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Part 1: Finding Stillness: Reflections on Sitting, Spiritual Beginnings, and Anger Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Śrī Devpurījī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁt, Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Purī Jī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁt, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Satguru Deva Kī Jai. That one evening in Jaipur will remain in my mind forever. At one o’clock in the morning, they started testing the mics for some program, perhaps ten houses away. And this fellow went, “Testing, testing, one, two, one, two.” And he continued, “Testing, testing, one, two, one, two,” for three hours. Then he started with numbers, and I really felt like going and telling him, “One, two, three.” So whenever I hear in India someone—it’s quite normal when they’re testing the mics—they just go, “Testing, testing, one, two,” and I just think, “Oh, that night.” Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān, a kid. I just want to speak about a few small points. In the last days, several people have asked me how to be able to sit better. When you’re living in India, it starts to become quite natural—meaning how to sit on the floor, how to be able to sit more comfortably on the floor. From my experience, I don’t think that by doing certain āsanas you can really get to that position of being in comfort sitting. Doing āsanas cannot change so much how you can sit. But if you seriously want to be able to sit better, then it requires some small, small changes of lifestyle. You have to make that type of sitting part of your daily routine life. In Jadan, I made it so that in the office where I am, there are no chairs; we sit on the floor. Obviously, you can’t do that in your office, or you’ll probably get fired. But there are things you can do in your life. If you think about it, if you’re watching television, for instance, rather than sitting on the sofa, sit on the floor. Perhaps, if you can think of a way in your house, when you’re eating, that you actually eat on the floor. Or when you’re checking your mail, if you have a laptop, then it’s not so difficult to arrange a system so that you can be sitting on the floor while you’re doing it. It’s those types of things that really change how you sit. Because when you’re sitting and you concentrate on something else, you don’t notice that your legs relax, and you relax that part of your body. And if you re-establish that habit: when we were children, it was no problem to sit on the floor. But slowly, slowly, the more we sit in chairs and sit in postures like this and so on, it gets more tight, more difficult. You know, if you want to make that sitting posture comfortable, so that in the Anuṣṭhāna it will be so much easier, then it has to be a part of every day to practice that. And they’re not things that take time, because you’re anyhow going to eat, and you’re anyhow going to check the mail, and you’re anyhow going to do those other things. It’s another form of multitasking. You’re just getting one more thing done at the same time. It can be when you’re talking with your children or when you’re playing—make sure you sit on the floor rather than sit in a chair. There are so many ways you can think about in your daily life where you could fit that in. You know, here, for instance—I mean, here we’re doing a lot of sitting anyway—but when you go in the park, sit on the grass rather than on the bench or anything. And with time, it just becomes more and more natural; it becomes your natural posture. The second, there are always the same questions coming in the box. The one that comes most often is: how did I come to yoga? I don’t know. By accident. But let me try to say something. When I was young, I would say in high school—actually, for me, the first awareness of being spiritual came through English poetry. I don’t know if any of you have ever read the English Romantic poets, like Keats and Wordsworth and so on. They are poets who were writing about nature and about seeing God in nature. And that oneness between God and nature and us. And that for me was a complete opening. I lived in a part of Sydney where my parents’ house is. There’s one more house, and then there’s a national park. And it’s actually the second oldest national park in the world. So the first national park ever made was in Yellowstone, in America, and this was the second one. So it’s in very good condition, and it’s very natural. And I would just walk out the back of our yard and go down, and there were waterfalls and rivers. So this poetry, together with that lifestyle, was completely perfect for me. I ended up—I mean, it’s one thing to sit on the floor and check the email, but I would actually do everything in the national park. After school, I’d take my bag with my homework, and I would go and sit by the waterfall and do my homework there. And we’d study there and so on. And then from there, I started to read more about spirituality—things to do with yoga, also things to do with Buddhism, and about meditation. And I don’t know, sort of naturally, I started to meditate by that waterfall. And I started to meditate under the waterfall, which will always be a very special place to me. I don’t know if it was more of a concentration, but I used to try and go into the waterfall, into the sounds of the waterfall. And actually, to hear the next level of sound