Swamiji TV

Other links



Video details

Always be ready to learn, Vienna

A satsang discourse for yoga teachers and practitioners on conduct, humility, and creating harmony.

"If he will think that I am sad, then he will not become a thief."

"The heart needs another heart; the heart does not need another intellect."

Swami Ji addresses the assembly, using a story of Gurujī's stolen watch to introduce themes of awareness and self-protection. He critiques selfish behavior in spiritual gatherings and urges yoga teachers to be examples of humility, respect, and heart-centered understanding, free from ego and sectarianism. He shares the story of Krishna cooking for his guru to illustrate accepting correction, and concludes with a bhajan about making the heart deep to receive grace.

Filming location: Vienna, Austria

Once, Gurujī was traveling from Calcutta to Guwahati by ferry. As he sat making his mantra, he had a pocket watch at his side. A pickpocket came, and though Gurujī was always alert—aware even of a mosquito flying—the thief cut his pocket and took the watch. Later, when Gurujī went to check the time, he realized what had happened. The ticket conductor, the safnā, said, "Sorry Jī, the thieves didn’t even leave you out; they took your watch." Gurujī replied, "Yes, if he will think that I am sad, then he will not become a thief." For a thief, it does not matter who you are or what trouble you face; they do not care. If a toad is equal, we do steer, do steer. So there are certain things in life that, for certain people, simply do not matter. Whether an action is good or bad, they do not care. But we have to learn to protect ourselves. In Indian driving, they write, "In protection is your protection." If you protect others, you protect yourself. If you cause an accident, not only is the other injured, but you are also involved. Therefore, as yogīs, we must learn to live alert, aware, conscious, and always giving respect to others. This we have not learned yet. Everyone tries to concentrate in the front, while the back still has a lot of free space. Why? Because we do not care about others. If we cared, we would sit back and say, "Please, you go and sit in the front, because you come very seldom, and Swāmījī is in the front." But we do not think this way, and that is the biggest mistake. There one can see, O Bālā, this person does not care about others. Diese Person denkt nicht über anderes. Selfishness and greed—these two things are the most dangerous in our life. To be greedy is very, very dangerous. So, do not fight. It is not my right to be in the front. The greatest are they who can renounce, verstehen. So, versichten im Leben ist schwer. Certain situations. And so, many good yoga teachers, male and female, sit right at the back, in the middle. They could also come to the front. Rādhā sits right at the back. She could also sit here, because she is the organizer; she prepared everything. Now I must sit in front? No. This is what is missing. Do not say when you come into your classroom, "Yesterday I was sitting here. It’s my place here, please, you go to the back." That is enough to create an enemy. You can be happy that this person has gotten your place and your good energy. So in a yoga class, we should make a nice selection of place and order; there is no problem. This is still missing among yoga people, especially those who are more advanced. That is why I must tell you: this is one of the problems in Austria, which I see as more of a problem—that you have fewer new people. Because the yoga teachers in their classes explain very differently, very well, and they are very happy, and they would like to come to the satsaṅg. But when they come to the satsaṅg, they are completely ignored. And then we are fighting, looking to see who is there, trying to come to the front, and that is not good. So these yoga teachers have to learn to teach themselves in the beginning, so that we all can maintain the situation and give good feelings. Talking does not solve our problem. We have to become an example for that. That is the svabhāvikon. This is for yoga teachers as well as for yoga practitioners and future teachers. This instruction is very, very important. Just to know how to perform one āsana, then a second āsana, is not enough. And many of us, what we call yogīs—if something goes a little against our principle, then we are so angry, and this is not good. All schools are fighting. One yoga school against others, yoga school against others. So this means we are like those who have how many sheep. This time, when they selected the new Pope, someone told me, he said, "The shepherd." I said, what do you mean, the shepherd? So they said, yes, the shepherd who has the sheep and this stick, the shepherd’s stick. Till today, I thought there is a Pope who has, like, a ma’am unless a daṇḍa he also has in hand. So this is a shepherd’s stick. The shepherd is the only one who is taking care of the sheep, and how many sheep are there? So, many yoga schools or many other organizations are protecting their people, you know, like with a stick, who dare to come in or out. And that is not our aim. So we have to open ourselves to respect, to understand that we are not the only best one in the world. There are many thousands, or millions, who are much better than us. Confucius said, "Don’t think in life that you are a miserable person. Look a little more down. There are many more miserable than you. And don’t think that you are the happiest and best person in the world. Look a little higher. There are many, many who are much better than you." So, the same thing, and this is what we are missing. Or we suddenly begin to behave in an artificial way. And when you behave artificially, that’s named one un-early-cape, be-ne-mook. And that is then heart-light, Swagman? Yeah. So this is not good. So a yoga teacher has to be an example. Now, the teacher’s teachers—how much do they have respect and love for each other? That is very important. So your people will see how you are behaving toward other yoga teachers. And when, for example, Muktānanda brings his five students with him, then his students will not observe only Muktānanda, but they will observe how they appreciate, recognize, or see Yogananda or Muktānanda, his work. But when they see how Yogananda is behaving toward Muktananda, they will say, "My God, what’s going on here?" Muktananda, Yogananda will say to Muktananda, "Don’t touch, this is my technique," obviously. You have destroyed all of this. Please don’t touch it next time. They will say, "My God, what is happening?" So, to know where and what we should do. So either it’s a Yogananda or a Muktananda, any Nanda should live in Ānanda. That is very important. So this will make you good. Second, who comes to yoga? To yoga, mostly two kinds of people are coming. Very rare are those who are searching for the spiritual path. But mostly people come who have so many problems or had a problem with their life, and they could not find a solution anywhere else. And they heard that yoga would help, and they came to yoga. So, including myself, we all came to this path. We were very dispirited, and finally we found this way, and we came here. So perhaps problem means not only human problems, with human relations, health problems, social problems, political problems, emotional problems, financial problems, many, many different things, stress, that. So we want to go to practice yoga again to live life. That is why we are good, live mokṣa. That is our main aim to practice yoga. Very nicely, very holy, we have written the title in the book, "Yoga am täglichem Leben, Yoga am täglichem Leben, harmony for body, Körper, Geist und Schäle." And now we ask all the yoga teachers here, the students and so on, all yoga teachers: have they realized these three things or not? And if we have not realized these three things, then we are not teachers either. This ashram is so beautiful, Gurujī’s ashram; we have organized a waterfall for you so that you have a natural feeling. It is like a waterfall in this ashram. We do not need, you know, everybody to have at home a steamer, a waterfall, and some water fountain that has a nice water sound, or to go to the, oh my God, sit near the beach or near the river where a little creek is flowing. This is so. So, ask yourself before you write down in your book, or you write: did you achieve this? Or are you trying to realize this? And if you are trying, then how do you lead your life? If you do not live accordingly, you will not realize this. And that is why our anger, our jealousy, our hate, our greediness, our pride, our ego—it is very much on the surface now, like a teacup is completely full, and now you need only to put one drop more and it will flow over. And so is the situation of many yoga teachers, and that is not a symbol of becoming a yoga teacher. Try to endure something. Try to endure something... Irgendeine Yoga-Lehrer oder Lehrerin bis in ein Etwas sagt an der Yoga-Lehrerin, "Ich mag sie das nicht und das nicht und..." Es gefällt mir nicht und so weiter. Okay, you are a yoga teacher, what is that? So, diese Verkehrsstraße, die haben diese Katzenaugen, nennt man? The cat’s eyes are in the middle of the street, where there’s a lot of dust. But this dust does not remain on it; always shining, always. It does not matter if it is raining, snowing, or a dirty road. But this cat eye always shows you the direction, always shows you the right direction. And so is the everyday, coming pollution: emotional, physical, mental, many. But you should always be a guideline, always be a guideline. One hand which can show fire, that much is gone. Biscuit, swear is that Biscuit writing thyself? When the stove, she be a stove of me. When I feel so happy, I am bursting. Even if I should clean my stove and the spot, and not on the hearth’s altar. That is very important: how we, as a yoga teacher, as a yoga practitioner, as a practitioner of yoga in daily life, as a disciple of Swāmījī, how we behave and how we lead our life. So, anything that you do will reflect on your yoga teacher. And that yoga teacher automatically, it will reflect on me. Aha! This is a yoga learning from the Maheśvarānanda. So it reflects me, who is? Oh! Gurujī’s disciple. That Gurujī’s disciple, he was writing about Mahāprabhujī. He was Mahāprabhujī’s disciple. So, you see, it is going from the yoga people, teacher, to Swāmījī, to Gurujī, to Mahāprabhujī, Devapurījī, and the whole little amṛt comes in picture. And because your behavior is like that, you shall try to keep, at least you should have that much respect, that you keep this path, this lineage clean. And therefore, give others room, give other sides, give them space, put them in the front, be ready to clean, do Śiva. That is very important. If you cannot make the Śiva, then all is that. I have the right to sit always in front. You sit on that side, you sit on that side. No, that will bring your position down, that will bring your position down. Sit anywhere, it is okay. So this is how to improve our yoga situation and yoga classes in our place, in our country, in our ashrams, wherever we are. Do you agree or are you angry? And then we are always talking and belonging to the system. And a yoga teacher must keep the system and teach according to the system. And if you have any good ideas, then consult with the organizers of the system. You have no rights to change something or put something inside. And this is the biggest problem. Either you go to Spain, you go to Italy, you go to Germany, or you go to the Kalahagin Fort. Everywhere they are trying to change something inside, because they think it is better. I tried to change one or two bhajan lines, and Gurujī said, "Okay, you can do it if you like." Because I was telling him this and that, he said, "Okay." And after he asked me the question, "What does this mean? Can you explain to me?" And I was completely wrong. So Gurujī said, "Okay, then we write again the original line." That is it. So you think that you are the best yoga teacher, and you have more knowledge, and this and that. Swamiji just put some asanas in, and that is all, but we were correct. People like this, and now the modern system is like that, and modern is like this. No, we are not learning modern yoga; we are learning the ancient part of yoga. This is one of the mistakes of some religions in the world, that they are changing their scriptures according to modern society’s development. So, it is not that everyone will follow us. No. When you dig to find a diamond, all stones are not diamonds. Very few diamonds are there. So if you all will become self-realized, I can tell you that you are capable of making the whole of Europe self-realized. Or if only three or four of you, or one of you. And who is that one? It can be one of you. Like I just told one story about one monastery, no? That monastery became a ruin. Nobody was taking care, and nobody was cleaning, and this and that. And then one came, a very holy monk, and they all respected him very much. And they all went to, who was living in the monastery, a few monks, they went there and they said, "This is the condition of the monastery, and this." And he said, "Yes, some holy, self-realized one is missing." And they said, "But yeah, when will he come, or about where to find him?" So he just said, first he spoke about what it means to be a monk, what it means to be a holy man, how to live, and so on. Then he said, "But I think one of you could be that one." And they all began then. He thought, "I will be that." He thought he will be that. She thought she will be that. And they all begin to clean the monastery and take care of it, and the monastery had a completely different atmosphere immediately. So it is not that it is licent, that only Gajānanda will be that and nobody else. Then we can say this Hopanunga-Losbaram, so we will be murals. Swamiji had gesaakt, it will be only Gajānanda and finished. No. Maybe Gajānanda will not be at all. Maybe it is Hṛdayakamal. But maybe Hṛdayakamal will not be. Gajānanda has his own problems, Hṛdayakamal also has problems, swimming through it. So who knows? So maybe Albert, or what if he studied fine English? So the city is trying, no? Twenty-two transatlantic football players stayed in the football field, and there is one football. No one can then football in the door. And so it is. Now, so many of us, we are all the players in this field of spirituality. Now, how will you play? You will be the winner. So that is how you will practice, how you will follow the disciplines. All this, then you will be. And Gajānandī spoke yesterday very, very nicely about Guru Vākya and Guru Pūrṇimā. We had to stop him because many people had to go home, and we still had more program. But his suggestions or examples, what he gave, it was a very, very gold-wired sattva-nirastraig, no? So, and he did not tell any of his own stories. He presented you the Leelā-Amṛt, that you again look into the Leelā-Amṛt and in which way you should read the Leelā-Amṛt. Not only, ha, Gurujī said this, and Mahāprabhujī made this and that, no. Now, what do you learn from this story? That is it, what it means for you, what it changed in your thinking. So, every problem that we have, is there Agrabhāti somewhere? It goes always in my mouth, Ajīśvara house. Ajīśvara house. House, Ajīśvara house, thank you. So, what we learn from this is for yoga teachers. That is for yoga practitioners, and that is for the new, coming teacher. This is instruction for yoga teachers, what I am telling you, how to behave. Not that you know how to chant the Bhagavad-gītā, ślokas, and when somebody corrects you, you say, "No, you do not know. Did you learn Sanskrit? I am correct. Keep quiet." Oh, my God. The teacher will not. Always be ready to learn something. Always be ready. So there is one little story. With this story, I will stop. Sansegrikan Kopsmayas, they read it and they read it. When the God Kṛṣṇa became very famous. He was famous. But anyhow, he was