍī, then you have the feelings and visions of the blue light, and that means you again will have to go in the procession. The moon is different each time it comes out or rises, growing from half moon to full moon, then back to the dark and half moon. These changes mean the sūrya nāḍī is coming to the sun, and that is the suṣumnā uniting in our big chart of… In the "Nāḍīs in Hidden Powers in Humans" book, you see that chart, that from Sahasrāra Cakra there is one stream that goes directly from Sahasrāra Cakra to the heart, and that’s the heart. It is still said the seat of the Jīvā and the light of the Ātmā, so this all is a science which is spoken in yoga scriptures by yogīs. Everything was very detailed, explained. And Suṣumnā, when a week, that is rare. In rare, in rare, whose consciousness is really purified, who has no anger, who has no doubts, who has no jealousy, who has no negative words in mind, in the dictionary, the dictionary of that person’s mind, the mental dictionary, the intellectual dictionary, there is no word existing negatively against someone. And speaking, or writing, or behaving, or doing wrong to someone. Satru Mitra Ek Śaman, 12th chapter of Bhagavad Gītā, Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, God Kṛṣṇa is saying: That devotee is dear to me and will come directly to me, who has the same love for friends and enemies. And that’s not easy for us all, still. So we have jealousy, we have greed, we have anger, we have hate, we have a lot of ambitions, and we are very far from that Sahasrāra Cakra. Maybe we just try to awake in Mūlādhāra according to that science. So truth is truth, and it’s not me who is telling. You can look in your inner mirror; you know better than anybody. One saint said, "I went to search and see in this world some bad people, but I didn’t find anyone. And when I searched within me, no one was worse than me." So before we blame someone, before we tell someone, we should search ourselves. Every negative thought is one layer of negative black color on our antaḥkaraṇa, where mālavikṣepa and āvaraṇa are increasing because antaḥkaraṇa—mana, buddhi, citta, ahaṅkāra—are getting day by day polluted by our qualities, if you accept or not, that’s not. A question: if you are or not, that’s not a question, but it is that those who do not have these qualities are authorized to come to the Sahasrāra cakra and to go to the Brahmaloka, and for that, human life is given, and in human life, freedom is given. Complete freedom. If you want to go there or there, that’s your decision. You must decide because God gave you good intellect. He gave you a good mind. He gave you good qualities. Think. You think something. I will try only how it is once. You broke it, and when the glass wedge falls down, it is broken. Okay, we will collect each piece of glass nicely, and with the super glue, we will try to put it together, but still it is broken. So, can we bring ourself back to that Creator, as we were born, where Kabīr Dās said... ... so you know the meaning of this bhajan, and the last sentence that I want to tell. Kabīrdās, the great saint, he said, Kabīrdās also got this soul, the soul of the body. And he gave it back again to the hand of the gods, or Mother Nature. As pure he got, he gave back. It’s not an easy job. We all cannot be like that, but at least we can try to be like that. So it is in our hands. If you cannot do good, then at least don’t do the bad. That is the principle. At least you remain, so that your next life you will have again a human life. Otherwise, you never know. So, at the time when the jīva leaves the body, then there are different situations, and great Tulsī Dāsjī said, "The first was created, pralabdha." Pralabdha is destiny. And destiny is the fruits or the result of our karmas. So all our destinies will be put together at the time of the last breath of this life. Then the destiny will take you. You know this, often I tell one poem about the leaf which falls from the tree. And the leaf will be immediately taken to that direction where the wind will blow. Or there is no wind, and it will just fall near the trunk of the tree. So, how is your destiny? That is very important. And for that, it is still in our hands. It is still not too late. Now, the light is so important that everyone goes towards the light. Part 2: The Search for Light and the Story of Mīrā Even when we put a seed in the ground, it begins to grow and sprout, and it comes in the direction where the light is. Where the light is nearer, it grows into the light. Every branch of the tree