TV Channel

Hari Om, everybody. You may recall that last night, Swāmījī gave me the duty to speak about and sing this bhajan concerning Kusanga. I must admit, I much prefer to speak and sing about Satsanga. So, I somewhat avoided this bhajan, but now it is Guruvākya. Perhaps it is good to delve into this topic for a moment. Let us proceed step by step. This bhajan is "Manā Sabha Koyuri, Kusangyong Kesang." We will begin with the chorus and then discuss its meaning. It addresses our manas, our mind. "Oh my mind, you have lost everything." You know the words kusaṅg and satsaṅg. Saṅg means to be together. Satsaṅg means to be together with people searching for Sat, the Truth, the Reality, which also means searching for God. "Ku" in Hindi is essentially always negative. So, it is negative society—negative in various ways. It is not so much a judgment but a clear statement pointing in the direction of Māyā. Thus, we could say satsaṅg and kusaṅg fundamentally mean: what uplifts our spiritual energy is satsaṅg, and what brings it down is kusaṅg. It is not a judgment; it is something for self-analysis. When I go there, when I am with certain people, how does it influence me? How do I feel? What kind of desires does it awaken? In which direction am I moving? In this way, you can always ask yourself: is this actually satsaṅg for me, or is it kusaṅg? Furthermore, Swāmījī emphasized yesterday several times: satsaṅg is that which unites, bringing us to oneness, and kusaṅg is that which divides, bringing us to duality, which often means quarreling. As Swāmījī puts it in other words, love is that which unites, and hate is that which divides. "Satta Guru śaraṇābhachana be Mokahaya." Satta Guru Śaraṇa means the shelter of the Guru. When do we come into the shelter of the Guru? It refers very clearly to the moment we become a disciple. A disciple is also called a śaraṅgati—someone who has entered the śaraṇa, the shelter of a Gurudev. This is a very clearly defined moment: the moment of mantra initiation. What happens during mantra initiation? It is a moment of mutual commitment between the guru and the new disciple. The commitment from the guru's side is the promise, the vow: "I will guide you." I will guide you until you reach the aim. This is a profound promise, for who can say we will reach the aim in this very life? The Guru's promise is valid for perhaps many, many lives, until we truly attain that state of consciousness which he, the guru, possesses. And our commitment? Our commitment is to follow, to follow until we reach the aim. This, too, may be a promise for many lives. This is the Guru Śaraṇ Baccan. Bachchan means the word; here, concretely, the vow, the promise. It is the promise you gave when you were initiated into the mantra, when you became a disciple. Now it says "bemuka hoye." Bemuka means something like unspoken, as if you wrote something and then crossed it out. So, the promise you gave before the guru during your initiation now becomes invalid. You inherently feel as if you are no longer a disciple, as if you no longer have a guru. The moment you start thinking like that, you do not truly know the consequences. This bhajan exists to make us aware of those consequences. The second line of the refrain already gives the first statement about that. It says, "bhajana." We usually know bhajan just as our singing of songs. But the real, deeper meaning of bhajan is essentially anything you do in praise of God, in search of God. So, bhajan means any kind of sādhanā. It means reading spiritual books, inspiring others, speaking about God. It means what we are doing to sing the glory of God. However, the most important point—and we have this very clearly in other bhajans of Holy Gurujī—the most important point of bhajan is mantra japa. That is the form in which we remember God, remember the guru, and become close to him. Now it says, "pariyo bhajanme bhaṅg." Bhang means an interruption, a disturbance. The mantra is our daily practice. It is precisely what we received during initiation. It is the one means we need to achieve our aim; nothing else is necessary. Swāmījī also gives Kriyā initiation, but he has often said you do not really need it, because with the mantra, you already have everything you need. So, this is the one technique we must practice lifelong, day by day—yoga in daily life. Now, it says there will be a disturbance in that. Because the mantra is your connection to the guru; you received it from him. Naturally, any time you repeat your mantra, you also think of the guru. But now, your inner feelings have changed toward the guru. It becomes hard for you to repeat this mantra. It is as if you hate Coca-Cola, but you received Coca-Cola as your mantra. What will you do with it? Your inner feelings will be upset every time you repeat the mantra, or even think of it. I know people I have spoken with who recently changed their mind and said, "No, I do not want Swāmījī anymore." I asked them, "So what about your practice? What about your mantra?" They said, "Oh, don't worry, I will continue." But this bhajan says