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After about twenty meters, the sea becomes very shallow again, and then the main part of the ocean begins. When the waves come in, they hit that shallow part and break there quite heavily. Then they travel further and break once more on the shore. But everyone goes out to that shallow area. Also, when the waves are rolling in, there can be two or three minutes when they are quite small. Then, all at once, a set of three or four waves will arrive—quite big ones—and they will break further out than before. I was a young boy out there, enjoying myself. The waves were not so big at first. But then suddenly came a big set of waves. They reached the shallow part, and because the water there stops the wave’s lower part, the wave from behind rises up like a cobra. Especially on this type of beach, where it is very shallow at that point, they really come up steeply and very fast. And they crash down even faster when they break. This took me by surprise; I was not in the right place for that wave. So I thought the best thing to do was to run. But you cannot run. I turned to sprint back to the beach, but there is no chance of outrunning a wave. That wave picked me up, lifted me into the air, and then presented me to the sand. In Australia, we say, “He got smashed. I got smashed.” The wave slammed me down, and a lifeguard came out and brought me back to the shore. I was just gasping—no air in my lungs, my back aching because it had really crashed down on the sand. I had absolutely no intention of going back into that stupid surf again. But this lifeguard was great. He sat there with me and waited until I recovered my breath and started to move again. Then he took me by the hand and said, “Let’s go.” He took me by the hand and said, “Let’s go.” Of course, I said, “Where?” And he said, “Back out there.” I said, “No way, mate.” He said, “Well, we have to do it.” I didn’t agree, but he wasn’t letting go of my hand as he went out there, so I had to follow. I was small; he was big. He took me back to the very same place and then taught me how to deal with that type of wave. Because when it rises up like a cobra, you cannot run away from it. You cannot jump over it. It is too big—maybe as high as the roof of a house. It wasn’t huge surf, but it was big enough. And the peaceful place is inside. You have to go under those waves. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavāna Kī Jaya Oṁ Bholē Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai... Acalā Rām Jī Kī Jai Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jaya. Have a good night, have a good sleep. We wish you a good night and a good sleep. Yes, good night. Good night. No, you have to say good night then. Good night. Translation goes both ways. And see you in the morning. See you in the morning. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jaya. Satguru Deva Kī Jaya. What actually are we doing when we are singing bhajans? Yes, this one said: What actually are we doing when we are singing bhajans? You know, sometimes Swāmījī, in the seminar, he doesn’t say anything; he just lets us sing bhajans the whole evening. Is it because he has no idea what to say? When we are singing bhajans, we are practicing yoga. What part of yoga? Bhajan is one part, one practice of bhakti yoga. And when we are singing, we often forget that. But sometimes one can really feel it. That is real yoga. Sometimes I felt too strong an effect from bhajan singing, something like what I practice in Kuṇḍalinī Yoga. But as with every yoga aspect, especially when you really go fully into it—not just a little bit, but really go fully into the bhajan singing—it is potent. I remember one situation: we arrived with Swamījī and the group in Kailāś Āśram, and immediately some people from the village came. Swamījī started giving a satsaṅg, and as always, I had to sing some bhajans in between. I was quite exhausted; we all were exhausted from the tour we had just completed. I also felt that my voice was giving out—too many bhajans. But because there were not yet so many bhaktas, Swamījī did not make the satsaṅg too long. I was happy and thought, “Okay, now we can rest, and I need not sing anymore.” Then Swāmījī got up and said, “You continue the satsaṅg. Just sing bhajans.” That meant it was now my duty—our duty—to continue the satsaṅg, to go on with bhajan singing until Swāmījī, after his rest, would come out again and give the main satsaṅg. So I was in a situation where I thought, “I cannot sing much more.” But I accepted it. And then one bhajan more, two bhajans more, three bhajans more. I really went into it. Suddenly, I had the feeling that something was opening, like one breaks through. I don’t mean just on the spiritual level; I mean really also on the physical level with my voice. By just doing it, something cleared, and I had the feeling, “Now I can sing endlessly, no problem.” And we had to continue for quite some time. I think it was between fifteen and twenty bhajans that I sang one after another before Swāmījī came back. But it was great. The more we sang, I could feel the energy, the divine energy. As I sang, I felt divine energy. Bhajan singing is really real yoga practice, like mantra practice. And as I said, not by chance, mantra practice is a part of bhajan. Even stronger, I experienced this once when I was in Udaipur. I was there on an invitation; the collector basically wanted me to teach his boys. It was a quite risky time—it was June, the hottest time of the year, when everyone avoids going out in the street in the heat unless it is really necessary. Then there came a big cyclone. Big—I mean really big. I saw a satellite photo of India from this event. India looked like that, and the cyclone was large like that, covering an area about a quarter of India. And it now came straight towards Udaipur, where I was. So it was a real time of warning for everyone. On that specific day when it arrived, one was not allowed to go onto the street. By some good fortune, or by my Prabhujī’s protection, the cyclone passed the city by a little bit, so it didn’t cause too much damage in Udaipur itself. It then went further; I think it later came close to Jadana Ashram. The next day was like a blessing because the danger was over, but the cyclone was so huge that the whole sky was covered with clouds. In Western countries and in Stirling, we would say, “No good weather today, all cloudy.” But when you live in India in June, that enormous heat makes a cloudy day feel like a blessing—suddenly a day that is beautifully cool. After my yoga class in the morning, I had no further duty that day. So I took the chance and made a long walk of several hours around one of the big lakes in Udaipur. While I was walking, I was repeating my mantra. Then I sang one bhajan which I knew by heart, then I sang the peace mantra. A little bit, repeating my mantra. When I sat down at the shore of the lake, I did a little bit of mantra japa. Then I continued walking again, sang a bhajan, then another bhajan. After some time, I sat down again, practiced mantra and my kriyā, continued walking, repeating this bhajan, that bhajan. At that time, I was quite well trained. Through Holī Gurujī, when in the evening the light went off, we had to continue bhajan singing; therefore I knew quite a lot of bhajans by heart. Then I got lazy, like most of us. But the result of what I had practiced, I realized when I came back in the evening: Akhaṇḍa Sādhanā—uninterrupted, permanent sādhana, the whole day. You see, if we repeat our mantra, which we got from Swamījī, or we sing one of the bhajans we have, or we repeat some other mantras like the peace mantra—it is all divine. From the quality, it is the same. So in this way, that whole day was permanent sādhanā, and I was so full of energy. Just realize what we have with this bhajan book. It is not a songbook. It is like a holy scripture, like the Bible or the Koran or the Vedas. How often Swamiji has emphasized: don’t put it on the ground like that. When we really go deeply into any aspect of yoga, then we feel what is the result of that, what is the quality of that. So when you sing the bhajans with enthusiasm and with joy and for some longer time, it is a real yoga practice. So let’s practice one bhajan more. Which one do you like? Ko želite? That means: you have liberated already so many sinners; now, please, it is my turn. Sataguru Rakulājamārī—it is a bhajan actually about several stories; one cannot really translate that bhajan directly. I assume you know the stories; that bhajan just mentions them. The first verse is about Bhakta Prahlāda, and that is actually the story of the Holī festival. The second, Gaj, that is my name, Gaj, Gajānantī Elephant. And the third one is about Draupadī, when they tried to undress her in public. The fourth verse is about Mīrā, when they tried to poison her with wine that contained poison. So it is actually a bhajan about prayer. I remember when Swamījī once gave a lecture series about different aspects of mantra. It was at a summer seminar in Vepa. He gave four lectures on four days about different aspects of mantra—these are old videos, something like number 130 or so. And then he had one lecture about prayer as mantra. The interesting point was, in this bhajan, he did not speak about our evening prayer or any prayer like that at all. He spoke about the story of Draupadī, which is here in the third verse of this bhajan, and emphasized that what comes from the heart—that call for God deep from the heart—that is prayer. So all these stories here are examples of such prayer. The elephant, when he was being drowned by the crocodile underwater, called for God, and God immediately came and helped. Draupadī, when she was about to be undressed in public, called for Lord Kṛṣṇa, and she was saved. And Prahlāda, when he was about to be burned, called God, and He saved him. And when they lied to Mīrā, saying that this wine, which contained poison, was actually the prasāda of her beloved Kṛṣṇa, she believed that, and for her it became reality, and she went into trance. One remark for the end: I mentioned from my experience that it is important to do it with enthusiasm and really for a longer time. We know, for example, from Swāmījī, when we have the Kriyā Anuṣṭhāna program, we have such an intense program that we can hardly think of anything else. And when we have Mantra Anuṣṭhāna, it is somehow even stronger. Mantra, mantra... all the time, for a longer time. But in India, when there is a full moon day, we have Bhajan Anuṣṭhān—bhajan singing whole night. And when, for example, Holī Gurujī’s Mahāsamādhi was celebrated, it was part of the observance: sixteen days, day and night, continuous bhajan singing. That is a real spiritual sādhanā.