within, like what were the small sounds that were making up that big sound. And doing that, I got quite lost—I mean, lost inside, it was beautiful. There were sounds, and then there were smaller sounds, and then there were the parts of the waterfall, and then there were the actual drops within those parts. And I would spend as long there as I could, until it was too uncomfortable to sit. Which wasn’t very long. And so from there I went traveling around the world, and spent some six months in Europe, and quite some time in Asia also, especially in Malaysia. Slowly, I became more curious about different parts and going. And going back to Sydney, I did my first yoga class, which was actually from Yoga in Daily Life. They were running courses in a center in Cronulla, which is near to my home. It was quite strange because my friends from school and I decided to all go together. And we dragged along my mother as well, and somebody else’s mother. I think there were about 25 people in the course, and 15 of them were my friends. And Cronulla is very near to the beach, so immediately after class we were all down at the beach. And before also, it was swim, yoga class, swim. In that course, at the end of the course, Hariharānandajī came for two nights to give a meditation class. And that was very special. So after experiencing that, I thought, “Well, he’s very special; I’d love to meet his master.” And from there, slowly, I became involved in the ashram. It was maybe six months before Swamijī was coming at that stage. I was going to Annandale, which is quite far from where I live. Sydney is a huge city, so basically everything is at least one hour away. Sydney is a big city, so everything is at least an hour’s distance. From my family’s house to the center of the city is about 25 kilometers, and Annandale is right in the center, so I used to go there by train and then do the thing which entertained the newspapers very much when I became a Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara—Vlakem, which was riding to the āśram on my skateboard. But I found that actually perfect because the skateboard was a perfect meditation stool once I got there. I’d sit on it as a meditation stool. Skateboards make excellent meditation stools because they go on an angle that you like. Interesting—I moved into a place more in the city at that stage with one friend. And I was going to the ashram, and one day I was talking with Hariharanandajī about where I was living. He’d also lived in that area before. And he’s saying, “Oh yeah, if you go from there to the beach,” and you walk up to the top of the hill, there’s this place where you can go down, and there’s a cave. And if you sit there in the morning, nobody can see you, and you can see the sun rising over the ocean. It’s the most perfect place to meditate. As he started telling me, I was thinking, yeah, yeah... yeah. Because that’s exactly the place that I was riding to at five o’clock in the morning to go for meditation on my skateboard. It’s one very small cave, and really, you can’t see the world behind you. Nobody would know you were there. And you’re on a cliff on top of the ocean, just looking straight out towards the sun. After Swamiji came to Sydney, he had his tour that year. I decided that later in the year I would go to India for a few months. But first, I came here to Strilky and to Vaibh. This was in 1996. And then I went to India for a few months, and that’s it. End of story. Still there. I think the first month is done—it took 15 years. So that’s my story of how I came. As soon as I was in the ashram in Annandale, it already felt like just the right place to be. And that was actually the time when they purchased the ashram in Sydney. And it was the most amazing energy of chaos, as they tried to transform an old warehouse into an ashram before Swamiji arrived a few months later. There were about twenty people living inside, and the walls were just made from curtains, and I think there was one bathroom, and it was just any time people were doing karma yoga. It was a great time to be there. So that’s that question done. The next question that’s constantly coming in the box is how to deal with anger. And Gañjīt Ānandjī is going to say something on that as well. I have to say, I consider that people are experts on certain subjects—according to their nature. And this is not actually my expertise, because I’m not by nature such an angry person. So I don’t have that experience that some other people have of how to deal with that. You know, we may think, when we have—all of us have our issues and our things which are difficult for us. Mine’s perhaps the opposite. I have a problem telling people something that they would not like to hear. Some people have a problem with not telling them. But according to that, really, your experience is there. The same way, the best doctor is somebody who had that illness which is to be treated. And this is the school principle: you have to practice being angry sometimes. Or acting angry. And we were in Udaipur—my father came to India to visit, to check what on earth his boy was doing over there. And we went for a tour to Udaipur. The taxi driver was interesting. This was one of the great Indian taxi drivers. When we passed through Pali, he tried to convince us that it would be really good if we took all of his family with us, including the children, so that they could also see Udaipur. He wanted to take five children and his wife. And