grown, and he went from his gurukul, from school, home, and married Rukmaṇī. And he had a very nice time and was very famous. So everybody was praying to him, "God, God." So his guru, Ṛṣiśāṇḍīp, he thought, "I should go and see if Kṛṣṇa has his ego." Because now everybody says how great he is. So then the master is coming with a stick. So Ṛṣi Sandeep came with some disciples, 100 or 50 or 20, I do not know, I was not there, so I cannot tell you. And when Kṛṣṇa heard that Gurudev is coming to Śiśandīpa with horse-kucha, he ran on his shoe. Apart from the way he was sitting, he did not even have time to put on his shoe. He ran and greeted him and said, "Master, what has brought you here? What brought you here, my lord? You just sent me a message, and I would have come running to you. Why did you take the trouble to come here?" So Rishi smiled and he said, "Krishna, I came today with some special feelings." Yes, please, Master, tell me what? I heard that you can cook very well. You are a very good cook. I would like to eat your cooking today. He said, "I could have come to Lasram and cooked for you, sir." He said, "No, no, but my disciples are also here." So, okay, but only cook. You will cook only, do not take any help. Okay, sir, I will do. So he had to cook for all his disciples, disciples of the Master or his Guru brothers. And in two or three hours, he prepared a very nice dish for everybody, and he served it. And he first served Gurudev and then bhoga lagānā. First he offered him, and so first Gurudev tested, and he said, "Oh God, it is not eatable at all. Krishna, what he did spoiled everything. Oh God, remove it, cook again new." So Krishna said, "Sorry, sir," and He took it and again he tried hard to cook nicely. He gave all his love inside, all devotion, and he was singing mantra, you know, while cooking: "Jai Guru, Jai Guru... Jai, Jai Guru, Jai Guru, Jai Guru." Because Kṛṣṇa does not sing Govinda, Gopāla, because he himself is Gopāla, he cannot sing his own mantra. So he had to have another mantra, a Gurudev mantra. Again he brought food, and it was not good. Again, I said, "Oh God, it is just like an air day." He smoked it. And the third time, he cooked again, and when the third time Krishna brought the food and he tasted it, he said, "Oh Krishna, so delicious, so good. You have given the taste in this food from the whole three worlds." So he said, "Yes, master, that is your kṛpā." And he gave eating to everybody, and then after, Ṛṣi Sandīpa said, "Now I will go, but my horses are very tired. I think, Kṛṣṇa, you and Rukmiṇī both should pull my chariot." Krishna said, "Yes, Lord, I am very happy." So they brought him to his ashram, Gurukul. And Krishna said, "Lord, you had so much trouble with me. Excuse me." So the master said, "No, Kṛṣṇa, your first eating was so delicious, the second was more delicious, and the third was more delicious. My tongue still cannot decide which was the best one. But only I wanted to test that, if you have ego, that you, when I will reject your dish, then you will think that I am like a king, and I am God, and everybody is respecting me so much. And what does this old man say? He likes it or not?" That time, Kṛṣṇa, with folded hands, said, "Master, you know, I am so happy that at least in this whole universe, there is one who can find my mistakes also." That I can better myself, correct my mistakes. So Master said, "Yes, Krishna, there was no mistake. I only wanted to know if you have ego or not." And so when someone is correcting our mistakes, it is not so. So, the understanding science, so we are in a popcorn of the highest and finest. That is exploded, and so forth. No, accept, learn, learn. And there are some masters and disciples, the master is afraid to tell anything to the disciples. For example, myself. Why should we go far away? The disciples, they, weeks long, months long, their face is like many, many wasps. That is not the sign of yourself. It is not a master, not your friends, not other people. It is you. You did not master your ego. And that is lifelong; lifelong, it will trouble you. Even after death, it will trouble you. Thus, in the sloka, the Greeks do not close from their halls. Chorn, haas, night, gear, eifersucht, stalls. These are the snakes that bite us day and night. In Hindi, it is very nice. It says, Dacana means the snake bites. These snakes are all around the body, and they constantly bite you. What do snakes bite? Poison. They forgive this, not me. So unless we purify this, we cannot say that we are yoga teachers. We are very far. We are students. And a yoga teacher can learn many things from the people. So be ready to learn any time. This is very hard, what I am telling you, but it is the truth. So, all the yoga students, all the yoga learners, respect. As long as the teacher or the student does not have respect, they will not learn or will not come to perfection. But when a teacher or a master gets attention and respect from the students, the teacher should be careful that the ego does not go up and say, "Na ja, jetzt bin ich so groß, dass die mich verehren." This is again the second danger. So when one respects you, then you respect double. That is it. Da ist uns, there is our greatness. There is our greatness. Humbleness. So, there is a beautiful bhajan. Und in diesem Bajan sagt: Das Wasser sammelt sich