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Part 1: The Waterfall's Teaching and the Community's Strength I want to start first with the main duty I forgot last night: to give the children their prasāda. They had all gone to sleep, so can they come first so I don’t forget again? Thank you for the beautiful walk. From where I come from, the forest looks like something you only ever see in pictures; I used to wonder if those pictures were made in Photoshop. But now I see that they are real. This walk reminded me of something from when I was a teenager. Near our family home, a national park began right at the next house, and I spent most of my time in that forest. There was a river, too, but it flowed strongly only when it rained. Many beautiful little waterfalls would appear, making the same sound we heard along the way today. Back then I hadn’t heard of yoga or meditation, so somehow my meditation became the waterfall. I would sit there for a long, long time—half an hour, an hour at a time—trying to hear the individual sounds that make up the waterfall’s voice. Not the whole, but just one drop. As we walked along the river today, I was trying to hear that sound again. It is such a beautiful meditation, one that can take you so far in. I actually wanted to sit at the end and practice it, but it was already too late and we had to return. Perhaps when you have time, you can try it. You are so lucky to be surrounded by such a treasure of nature. It is a beautiful place to live, and what makes it even better is that all of you seem to truly appreciate it. In Sydney, where I come from, nature is just as beautiful, but people are too busy and rarely take time to enjoy it. How old is your community, and how does everyone manage to stay together for so long in such a large group? That must be something very special. I imagine it also brings certain complications—many problems and complications, in fact—because we too have a group in Jadan that has been together for a very long time. Our experience there might resonate with you. We see that people change. That is logical, of course. Everybody changes; if we didn’t change we wouldn’t be doing yoga. Transformation is part of the process, and that is wonderful. The difficulty arises when someone truly changes, but the people around them still remember how they used to be. It can be hard for them to look and see the actual person who stands before them now. People would say things that were really beautiful, straight from the heart, and others would think, “Yes, but hang on—you don’t live like that. Five years ago you did exactly the opposite.” But that was five years ago, not now. The challenge is to leave those old images behind and accept the person who is right in front of you. In a big community, of course people make mistakes; someone will offend someone else. Within that community, everyone’s responsibility is to learn something from the mistakes they themselves make, while the rest of us have the duty to forgive. Let it go and allow another chance. This may not always be the easiest practice. Someone may have done something that offended you and that you cannot forget. But a choice presents itself: we can suffer over what we didn’t like before, or we can enjoy witnessing positive change—at least that person is no longer as they were. If we don’t let go, we pull that person back toward old habits. We can either pull each other down, or support each other to rise. When we were in Strilky, I think I shared the story of the Jaipur āśram and how it stays standing. The Jaipur āśram is built on top of a garage. It is now four stories high, while Swamiji’s is flat. As Brahmānandājī tells me, the foundations are about this deep and this wide. How does it stay up? Probably all the buildings in Jaipur are the same: packed so tightly together that they lean completely against one another. Our part of the building cannot fall down because the neighbors hold it up, and their building cannot fall because we hold them up. If someone decided to do renovations—better not! So they keep going upward. This is what happens when you have a community like yours. When someone is going through what we call “a process” in English, that is when your saṅga, your company, holds you up. Later, you will be strong and someone else will be having the process, and you will hold them up. That is the beauty of satsaṅg, and of having a community that has been together and growing for so long. That is the benefit. The downside, as I mentioned, is that you can cling to what people used to be. I am sure each of you knows the feeling when something in you has changed; at that moment, you hope others will respect and accept that change. At the same time, we must do the same for others. Before you react based on what you remember someone did before, take a moment to look at them with fresh eyes. See them as they are right now; consider them as a new person for an instant. Observe the reality of how they are in this moment, and keep that in mind when you respond to what they are doing. Another thing we encounter in Jadan—and among all who pass through Jadan, and through my own experience—is that it is very, very dangerous to judge whether someone is further along the spiritual path than someone else. Yoga is not a competition or a race with prizes for first or second. Yet there are good yogīs and not-so-good yogīs. What is a good yogī? For me, it is simply someone who is trying to improve. If you look at someone and think, “Oh, such a peaceful person, he sits so beautifully for meditation,” that may be no big deal; he may have been that way since childhood, so there is no improvement there. Another person, when starting yoga, may have had many tensions, mental issues, or problems with others—someone you never wanted to see, so full of anger, always yelling at you. But if that person now, instead of being angry every single minute, is only angry once a week for five minutes, that is good yoga practice. That is real movement on the path. So which one is the better yogī? For me, it is the one who is moving. All we can ask of each other is that we genuinely practice, genuinely try our best. There is a story from the Buddha. One of his disciples was always complaining and yelling at him—always questioning, always insisting that what the Buddha taught was unacceptable, and creating trouble for everyone around him. All the disciples would think, “Oh no, he’s coming to me.” When they saw him approaching, they would say to someone else, “You deal with him