is searching for light. And so, our soul is also searching for that light. That light, we humans call spiritual light. Through festivals, fasting, prayers, and worship, we can more consciously take that light within and follow it more easily. That is why it is understandable for humans; humans can understand, are capable, and can act to create that light. Now, light means not only this brightness; the light is what we call enlightenment. Many people think, "Now I will have light in me. In me will be thousands of lamps burning. Oh God, then we don’t need a heater." You will be very nice, radiating heat. That is a physical light, and the other is a spiritual light. We have to develop that spiritual light through different sādhanās. All sādhanās—anything you do: āsanas, prāṇāyāma, Saṅg prakṣālan kriyā yoga, heart yoga, nāḍī yoga, mantra yoga, any yoga—are for purification. Fasting, praying, we purify for cleanness. When you are so bright and pure, you can unite with pure qualities. When it is truly pure qualities, then there is Oneness. But when there is impurity in the quality, then there is duality. When there is duality, you can say there is conflict or division; it will be divided again. We have a very nice lettuce, and it comes to the kitchen; we take it. Rice on the plate—we look to see if there are any stones. It can happen that a stone came in, so the stone has to be taken out. If you don’t clean it, then who will take out the stone? It is not acceptable. Look how many stones we have in our behaviors, in our life. And, of course, we have this māyā, this world. Somehow, stones came in. But can we collect them and put them out? For that, we have to do the sādhanās. Then the light comes. So enlightenment is that wisdom, that knowledge, which you cannot compare with this physical light. Therefore, Mahāprabhujī said in one beautiful bhajan: where there is no sun, no dark, and no light. That light, that sun, is that indescribable knowledge. The physical subject is different from the spiritual subject. There is one story about the great Mīrā Bāī. I am very happy to hear that in ex-Yugoslavia there are also ladies called Mīrā—the name, no? Many words are together. I was in Prague last weekend, and there was a professor, an Indology professor, Professor Vacek. She told me that Swamiji, this is a Sanskrit name, Vacek. In Sanskrit, in Hindi, Vācak means one who is speaking, who is reading. Also, when you go to the Bhagavad Gītā: "Arjuna uvāca"—Arjuna is speaking, is going to say. So there are many words, names, that have a very deep meaning. Well, Sanskrit is a mother of many, many languages, anyhow. When Mīrā was very small—she was from a royal family, a king’s family—she was sitting with her mother, and her mother was combing her hair. Mīrā was a small girl of three or four years old. A wedding procession was passing, and Mīrā was looking and said, "What is this, mother?" Her mother explained, "That girl, she married that man, her husband." So Mīrā said, "Then whom will I marry now?" The mother just said, "You marry Kṛṣṇa, God." Good. And, you know, children’s brains are very pure. They take very seriously anything you tell them. You know, in the Upaniṣad—the name I had forgotten at present—the ṛṣi’s son... The son is asking his father, "To whom will you give me, Father?" The father was angry and said, "I give you to Yama, to death." The son said, "Okay, I accept." And he comes to Yama to get the Brahma Jñāna. What was the name? Do you remember, somebody? Naciketa—that’s it. Thank you. Then you are getting a little older, and there are many layers over the memories. She accepted Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa was her spiritual iṣṭa devatā. Of course, Mīrā was very dedicated to her guru, Ravidās. The whole story, you know, I... don’t want to tell you because Kṛṣṇa told me not to. At 10 o’clock we had to close, and I was late 15 minutes, so I have five minutes more. Anyhow, her marriage was not so happy because she married through the parents. It was an arranged marriage from the parents' sides, and she was not happy. She didn’t have any relation to her husband; she respected him very much, but she said, "I’m sorry." Her husband was also very disappointed. And, you know how it is—everything someone told the husband: maybe she has some other boyfriend, you know? What will we think? All like this, no? Immediately you will think, "Uh-huh." But anyone goes to anyone, we will not think positive first. We will think, "Uh-huh, must be something." I have a nice, clean dress with one color, and suddenly, here is a black spot. Always, you will look only at this. I have a beautiful, nice beard, you know? I hope it’s beautiful. But now you imagine here is hanging one sprout, a salad piece. And you will look at me, you will talk to me, and I’m talking. I don’t see, but many of you will say, "I don’t know what he means." And when Vivek Purī shows me like this—he doesn’t have a beard—I think he’s a cheat. So always, sir, we go to that negative point. That’s it. That’s human nature. Always good? Animals don’t do that. Animals are divāna. They are, they don’t care. But we think negative. So that prince, the husband of Mīrā, put guards around her residence 24 hours. And no guard can be longer than 15 minutes because, maybe, he sees his friend with the guards. There’s another problem, so he told them strictly, "Whenever you find that she’s talking to someone in her room, let me know immediately." Once, about 3:30 in the morning, Mīrā was talking and laughing and dancing, and a guard heard. He went quickly to the other room where the husband of Mīrā was sleeping. He knocked on the door, and the husband got up. The guard said, "Sir, Mīrā is talking to someone in her room, and you..." You know an angry husband, a jealous husband, a dispirited husband. Then, sometimes, āsurī śaktis come out. Yes, we have both: we have daivī śakti and āsurī śaktis. My God, sometimes a person can become more than a devil, you know. So, thanks to God that God gave the injections. Do you remember I told you? When did I speak? Dvā yesterday, spiritual injection, and that’s why we are all only one percent aware about our āsurī śaktis. All the spiritual śaktis are there. So he got up, and near his pillow he always had this sword. He ran and listened. Yes, Mīrā is talking to someone very clearly, no doubt. You could record it. There was no telephone that time, unfortunately. No detector phone, otherwise I could give it to Divya Purī to listen. Of course, he didn’t knock on the door. He just, with his shoulder, broke the door and went in. Mīrā was sitting on her bed, so she stood up. He said, "You are here this time, any problem?" She said, "What?" He said, "You were talking to someone here in this room." She said, "Yes, yes, I did. You were laughing." He said, "Yes, with whom did you speak?" "With my beloved one." "Who is that?" "Of course, who can it be then? Kṛṣṇa." "Where is he, huh?" "He’s sitting here." "I can’t see him." She said, "Yes, that I can understand. You don’t see, you cannot see my beloved one with these physical eyes. You cannot see God with these eyes. You need another eye to see Him, and then you will understand that He’s just with you and me." The husband thought, "Now she’s completely schizophrenic. Hallucination, schizophrenia, and I have had enough of this." He said, "I have had enough." He was screaming, "I will kill you!" She said, "No problem." He took his sword. She was standing. She said, "Okay. No fear. Why?" And he took his sword to the shape of her neck. And suddenly someone held the sword, and he felt that someone was holding it. But what happens? Four Mīrās are standing there, not only one. Exactly same dress, same hair, same look. Ditto copy. Smiling, and a voice came: "Careful. Kill only that Mīrā which belongs to you. Don’t make a mistake." Now, how should he know which is the real Mīrā? So he threw his sword, and he was crazy, and he went away. This miracle, no scientist will understand. I can understand this scientist. It was in a magazine written last week that scientists are searching for God, and they didn’t find Him. Ah, they are very, at least they are very correct that, of course, they didn’t find. They said, "Come to me, and they will find it." So you cannot see God, you cannot see spirituality, you cannot compare it with this physical world. You have to awake. You must have the other energy that will be the beloved of God. That’s it. So there is a bhajan from Mīrā, a beautiful bhajan in the Rajasthani dialect. Gurujī was singing so nicely, and he was playing his kartāls so nicely. People were all so happy when Gurujī explained also so nicely these bhajans and stories. So God is there where love is. And we will not understand that person. Always, we will think it’s crazy. Always, we will think it’s schizophrenic. Always we will think, "Oh God, it’s not normal." Who is normal? Who is normal? It was wintertime, snowing, and on the highway, on the wrong direction, on the left side, one man was driving with his wife. The radio was on, and the radio said, "Careful, one ghost is driving on the wrong direction." And that man was so angry, he said to his wife, "From them, what does..." Meaning, once there are so many, so many wrong directions, so it depends on who. So who are we to judge someone for something? And if you judge someone for something, you are responsible. The karma comes to you. Therefore, first judge thyself. That will come to that divine world, that janamana maraṇa, guruvar māyā chalūsā onades. So the sun, as much when we offer the water, you know, and when we look to the light and we make these prayers, or Gāyatrī Mantra prayers, or Śiva Mantra prayers, that enters in our consciousness. It’s not that we are offering water there; we are making abhiṣeka to our jīvātmā, to get liberation. So this is true: the worldly and spiritual, they always had a conflict because they don’t understand each other. Others will understand, but they don’t want that we understand them also. So, I wish you all the best, and once more, for the coming year, a happy year. I wish you a very nice Christmas evening with your friends and families. May all conflicts go away, and may you purify your antaḥkaraṇa, that you will never be negative to anyone. Or, if you are, then on Christmas day, fawn and or go there and bring here you are. I was so angry all the time. Now this is here. Okay, be the friend. Oh, God. Other people said, "Yes, do, do look, make some example, go there." Another one even said, "Why did you come today to destroy my family atmosphere?" I said, "No, to save the family atmosphere." The idea is, so Christmas Day is a day to make again the friends, bring the love, the happiness. Yes, in some part of Europe it is so heavy snow that you can’t drive; you need chains, and some parts are still good. Daylight we have. People from Hamburg, which is a long way, Prague, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and other parts of Europe—so please drive slowly. Careful. I wish you all the best and very, very good safety on your journey. God bless you, and see you soon whenever it is. Next Sunday, in one week, I will fly to India. And we will have a little Christmas satsaṅg on Saturday. But of course, you must not come. You are already here. If it is very bad weather, then it is not good. But still, if you come, you know, Vienna is small, but the heart is big. You know, even the Croatian heart can merge into the Vienna heart. Still, we have more space, you know. You know why? Because I am living there. So, of course, you are always welcome. Our Vienna bhaktas are happy. Otherwise, see you next time. God bless you. Mahāprabhujī protect you, and all the best. Also, I would like to tell you all that many friends, our brothers, sisters, or bhaktas, are doing their best to fundraise for the hospital, for children, and for poor people. I would like to inform you that in India, our Mahāmandir Swāmī Jasrāj Purī got an instruction from me, and in the name of our society, we distributed thousands of blankets to the poor people. Now it’s very cold; winter has come this year, and we also give them a little money, not very much, but a little pocket money, which for them is a lot. There is one family I saw; their house, half the roof is broken, the door is broken. Anytime, the whole roof can fall on their head. There’s one lady living with two little children; her husband died, and she’s very, very poor. So, I told Raji, and I told people, that we should support building her a nice room, or two rooms, and make it safe. So, all your donation—whatever you will do—we will also try to help her. We will make up our house, which will cost about eight to ten thousand euros, but don’t worry, it will come. Mahāprabhujī will give from anywhere. But just I want to tell you how we are doing, helping the people. So whatever you are giving, any single foreign, it goes officially, because I always said I want only officially. Nothing should be done that money is not declared or something like this. So it goes to our account, Jñānaputra, for children’s accounts, for poor accounts, and like this, and then goes bank to bank and comes from bank, and we give the check to distribute the things we are doing. So it’s very correct. So anytime you can go and check if you want. So thank you. This is also one of the things, one of the messages, which I want to tell you. Yes, that’s all. All my dear brothers, sisters, bhaktas, practitioners, and aspirants around the world who are with us through the webcast, I wish you all the best divine blessings. And if you are believing in Christianity, I wish you a good, happy Christmas and New Year.