you will not. This is an illusion. We think in the moment it is just a small thing when we change, but in the end, everything will be destroyed. That is exactly what this bhajan says: "manasabha koyuri." "Sabha" means everything. It starts with a small thing, but in the end we realize we have lost everything. Let us go into the first verse. It begins by enumerating all that which gets influenced, all that we lose through kusaṅg. The first three words are: Dhīraja, Dharma, Dhyāna. Dhīraja comes from the word "dhir," meaning slowly. When something proceeds slowly, it can be challenging for us. For example, when we are standing in a queue for food, what we need then is dhīraja, patience. This bhajan addresses the manas, the mind. When we go into kusaṅg, the qualities of the mind awaken. One of them is the desire to have everything immediately. So, impatience arises instead of dhairya (forbearance). Dharma, you know, means righteousness, duty. Fundamentally, it means the duty we have as human beings. Because we are no longer thinking about the purpose of life, we become lost. What is the actual purpose of what I am doing in this life? Only as humans do we have the chance to practice, to follow a guru, to develop bhakti, and to realize our true aim. We cannot do this in any other form. We have many bhajans about this point, so we definitely know it. But now we lose it. We start to live life like everyone else—for family, money, enjoyment. We forget our dharma, the dharma of human life. Then we become lost in saṃsāra, which Swāmījī always translates as "that which has no sense." And we lose dhyāna, meditation. We spoke about this already. Because then we have nothing to concentrate on in our meditation. All these worldly thoughts arise and occupy our mind while we sit and try to meditate. We start thinking about our desires. Then it continues: "Tāmasa umāṅga." Tāmasa is another spelling for Tamas, meaning Tamas guṇa. And umāṅga means strong desires. So now, Tamas guṇa takes over. Desires awaken within us. In Tamas guṇa, you cannot meditate; that is very clear. You need Sattva guṇa: balance, harmony. But now Tamas guṇa is dominant. Then your meditation has nothing to do with real meditation anymore. We are now under the guidance of the mind, and the mind is always looking for enjoyments. This leads to the next line: "Viṣaya bhoga me phir bhaṭṭakto." Viṣaya are the objects of the sense organs. Bhoga means to enjoy. So now, like everyone in this world, we look for, "Where can I have some kind of enjoyment?" Scientifically speaking, it means just satisfying the desire of one of our sense organs. I go to a concert because I want to hear something nice with my ears. I go to a gallery because I want to see something nice with my eyes. I go to a restaurant because I want to enjoy something nice on my tongue. I have sex because I want to have a pleasant sensation on my skin. These are all just desires of the sense organs. And we follow them. The mind follows this. Now the mind is the king, and we are its slaves. The worst part is that we are not aware of this. So, the bhajan tries to awaken us. It says, "Now, enjoying all these sense objects, you are wandering around restlessly, aimlessly." It was already stated that you lose your direction; your life's direction changes. Now, you could say you have no direction at all. Wherever you see, hear, or feel something enjoyable, there you run. So, you become a slave to your sense organs. You run here, you run there, you run aimlessly in circles. And through all this: "Kapati nitya kolam." Kapati, nitya—that means insincere, deceitful, and low-minded. These qualities now awaken in you because you want only to enjoy. And since you have also lost morality, you may sometimes use means that are no longer right. And kolam, I just looked it up in the dictionary; it is not a Hindi word but a Māwarī word meaning a troublemaker, a villain. So, you become a troublemaker, not only for yourself but also for others. I think many understand what this means. Let us come to the third verse. It is a bhajan of Mahāprabhujī. So naturally, in the last verse, he addresses his guru, Śrī Devapurījī. He says: "Śrī pūjā bhagavān deva purī sa mast fakīr malam." Mast, you have it in other bhajans as well, means intoxicated. In a worldly sense, one might say someone who has drunk too much becomes must, completely crazy. But here it means intoxicated by the divine. To those outside, it may look like craziness because they cannot understand or experience that divine bliss. Fakīr is a Muslim word; for us, it would mean a yogī or a sādhu. And here comes also Malang: Fakīr Malang. That means truly a sādhu in trance, in samādhi. Now it is interesting; suddenly it seems the topic has changed. This is what I like in our bhajans; often we really have to think and figure out why this comes now. What is the context? How is it connected that we spoke all the time about the effects of Kusanga, and now suddenly he says, "My master, he is in samādhi and in bliss"? The connection is that it is important to understand a little