we were going in an Ambassador, in a small car. Anyhow, we got to Udaipur without the family. And he was just constantly doing stupid things or deliberately doing things to annoy us. And my father was quite calm for some time. And then, eventually, he had enough. But we were talking about something—you know, about the view or something, what was going on outside—and then suddenly he just went, “Rah!” Absolutely exploded on this taxi driver. It was great. It was just what the taxi driver could relate to. But it went on for about 10 or 15 seconds, that he was really angry with this taxi driver. And then he was finished, and he just turned to me and he said, “Isn’t that so beautiful? Look at that.” He looked at me and said, “Look, that’s a really beautiful view over there.” As if nothing had happened. And here he wants practice—because he was actually in that school, he had practice with children for many years. And for him, the use of his voice and expressing something strongly was a tool. Because I think we know that in certain situations, anger is just a natural reaction that comes out. But for me, the problem is not with getting angry, but it’s with holding on to it afterwards. But it did not disturb his day at all. I think when we are trying to deal with our anger, I don’t know that we can prevent it from coming completely. But why should it affect us afterwards? You know, if something happened on the way here to Strilky and it made you angry, why should that go into the hall when you start to do your meditation? That was already there, it’s gone, it’s passed. And if it’s an issue that’s not yet resolved, it will also be waiting afterwards. But the level to which it will affect us and disturb us is actually up to us, depending on how much we hold on to it. There is that example I told last week, but for those who weren’t here, of the great episode at the gate in Jadan Āśram last month. The guard came to me in the morning, very excited about what had happened on the night shift. He said, “I have to tell you what happened. I have to tell you. I have to tell you something. I have to tell you something.” He stayed very late, so I knew it must have been something good. He should leave at 7 o’clock in the morning; it was already 9 o’clock, and he was waiting to tell me this story. And he said, “Last night there was this man at the gate, completely drunk. And he was falling at the gate and saying, ‘Let me out, let me out! Open the lock, let me go home! I want to go to the village.’ And our guard, Guman Singh Ji, said—and I told him—‘I’m standing inside, and you’re outside the gate. The village is behind you.’ And this fellow, this poor fellow, was screaming at the gate, ‘Man, you’re lying, you’re lying! Open the lock, let me out.’ And he said it took ten minutes to convince the fellow to turn around so that he could see that the village was behind him and he wasn’t locked in.” What to do? That is so much like our mind. You know, we hold on to that thing that makes us angry, and say it’s constantly giving us trouble; it’s constantly making us angry. But it’s not locking us in behind us; if we turn around, it’s not there. Part 2: Understanding, Compassion, and Self-Forgiveness: Keys on the Spiritual Path There are some things that are not easy to simply turn around, but most of the things that make us angry or irritate us can be redirected. They need not destroy our entire day. Similarly, if we can improve our ability to communicate what we feel to others without becoming disturbed by it, that is perhaps a skill that is greatly under-practiced. It seems that throughout the world, there is a deficiency in the ability to say things without speaking out of anger or being upset. To be able to just go to somebody and say, “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t like the way that you’re doing that. I just want you to know that’s how I feel.” Perhaps that is hard because the other person may not change as a result. But it can be very surprising when you express that to someone and they say, “Oh, really? I didn’t realize that.” And then it truly makes a difference. Whereas, when someone is angry at you, the natural reaction is to raise a barrier and protect yourself, trying to block out what they are saying. The questions arriving in the box perhaps all relate to the same thing: anger. And then we will talk about forgiveness, and after that, about understanding. I would very much like to deconstruct the word “understanding.” Two words are at play: understanding and compassion. If you break “understanding” into two parts, you have “under” and “standing.” To understand somebody, you must stand underneath them. You have to be able to sit, as it is said in yoga philosophy, sat below the teacher so that knowledge can flow toward you. To understand another person or a child, you must sit in such a relation to them that their opinion and their knowledge can come down to you. I don’t know about your mind, but in my own, I so often catch myself listening to someone while not truly listening, because my opinion of what they should think is already running in my mind. That is not understanding; it is overstanding. First, one must listen, take it in, and accept from their perspective what is real. That is the only way to truly understand that person. And after understanding, then you can form an opinion. And then, in an ideal situation, they will also understand you. It is a constant flow of receiving knowledge and giving knowledge, receiving and giving. But for that relationship to work, you must be prepared for both: to receive and to give. The other word is compassion, so commonly used in our yoga practice. “Compassion” comes from two words: “common passion.” Here we are not talking about passion as desire for someone, but passion in a general sense: What is the other person feeling? What is strong inside them? It is a very beautiful word, because it means you actually become one with that person. You feel what is going on inside them. You try to become one with how it must be for them. It is not a matter of feeling sorry for someone; that is somehow arrogant—the idea that I am in a better position than you, so I feel sorry for you because your situation is so bad. Compassion is when you actually feel that pain, or feel that happiness, or feel that frustration that is in the other person. You become one with it. That is how you can support someone; that is how you truly can give compassion. Perhaps one could even say it is not a giving but a sharing. You are simply sharing their burden, sharing their situation. Not in a way that says, “I can help you,” but in a way that says, “We are together in this.” It is a beautiful story from the Jewish tradition, which I also told maybe in the first week here in Strílky. There was a rabbi and his students. They had some prayer, some pūjā, which they should do at the first light in the morning. The students were asking him, “When is that point? When is first light?” So the students asked one by one. One student said, “Is it the time when there’s enough light that in the distance I can see whether it’s a sheep or a dog?” Again, no. “Is it the time when I can discern in the distance whether it is a man or a woman walking?” Again, no. “Is it the time when there’s enough light that when you hold your hand in front you can see the lines on your palm?” And again he said, “No.” So, of course, they were giving up, and they said, “Well, when is it?” And he said, “It is the time when you can see everybody as your brother and your sister.” That is the time for the pūjā. That’s it. That’s compassion, that’s understanding, and that’s yoga. What a perfect love it is when you see everybody as your brother and sister. When that is our practice—to develop those qualities within ourselves—then obviously that is the aim: to see in that way. So compassion and understanding: these are things we need to understand. The question about forgiveness also asked just as much about how to forgive oneself. Forgiving oneself is such an important part of our yoga practice. Before I share an experience of mine from Jadān that constantly makes me feel incredibly humble… There are people in the ashram who have been coming for many years, especially some who come with the group. Once I encountered a person who was so difficult to deal with, such a difficult personality—this has happened to me a few times—and I thought, “Why don’t they practice more yoga? They should be calmer, more respectful, more peaceful.” But at some point, I happened to talk with that person and discovered something about their past, their childhood, their life experiences. When I came to see those things and realize how much they had overcome to arrive at the point they are now—compared to myself, who had such a good childhood with wonderful parents who made it easy for me to do what I wanted—and their journey was not simply about getting better. They actually did not start in a calm and supportive atmosphere twenty years ago; they came from a place of disturbance, and to have reached a certain level of peace is a major achievement. I have the same experience at school with children. The local community is obsessed with the idea that you should have the best students in the district—the top students, the top marks. Local parents want you to produce students with the top marks. But if you bring students who already have top marks to your school and they continue to get top marks, what have you actually done? To my mind, rather than a student who used to get 85% and now gets 86%, a far better achievement is to take a student from 20% to 60%. That is teaching; that is good practice. And on our spiritual path, one of the great dangers when living in a community—be it an ashram like Jadan or here in Strílky—is to compare yourself to other people. Because everyone is on a different journey. Everyone has different issues. And everyone also has different things hidden in their box that have not yet been presented to them by Svāmījī. Someone may be in complete bliss, ānanda, and peace this week, and next week Svāmījī will bring out a new thing for them to work on. We are here to support each other, to relate to each other, to understand each other. But comparing yourself to someone else, thinking “he’s doing better than she is”—that is a completely useless activity. The only relevant question is how to move forward on our spiritual path. If you look into Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, at one point it says quite specifically that there is no such thing as right and wrong in yoga. Rather, there are things that are beneficial for your spiritual path, helping you progress, and there are things that set you back. As we practice, it is simply our goal and aim to keep moving forward, to keep moving toward the right path. And our purpose is to continue and persist on the spiritual path we aim to follow. So when you look at yourself, it is so easy to judge and say, “Ah, I did it wrong again,” and become angry with yourself. But that is again like holding on to the gate, as in the story of the drunken man. If you did something wrong, something that moved you backwards on your path—it happened. It is done. The question is about the next step you will take. In the next moment, will you start moving forward again? Or will you become so obsessed with that misstep that it keeps pulling you backward, and you go along with it? This is why, to me, the importance of forgiveness toward yourself in your practice is so crucial. It does not mean giving yourself permission to do anything. You try to change that behavior, to improve it, to develop better habits. But when you fail, it is not the moment to become angry with yourself or get down on yourself. It is the moment to try again. You may crash many, many times. I remember Avatārpuri learning to ride a bicycle. I’ve never seen someone crash so many times. He fell over this way and that, and there was blood on his knees, and yet he learned to ride the bike, and he didn’t really injure himself in the process. It is the same with everything we do, with every practice we try to perfect. We fall off this way, we fall off that way, again and again. But once we get through that practice, once we truly master that particular part of it, you can’t even manage to not do it anymore. Sit on a bicycle and try not to ride it. Once you know how, if you tried to just sit and constantly fall off, you would instinctively put a foot out or do something to stay up or prevent falling. And once you have learned it, you never forget it. Indeed, there are so many things we must master, so many small things to practice, so many issues within ourselves. But with patience and forgiveness, we must master them one by one. And when one small thing is mastered, that is one less thing to worry about; it is ready, it is running. Then we move on to the next part of our practice. Here is a beautiful little point. Last night, Niranjan Purījī was saying that he sends all the problems to me in the ashram. Most of you know Father David from Australia. He was here, I think, in Bratislava at the World Peace Conference, and at several other such conferences. He has a huge job. Besides running the church in his state, he also works on many government commissions. He said, “Oh, no, I don’t have any problems.” He said, “I don’t call them problems; I call them issues, because an issue is something you deal with—something you simply fix. You work out how to find a solution. A problem is something that gives you a headache.” So whatever comes, it is not a problem; it is just another issue. That is a beautiful way to think, also on your spiritual path. These are not problems we have with ourselves; these are issues waiting for a solution. And through our practice, through Svāmījī’s blessing, and through the sādhanā he gives us, we will find the solution to that issue. If it’s a problem, it intimidates you; it may even develop fear. But in English, an “issue” is different—it has far less fire inside. Same thing, different word, different attitude. So I’d better stop. Sorry, Gajananjī. Yes, it’s already twelve. I’ll just go one or two minutes more. Please think about these things. As we walk our path, we make mistakes so many times. We all have our issues. Other people have issues that we do not have, and we have issues that others do not have. We are here to go forward. We are here to try and change. But let us do so with respect toward ourselves, respecting the fact that we are capable of that change. And one more very important point: respect everyone else’s right to change. Try to remain open to that person as they are right now, before you. Because if someone has truly worked on their issues and they have changed, and you are still thinking of the same physical body as it was ten years ago, the person who was inside back then, you may be seeing issues and things inside that person that are no longer there. I believe we all want others to respect, understand, and see the changes, the transformation happening within us. But it is equally important as a community to remain open to seeing that in others. I’m sure in every yoga community you can relate to a scene like this: Someone who has been living in the ashram for ten or fifteen years—and ten years ago they were doing such-and-such—comes to you and says, “You shouldn’t do that.” Immediately your mind goes, “Yeah, but they did it; they’ve been doing it all along. I remember in 2001 when they did it, and in 2003, and in 2005.” Our mind instantly thinks, “If he could do it, why shouldn’t I?” But perhaps at that time he was foolish, and now he has gained some intelligence and realized it is not good to do. Back then it was a mistake, and now he has recognized the mistake and is giving that advice from his own experience. If we do not live as a community in the present, respecting the changes within each person and respecting the experience each person has had on their path, and listen to the voice of that experience they are sharing now, we risk missing the treasures that people carry. So remain with eyes, ears, and hearts open. Om Bole Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Śrī Śrī Devpurījī Mahādeva Kī Jaya, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Purījī Mahārāja Kī Jaya, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī Satguru Deva Kī Jaya.