immer, wo das Tal ist, wo die Tiefe ist. Regnet auf den Bergen hinauf, aber fließt Wasser dort, wo eine Tiefe ist. Und so die Gnade und die Liebe sammelt sich dort im Herzen, wo die Tiefe ist. Aber wenn dort voll ist, wie ein Überfluss, dann, egal was kommt, fließt es weiter, bleibt bei dir nichts. So mache dein Herz so tief, so weit, dass Gnade, Gottes Gnade, Gnade von deinen Schülern, Gnade von deinen Freunden, Gnade von deinem Meister, das kommt tief in dir und bleibt dort. So this is to create the harmony, create the atmosphere in our classroom, in our group, and in our society and life. Other than that, we know that there are still many people who do not respect and accept what we do. And we also do not accept what they do. But we should know only one thing: that we do not do bad things. Now, these people still do not know that we are such good yogīs, sāttvic yogīs. We do not consume here any kind of drugs, any kind of alcohol. We do not make noise in that way; we bring harmony, but they still do not know. And that is why they are afraid of what is happening. So Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, because they do not know." And that is it. And if this same space could have been bought by some other activities, where alcohol is consumed and people dance, and this and that, and noise, and every day, nobody will be able to come and tell them anything. That is it. So we have to bring this to the people’s awareness, to the consciousness that we are good. And this atmosphere should not remain limited in the classroom only, but also in the other rooms, in the street, and at home. So what you have here—peace, love, harmony, and wisdom received—should not end at the door. Otherwise, you will come into problems. And then, when you do not seriously receive or accept, then one day, sooner or later, your sūrat, your attention, yours, comes and asks you, "Now, in so many years, what have I realized? What have I achieved?" Dann plötzlich sagst du, eigentlich nicht. Eigentlich habe ich gar nicht verstanden, und ich habe gar nicht erreicht. What have I done for so many years here? This is, again, nobody to be blamed, only thyself. Because you did not understand. You did not behave according to that. You did intellectually, or you did with the heart, but still you did not understand. That is it. So, it is very important. We had this Gulab Kotari from Rajasthan in a web, and on the very first day, he spoke about the heart and my intellect. He said, "The heart needs another heart; the heart does not need another intellect." And then... After I said in my speech, yes, that heart can be a heart of a dog. When you come home, how happy is your dog? I think there is one creature in your house who will jump, and this is your... The dog. If you measure the happiness of the heart of that dog when he sees you, perhaps it is completely different than any human’s heart. And your cat may not jump on you, but her heart is so happy that she is going here and there, tail up, and touching the other furniture, you know. You see how she or he, the cat, is demonstrating the heart to heart, not the intellect to your heart. So the heart needs the heart. Now, do not understand man and wife, okay? Do not think girlfriend and boyfriend, no. This heart, maybe one day, will be very hard, but the dog will be lifelong faithful to you. But there are also humans where there are not only one life, but more lives; they will be happy and faithful to you. The heart needs the heart. The heart does not need the intellect. So when you have a problem of the heart and someone intellectually tries to explain it to you, that does not help your heart. But someone who will speak with the heart to you, heart to heart, then you will understand. So, heart to heart, do not understand again, please, always as an emotion. Do not understand again as a man and wife, because that will again create more problems; you will not understand this. So, heart-to-heart means mutual understanding, mutual understanding. When someone died, let us say in London, bombs exploded and many people died, and we said, "Oh God, terrible, pity," that is all. But if there would be someone involved from our family, we will be very sad and very, very, because that touches our heart. That does not touch our intellect only. Other touches, only our intellect did not touch the heart. And so when you will work with the heart in your class, when you will work in your workplace with your heart, when you work in your yoga classes and receive your friends with the heart, the atmosphere will be completely different, completely. And when you work with the heart, there will be no tiredness, there will be no stress. But when you work only with the intellect, then you will be in stress. And then we need stress management. And to find a real stress management is another stress. And when that is not according to your imagination, then another stress. So, because in the heart is residing that ātmā, that is the Self, and within the Self the ātmā is in the whole body, in everything.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

Email Notifications

You are welcome to subscribe to the Swamiji.tv Live Webcast announcements.

Contact Us

If you have any comments or technical problems with swamiji.tv website, please send us an email.

Download App

YouTube Channel