more deeply the tricky, dangerous aspect of kusaṅga. How can it happen that we truly fall into kusaṅg? The point is joy. We are all searching for joy, for happiness in life—everyone, not just us. We have different strategies for how to achieve it. Mostly, we think if we had a lot of money, then we would be happy. Or a happy family life, traveling, fame, winning the Olympic Games, or whatever. All these are different strategies to find happiness in the world. In the end, they fall into the category of simply enjoying with our sense organs. But we all know we cannot find true happiness there. So now, the problem of Kusanga is that it also offers us a kind of happiness. And it is very gradual. When we speak about Kusanga, we are actually speaking about Māyā, how through Kusanga the Māyā gradually influences us. Let me try to explain it with a practical example so we understand how it works. I will speak personally now. I was doing karma yoga, and it was my whole joy. My happiness was in doing that. Often after midnight, I was still engaged in it. Then, in a partnership, my friend said, "In the evening, I think I would like to go to the cinema, or for a walk, or do this or that." My standard answer was, "Oh, that's a nice idea, but you know, I have to do my karma yoga first." And she understood. So, I did my karma yoga, and afterwards we did the other activity. But sometimes it didn't fit together. And I said, "Okay, maybe I can do it a little quicker." So, I still did the karma yoga; no one felt any difference, but I did it a bit quicker. But then sometimes this didn't really work, so I had to do it a little differently, not as I usually would, somehow. That means not with as much diligence, not with as much love. The next step: I would say, "Actually, I think I can do it tomorrow." So, already postponing. And then the next day I would say, "But why must I always do that? There are so many others; they can also do something." And then the last step is: "Why am I doing this all the time? Let others do it." And you stop doing it. Do you understand how it goes step by step, slowly, slowly? And at every moment, you have good arguments. And in the end, you realize you have lost everything. That is how gradually we can move from satsaṅg to kusaṅg. How, from spirituality, we slowly fall into Māyā. And the dangerous point of kusaṅg is that it has a power; it has this attractive power—there is something to enjoy. And only much later do we realize, sorry, the real joy cannot be found there. Much later, you realize the disappointment, but then it is usually too late. So, this is the danger: that through Kusanga, we change our understanding of where and how to find happiness. As we have in the bhajan, "Milletahe satsa sukhe keval guru deva apke charanome"—the true happiness you can find only at the feet of the Gurudeva. And now we start searching for happiness somewhere else. Here now comes the connection: why does Mahāprabhujī suddenly speak about Śrī Devapurījī? He says he is a Mastavā Kiyāmalāṅg—he is in trance, in samādhi, in bliss. Because even if we find happiness in the world for some time, it is only temporary, always dependent on certain conditions. The easiest example to understand is eating. You are hungry, then you get a beautiful meal, and you are happy. But for how long? After some hours, you are hungry again, and you try to repeat it and repeat it. And if only once you do not get your meal, it becomes a real problem. That is the nature of all happiness we can ever find in this world. When Mahāprabhujī speaks about Śrī Devapurījī being in divine bliss, he wants to awaken us to go for the right aim. Do not think too narrow-mindedly, just about these worldly enjoyments. Go for the right thing—the bliss which is never-ending, which is infinite and independent of anything. So, we are constantly in that divine bliss. And at the end, Mahāprabhujī speaks about himself: "Śrī svāmī deva śaraṇa sattva gurukho." I, Mahāprabhujī, have come, therefore, into the shelter of my guru. We have the same word, śaraṇ, which we had in the refrain. It means to surrender to the guru, to become a disciple. We must understand that this is not a normal statement from Mahāprabhujī. He was enlightened from birth; we know this from Līlā Amṛt. He did not need any guru. But even he took a guru, took initiation, became a disciple, and behaved as a disciple his entire life. Swāmījī also behaved toward Holī Gurujī as a disciple his entire life, only to give us an example of the right relationship between guru and disciple. And that we should never leave that. "Rahe Hameshā Saṅg"—I will always be in his company. I will never leave you. That is the final word of Mahāprabhujī. I think the present situation makes it clear that this bhajan has quite some actual importance. And when I try to explain that Māyā is so tricky, getting us step by step—be careful right from the beginning. When you observe you are already going a little in this direction, just come back. Let us always be together and have satsaṅg, not kusaṅg. Deep night, I'm back. Vane ki chen.