today.” When that disciple died, everybody breathed a sigh of relief: now we will have some peace. But the Buddha wept because he was gone. The disciples came and said, “What are you doing? Why are you so upset? He was nothing but trouble.” The Buddha replied, “I just lost one of my best yoga teachers.” Every time he gave us trouble, he was teaching us something—not consciously, but it was a chance to learn. What a great outlook. So you have this community, such a beautiful and large group. Everyone here has been practicing for a long time, with so much experience. Each person in this room holds experiences others do not have, and can offer something from which everyone could learn. It is vital that we do not become so absorbed in our own practice that we fail to hear all the knowledge surrounding us. For everyone in our yoga family, let us not close our eyes and remember them as we first met them; instead, let us keep our eyes open and see them as they are now. When someone is in a phase where they are ready to offer something, they will be ready to share. And when any of our brothers and sisters are struggling, help them—not by forcing help but by offering it. If they accept, they are welcome. It is like leaving chocolates at the door: if people want them, they are welcome to take them; if not, they need not. People either offer themselves, or take themselves, or, if they do not wish, they do not take. In reality, trying to explain to people what they are doing wrong or what they should change is a waste of time. In everyday life, when you try to explain or convince someone of their faults, it rarely works. But by living our own yoga path and letting our own qualities shine, people learn from that. In such a group, with so many different types of people, all the qualities you would like to see in yourself are surely visible in someone around you. None of us may be complete, but we can take a little honey from one, and from another, and another, like a bee visiting flowers. Dattatreya was one of the original gurus in the Hindu tradition, an Ādiguru. He is the guru of one of the Akhāṛās, the Juna Akhāṛā, and is what they call their Iṣṭadev, their personal form of God. He had, I think, twenty-four gurus. He learned from everything wherever he went. His gurus included a small bird, a river, a tree, and so on. From each, he learned one quality. As he walked through the forest doing his sādhanā, he gradually gathered teachings from nature and the things around him. Each encounter is described in the Purāṇa—what he saw, how it helped him, and what it explained. In that same small way, everyone around us can be our guru. Satguru is something else. Satguru is the true guru, our real guru. Part 2: Finding Gurus Everywhere: Understanding, Community, and Inner Stillness But the word “guru” is also used for the teachers you have along the way. For instance, in our school in Jadan, Swāmījī insists that the teachers be called Gurujī. Because when a child is learning, for that subject, that teacher is their guru. They have a guru for maths, a guru for science, a guru for English, and a guru for Hindi. For each one, there is a guru. They also call their parents their first guru, because parents teach them how to grow up. And also their parents are their guru because they teach them how to grow. And the Satguru is the one who shows you the way on the path further. That is our Swāmījī. But if you can look at everyone around you here in your yoga community as a small guru for you—at some point they have something special that you may not have. They may also be the guru of how not to do it. But still, you’re going to learn from it. If you can look at everyone around you in that way, it just opens so much of your opportunity for learning. The parents here will know how much they learn from their children. Sometimes children can say things so simply and just make it so clear, because they see it with open eyes and without any complexes. And they allow you to look at things from an angle you would never have considered. So at the same time, the parent is teaching the child, and the child is teaching the parent. It’s so beautiful, always. In every moment, there’s a chance for learning. I think that Gaṅgā might be a smiling guru—always smiling. In the sannyāsī tradition also, when you take sannyāsa, you have different gurus. For instance, you have one for the cloth; they call it Bhagavāguru because of the color. One for the Rudrākṣa. Even one for the underwear you’re supposed to wear. And of course, around all of those comes your Satguru, who is the one who gives you the dīkṣā. But each of those gurus teaches you about that little aspect of the sannyāsī life. There’s one word in English: understanding. Which, of course, when you have a yoga community as big as this, you might need a lot of. Now, how do you get understanding for somebody? The secret of it is in the word itself: you have to stand under somebody. “Under” means under, and “stand” means to stand. You have to let yourself be there below them a little bit, so that they can teach you something. If you come already with your opinion about what they are going to say, you have already formed your opinion, so then you don’t have room for their feelings and for their actual reality to come into you. So then you can’t understand what they’re feeling, or why they’re upset, or what is going on with them. Because without taking the time, you’ve already decided what is wrong. Even if it may be that they want to express to you a problem which they have, to be able to help them with the problem, you actually have to accept it partly as yours. In some small form, let them give it to you. And then you can observe it, because now it is also yours. You can observe it and then offer something back. So it’s a constant circle of someone giving and you standing underneath. You have to stand under that person, as if on a lower level, so that you can accept them. And then, if they are going to understand your answer, then the position will have to change. You can’t understand properly without a certain type of humbleness—to at least accept that you don’t know what’s going on with that person. So that you can then become open, so that they can try to explain. And that’s such an important quality to have when you have such a group of people: to be able to understand everyone’s realizations, everyone’s great ideas, and also to understand their issues, their problems, the things that restrict them, and then to accept those things, just in the same