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O Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Devapurīṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai, Śrīdhāmasa Amṛtsar, Guru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Kī Jai, Bhagavān Kī Jai, Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Parama-haṁsa, Svāmijī Maheśvara Nanjī Kī Jai, Guru Deva Kī Jai, Satya Sanātana Dharma Kī Jai. God bless you. Śaraṇa Gorodena, Karachanā Sarayinākarachanā Sarayinākarachanā... Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai. Śrī Śrī Dev Puruṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai. Dharm Samrāṭ Parama-haṁsa Śrī Svayī Marāvaṇan Purjī Mahārāja Kī Jai. Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Parama-haṁsa Śrī Svayī Maheśvarānand Purjī Satguru Deva Kī Jai. Good morning. Last night we were singing the bhajan "Satguru Rākā Lājahe Mārī," and I wanted to talk a little about the story of Draupadī. Perhaps you know the story that in the game of dice, her husband lost her. Whether or not that was an acceptable thing was debated well and truly throughout the Mahābhārata. Then Duḥśāsana brought her into the hall and tried to take off her sari. As much as he would pull it, it would just get longer and longer, until there was a huge pile of cloth on the floor. During all that time, she was praying to Kṛṣṇa for help, and that was His way of helping by constantly supplying more cloth. But the story goes way back in the Mahābhārata, much earlier than that. There is one part where a fellow called Śiśupāla was destined to constantly insult Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa had given a promise to Śiśupāla’s mother that He would not kill him unless he insulted Him a hundred times. So, in one big meeting, Śiśupāla kept insulting Him again and again, one after the other, and Kṛṣṇa was just silent and quietly relaxing. Eventually, after a hundred times, He released His Sudarśana cakra, and Śiśupāla lost his head. But the important part relating to Draupadī was that when the Sudarśana cakra came back, it cut Kṛṣṇa’s finger a little bit. Draupadī immediately tore a piece of her sari and went and dressed that wound. Kṛṣṇa said at that time, "That piece of cloth which you have given me will be repaid to you thousands of times." And there you have it later on, when she needs cloth, she gets it back thousands of times. She gave a sari, and she got back a sari. It’s a beautiful little story of how every small thing we do spiritually, everything in our practice, every sevā we do for the āśram or for Svāmījī, although it may seem insignificant at the time, sometimes in the future it comes back thousands of times. There’s one story from Australia I can share, about Svāmījī and one of Australia’s politicians. Svāmījī plants many peace trees, and He planted one in Adelaide. The premier of that state in South Australia is Mike Rann, a good friend of Svāmījī. He was there with Svāmījī planting the peace tree. Svāmījī said, "Yes, this is one tree; you should actually plant a million trees." You know how it goes with Svāmījī when things get bigger. Mike Rann took it quite seriously and started a program within the state to plant trees everywhere along a river that goes thousands of kilometers. That went on for some years. My friend came to Jādan on an unofficial holiday visit to see the ashram. Svāmījī wasn’t there, but he came early in the morning and stayed until late evening. We had programs in the ashram and also went to the village. At one stage, we called Svāmījī. He was talking to Svāmījī and said, "Svāmījī, you know how you told me to plant those million trees? Well, we planted three million. Not bad." I couldn’t hear what Svāmījī was saying on the telephone, but I saw Mike Rann’s face drop. I thought, "Oh, Svāmījī is in action at the other end of the phone." He got off the phone and said, "Oh, my God." I asked, "What happened?" He said, "Oh, I told Svāmījī about those trees. He said, 'Three million is nothing; I should plant eleven million.'" I asked him, "What are you going to do about it?" He said, "Yeah, I’m going to do it, but I just don’t know how to explain it to my staff. They already thought I was crazy when it was one million." But he has that connection with Svāmījī and was serious about doing it. This year I met him in Australia. He told me, "Oh, you know about those trees? It gets better." He became the president of an organization of states and regions from around the world. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the vice president because he was the governor of California. Before the Copenhagen summit on global warming, this organization had a meeting. He said he doesn’t know why, but he had an idea during the meeting and, without really thinking, proposed that between them all they should plant a billion trees. He said there was complete silence for about 10 or 15 seconds. Nobody said anything. Beside him in this meeting was Arnold Schwarzenegger. After 10 or 15 seconds, from beside him came this voice: "I’m with Mike." It was the voice of the Terminator. Suddenly everyone started talking: "Here we will plant 10, and we 20, and we 30 in our country." They ended up agreeing to plant a billion trees. It’s coming from that one peace tree, just like Draupadī gave the smallest piece of her shawl and got so much back. Svāmījī started that action from one tree, and in one way, there will be a billion trees planted. Of course, after that I had to ask him, "Have you told Svāmījī yet?" He said, "No chance." I think he figures that a billion is enough. How great is that? It is the same with our practice; the smallest thing can become something immense afterwards. I was telling that story in Strelka. At the end of the satsaṅg, a little girl wanted to give me a rakhi, so I had to give her something in return, and I gave her one peach. The next day I saw her father, and he said, "Oh, you can’t believe what happened about that peach." She was so impressed with the story about the trees that she kept the seed and wants to go home and plant it. She was telling her father, "And then when it grows into a tree, we’ll have many peaches, and we’ll have more seeds, and we can plant the seeds." That is it. That’s what we do. Plant something good, and then let it grow and expand. Do one mantra, and then let it become one mālā, and then let it become something more. Teach a yoga class, and then there are 20 people in the class, and some become teachers, and they teach and teach. From a small beginning, everything becomes something really big. It starts with one tree, or with one moment. I say that because it can sometimes seem so daunting on our spiritual path, so difficult. Sometimes you get into a position and think, "This is just too much; it requires too much of me." But it’s not big. All that we have is what’s there in front of us, the moment that’s there. We just try to do something in that moment, to plant one small thing. It doesn’t matter about the big picture, in a way. What we have is what we have in front of us, and that we can deal with. The more you look at the broader thing, you think, "How can I possibly reach there?" But the next step we can reach, no problem. Slowly, slowly, you see that those steps get bigger and bigger. On my spiritual path, it’s constantly going up and down. Maybe everyone has that experience: one day something beautiful happens and you think, "Finally," and the next day it goes back down, and you think, "Oh, what happened? It was so good yesterday." There’s a really good book written about that by an American author called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. You seem to go up and then back down the next day, back to the old issues. But if you look at it from a broader perspective, progress is there. If you look on a hard day back at the easy day before, you think, "Oh no, again I’ve gone backwards." That’s not the case. The progress is there as long as you keep your sincerity and keep trying, and just at each moment, when you’re aware of it, to generally put in some effort. When we are here on a week like this... Last year, I was buying a new laptop. I spent ages on the internet looking at which one would suit what I needed it for, because I wanted to be able to do certain things when I was with Svāmījī, and also that it should be small and easy to carry. I spent days looking at different possibilities and then more days looking at where it would be available cheapest. After all that, I thought, wouldn’t it be excellent if I took so much care about how I spend my time as I did about spending that money? Wouldn’t it be great if I thought so carefully about how I would spend my time as I was carefully thinking about how to spend that money? Because, in fact, the most valuable commodity we have is time. Every moment is something that’s passing, as Gurujī says in the bhajan, "Bhai tuma jaga reitera arasara bhita jaga." You can’t get the moment back, but you can spend the moments well. I was checking so much to find the best price for that laptop, but if I spend my time just daydreaming or doing something which really isn’t bringing me anything, perhaps I can use it better—to invest it in something nourishing, spiritually, mentally, or physically, something that brings something good to your life or to someone else’s life. Life is so short, and there are so many good things we can do in that time. Even when we’re relaxing, we can do it with awareness. Swimming, doing it with awareness; āsanas with full awareness; and sevā with full awareness—it all brings a different quality to that time and the way it is spent. If you are practicing sincerely... and the most important reason we are here on our spiritual path is to go on that path, not just for ourselves but for our family and for our yoga family as well. Everyone who adds something to their spirituality and develops a little bit adds something to the world. You add a different energy to your workplace, to the place where you’re staying, or to your house. You have a chance to give in a different way to your children. If you have stability within, then you can really give that to someone else. From that perspective, if you don’t think of it as something selfish but as something you’re doing for someone else—I bring my peace to myself so that I can give it, and also so that I don’t disturb other people, I don’t give other people trouble. There is one śloka in the Bhagavad Gītā, in the part about Bhakti Yoga. Kṛṣṇa is describing the perfect bhakta. He says he is the one who is not afflicted by the world, who is not disturbed by the world, and also who does not disturb the world. That peace is inside, so they can offer back peace to the world outside. That stability and that peace are not disturbed by what other people do to that bhakta. It’s not reflected; they don’t just give it back, but it just doesn’t disturb them, and what they give out is their peace and that stability from within. So when we are practicing our bhakti and practicing our sādhanā, we search for that within us so that we can then share it with everybody else—not by forcing it on other people, and not by sitting here at the microphone and constantly talking about it, but just by quietly being that within ourselves. I think you know that when somebody peaceful comes and sits with you, their vibration affects everyone around. Perhaps it is easier to see when someone angry comes and sits at a table; everybody feels that vibration. What do we want to share with everybody? Those issues are there, but slowly we try to deal with them through our sādhanā, and to start to really live that which we sing about in the bhajans and which Svāmījī constantly tells us about in satsaṅg. To start to have that mantra which He has given us ringing inside, and its message ringing in all of our cells within our body. To make that message, that teaching, and that mantra which Svāmījī has given us the essence of our life. We keep going, we keep doing our daily living, we keep working, we keep doing what we have to do, but we try to more and more do it within that awareness that Svāmījī is teaching us. That’s yoga. Again, it sounds big, but we start with one tree and you end up with a billion trees. We should just start keeping planting trees, keep planting trees here inside. There is one beautiful story from Buddha. A devotee came to him and asked, "I don’t understand why I should always come to satsaṅg. Why do I keep coming? Because every day when I go home again, I have the same problems. I’m not changing." The Buddha said to her, "I’ll give you the answer tomorrow. You should bring a bucket of khīr, sweet rice." She said, "Okay, of course." In the morning, with much love, she cooked this khīr for a long time and brought it to him. Buddha was sitting in his ashram, and she said, "I’ve come and brought this khīr so that you can answer my question." He said, "Pour it inside this bowl." You can imagine what she was feeling, that she’s supposed to pour this khīr, which she made with so much love, into a bowl that is full of cow dung. But as you all know, Guru Vākya, he was saying, "Yes, pour it inside." So she started to pour the khīr inside the dirty bowl, but she wasn’t feeling happy about it. When the bowl was full, she stopped pouring. Buddha said, "What are you doing?" She said, "It’s full. I stopped because it’s full." He said, "But I told you to bring the whole bucket. Keep pouring it inside." She was already depressed about filling the dirty bowl and really not feeling happy. But she poured until half the bucket was empty and stopped again. He said, "What are you doing with the whole bucket?" She said, "Gurujī, I don’t want the answer, but please don’t make me destroy this khīr, and also it’s making the ashram completely dirty. Please don’t worry about my question, but don’t destroy this khīr and don’t destroy the ashram." He was a little strict and said, "Pour the khīr inside." With great reluctance, she started to pour again until she poured the whole bucket into that bowl. You can imagine the mess on the floor. But when she looked inside the bowl as He was about to start to drink it—she was about to stop Him because she thought it was full of cow dung—she saw it was completely clean. There was only khīr inside. Because, as the khīr was falling in, the cow dung was also falling out of the bowl. As she poured in so much, it had completely gone out, and all that was left was khīr. She was looking, and He said, "Now you have your answer." We do sādhanā, we come to seminars, we go to anuṣṭhāna, we come to satsaṅg. We constantly try to do those things, to pour things inside which are good. As we’re doing it, we may feel we’re still full of so much rubbish, so much junk, so many vṛttis, that it seems to have no sense. But as you keep pouring and pouring inside, those vṛttis and negative things slowly also go out. You continue until it ends up that there is only khīr left. That is somehow the essence of how we practice karma yoga. Constantly doing sevā, you feel things are coming out which perhaps you don’t like about yourself. They’re being forced out by that sevā and sādhanā. As they go out slowly, there becomes less and less inside. As Buddha explained to that lady, she shouldn’t worry that it doesn’t seem like progress is happening, that still more things are coming up from her. By constantly coming to satsaṅg and constantly pouring it into her heart, it would slowly purify it, and what would be left at the end would be that which she wants. So, planting trees, constantly trying to do good things, trying to make the most of our time, taking every moment we can to make it satsaṅg or practice or sādhanā. And also, when we are in different situations, to still keep that awareness and make that part of our practice, so that we come to that point, as Svāmījī calls this system, Yoga in Daily Life, where our whole day is practiced with that awareness, and we just fill ourselves with that awareness of yoga. Vāyādā-vāyādā prabhūjīyācīra. Vṛcākāra-gīra-dārāna-pācīra... Prabhūjī, yācīra ved-koi-sa-kījē. Śrī Lañjī Mahārāj kī jaya.