way that you would hope and wish that everyone else would understand and accept what you have to say, or to understand and accept the difficulties you are going through. It’s just a constant flow of accepting and giving, accepting and giving. And when you can remain open to that, that is what makes a good community, a good yoga community, become great. I think you’ve all probably had the experience that one of the most amazing things about Swāmījī is how quickly he seems to understand what you want to express to him. Sometimes when you come to him with a problem, it’s almost as if words aren’t necessary, and sometimes you even realize that he’s better at understanding it than you are. Sometimes it’s really important to take a step down from your own ego and look at yourself as you really are—no judgments, there’s no right or wrong, there’s no perfect. Just to see things as they are. Just to be realistic with yourself: realistic to see your negative points, and just as realistic and just as open to see your own positive points. And not to put them together with any judgment that you are better than somebody else or worse than somebody else, but just to see the beauty of where you are at this present moment. And by understanding that, knowing which way you want to move, where is your next step. In Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, the concept is not there of things being right or wrong. It’s only a question of whether they’re good for your yoga development, for your spiritual path, or whether they’re taking you backwards. So there’s not a judgment in there; it’s just a question of what would be better for me to do—I would prefer to do that. The same when you’re looking at yourself with understanding: it makes no sense to get angry that I’m constantly doing this same thing. I don’t like this part of myself. I don’t like the way I did that. If you get stuck in thinking like that, then you’re just pulling yourself backwards. It is that kind of understanding which we have to practice with: to look at ourselves with openness, but also with compassion. Like a young child, when they do something wrong again and again, you can’t really get angry with them; it’s just part of being a child. But you slowly try and make it so that behavior will change. Not to do things violently towards oneself, or angrily towards oneself, or with judgment towards oneself. But at the same time, very gently, to constantly push ourselves forward, to keep going on the path, to try and develop ourselves and those positive qualities within us. And with time, also to just settle our minds and calm ourselves down. Look within with love and see what’s inside. And just enjoy our real nature, which is so beautiful. One of my small gurus from last year—I went to Australia. Swāmījī makes this joke also, but it really was a kangaroo. I was on one farm, and there were a lot of kangaroos jumping around. And they all have these little babies in their pouch at the front, the mothers. And these kangaroos are jumping so high and going so fast, and the baby is just sitting there, completely relaxed and not moving, actually. And the mother, with her legs, is making such a suspension—like in a car—that’s why it’s not moving. (We have to give the translator a challenge, you know. Thank you very much.) But what I observed from that was: when we sit for meditation, and when we move in the world, if we can keep one part of ourselves stable—one part, the center stable—it makes so much difference to how you move. For me, when I’m sitting for meditation, after watching that kangaroo, I started to concentrate so much on how still this part of my body was. And now, since I’ve been watching these kangaroos, when I sit in meditation, I really focus on this part around the belly. Because in reality, everything sits on top of this when you meditate. Our lungs are sitting on top of it when we try to calm our breathing. If they’re sitting on something that’s going like this, it doesn’t make much sense. Our head is sitting on top of it also, on top of here, which is on top of here. So in reality, the start of our balance starts from here. As you know, when Swāmījī is teaching a meditation, he always starts with relaxing the physical body, then calming the breathing and concentrating on your breathing, and then going to the meditation. And for me—you can try it sometime—I started to concentrate at the start of the meditation on trying to have this part of my body as still as possible. A lot of the time I was going just a little bit like this, and like this, or like this, and that. And when I would concentrate on it and really try to make that center, that center of your gravity, still, it would make such a difference to how I would feel mentally. And it somehow brings, for me, a fineness to the meditation. It already feels, “Oh, this is going to be nice.” That, just for me, was an example of those things where you can learn from anything. The same with that kangaroo: it has a stable place in its middle. And if you think about yourself when you go outside into the world, and things are going on, of course you’re doing things. Your mind is on your work or interacting with people, your hands are moving, your legs are moving. But if you have your inner peace there, and you can also maintain a small amount of it, that changes how you’re reacting to things around you. We can’t stop moving; we can’t stop being in the world. And that kangaroo also—it’s moving so fast and can move so quickly here and there. But with practice and with observing, we can keep still and in a stability there. Keep that foundation there and always have it with us. People can take away your outer peace. They can make noise around you. They can be throwing things, and everything can be falling down. But those outer things, in reality, if you are aware of your inner peace, they cannot disturb it. You can disturb it—you cannot see it, that’s another thing. But it will always be there. It will still always be inside you. It’s just that you may not be aware of it. And with practice, understanding, and patience, you can take that treasure with you everywhere you go. And take that which you get inside the class, and that which you get when you come here and meditate together. Take that with you everywhere you go. And of course, then that affects us, and it affects how we deal with other people. And then it also spreads to those people that we deal with, that we interact with. Om Boris and Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai