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Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavāne Kī Jeho, Śrī Śrīdeva Puruṣa Mahādeva Kī Je, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Sāī Madākṛṣṇa Bhagavāne Kī Je, Viśva Guru Mahāmaheśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Sāī Mahājaṁśī Satguru Deva Kī Jeho. Today we will talk about a subject which is never exhausted and always actual: the relation between the master and the disciple. In Hindi, the master or teacher is called guru. "Gu" means darkness and "ru" means light. Thus, the guru is the one who gives us knowledge, who brings us out from the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge. In India, there are many gurus. You will hardly find a place where someone is not called Gurujī. This title can apply to every subject and profession. We know very well that the first guru is the mother. If she does her job properly, her son or daughter will grow into a bright, complete personality. In India, they begin teaching children when they are very young. They work with them as with grown persons, giving them tasks they can manage. They help at home in all levels and subjects: in the kitchen, cleaning utensils, cleaning the house, and taking care of younger siblings. They also take care of cows, goats, and sheep. You will often see a young girl or boy of four or five years, with a small stick, running behind a buffalo or cow with full sovereignty, authority, and self-confidence, taking care of an animal many times their size. Thus, young children begin to shoulder their share of life's burdens from a very early age. Is this good? Yes, it is good. They develop confidence and skills. The second guru is the father. It is the same principle. Father and mother work hand in hand; they are the two hands of one body. Then, children go to school and meet the master, the Gurujī, the schoolteacher. Children in India are full of light, energy, and self-confidence. Why? Because the first two gurus did their job properly. They formed a complete personality, which now must grow and learn life's skills. In the West, it is a little different. The first guru is often missing. When we plant a small tree, if it does not get careful watering in the beginning, it will never be healthy. Similarly, if father and mother are working in companies to earn money, the child is given to a nursery with professionals who do their job very dedicatedly and well. But something is missing—something that can be given only by a mother and a father. A mother can give love, attachment, and security. When the child is in need, he comes to the mother. The mother takes care of the child all the time and knows best what is good for him. Thus, the child develops a sense of security, assured that there is always someone to take care of and protect him. That is why Indian children are so sure and confident. They are not afraid because during their most fragile time, there was always someone giving protection. The teachers or workers in nurseries can give good efforts and care. The children are kept clean and fed properly. But if you have ten, fifteen, or twenty children, you cannot give equal and sufficient love to all of them. One person is too little. When such children come home from the nursery, they meet a father and mother who are tired and exhausted from stress. They are often most happy not to talk to the child, not to meet their needs, or not to listen to their stories about what happened in kindergarten. Consequently, such a child will not feel sure, will become afraid, and will develop complexes and anger because of a perceived injustice. We know, unfortunately, that in Europe about thirty percent of people are already mentally sick. Can you imagine? Every third child has developed mental problems. This stems only from the first guru not doing his job properly—often because he cannot. We are bound or stuck in the net of the Western economy, which is destroying the family, destroying people, and destroying humanity. Swāmījī often says that children do not need your money or your toys; they need you, your love, and your protection. That is true. We know a person without hands is called handicapped. But people who did not receive that love and protection from their parents are mentally and socially handicapped, and there are many, many such individuals. Anyhow, the child, whatever his state, will come to school where he meets teachers and friends. Education in India and education in Europe are two separate rivers; they are completely different things. In India, the teacher gives knowledge. He simply tells the children what he knows, and the children listen and trust him. If a child did not learn the subject, it is not the teacher who is guilty; it is the child who did not do his homework or was not attentive. It is said that when the master is talking, there must be a visible, cooling communication between master and disciple. The disciple must concentrate and fix his gaze on the teacher’s mouth and eyes. Then the communication is made. In Europe, teachers have to prove themselves; disciples question them: "Is it really like that? Why?" Because they are not sure. Again, we come to the same point: they are not sure if that teacher is teaching properly. The teacher has to defend or prove again and again that he teaches correctly, explaining so many things repeatedly. Therefore, the relation between teacher, master, or guru and disciple in the West and in India is very, very different. In India, the guru, a master teacher in school, is like a father or mother to the children. In the West, there is a distance. We see when Swāmījī holds a satsaṅg, or any teacher talks to children, they have communication; they are talking. When they start to sing mantras, the older people who are sitting there will sing if they know them. If the teacher asks, "And what did I say?" they will repeat. And we Westerners? We are silent. We are silent because we are not sure we will say something wrong. We fear we will blame ourselves and look stupid. So there is no communication. There is a teacher, there is a wall, and there are the disciples—only listening, not talking, not communicating, not giving feedback. This pattern continues on and on: primary school, secondary school, university. And then comes: "Oṁ Guru Brahma Guru Viṣṇu Guru Devo Maheśvara Guru Sākṣāt Parabrahma, Tasmai Śrī Guruve Namaḥ, Satguru." Ages back, children of about seven or eight years old, or even less, were given to the Gurukula—an āśram in the middle of the forest, in the middle of nowhere—for twelve years. Their education went on for twelve years. They lived with their Gurujī, with Gurumā or Gurumātā, and with sannyāsīs who lived there. The Guru was their father, and Gurumā was their mother. Guru, Ṛṣi, Muni—you can call him whatever you want. They were realized people, Ātmā Gyanīs, Brahm Gyanīs, and they possessed huge knowledge in worldly affairs. They taught the children the arts, science, mathematics, physics, astronomy, Āyurveda, Jyotiṣa (astrology), and more. Besides that, they taught the purpose of life, the sense of life, the meaning of life: Why did we come here? From where did we come? What is the purpose of life? What do we need, or what will we achieve after death? What will happen after death? It was a combination of worldly and spiritual subjects; they were not two different things but completely connected. They lived twelve years together with no visitors. Father and mother did not come to see how their child was doing. There was a stick many times for those who were not listening. But they lived in beautiful harmony. The children learned to do seva: going to the jungle to bring wood for the fire, cleaning the āśram, taking care of the cows, learning to cook, and so on. In the evening, they would give a massage to the tired Master, the tired Gurudev. After twelve years, when they came back, they were grown personalities who could give something to the world. Thus, the relation between the master and the disciple is so sensitive. It is more than the relation between father, mother, and children. It is on a higher level, a much higher level. It is said: "Oh my dear, so many times you were incarnated on this planet. So many times, in every incarnation, in every life, you have had your father and your mother. But now you have come to me. Give me one life. Only one life, and I will make something out of you. I will give you everything." So those lucky few, now in this time called Kali Yuga, who come to the Satguru—the teacher of the truth, of the ultimate truth (Sat is the truth)—they will give their life, their problems, their fears to their master, unconditionally. This means with full trust, without doubts: "Oh, is this guru real? Or is he just pretending? I will observe him for ten years and then see what I will do with him. Okay, he looks good, he speaks well, and I did not find anything wrong with him. Okay, I will give him a chance to be my Guru." When we receive mantra dīkṣā, we give a vow to the Master: "I am yours unconditionally, with my body, mind, and everything that I have." The Guru says the same: "I will take care of you, no matter what happens to you. Whether you stay with me, trust me, or go away, I will come to you again next life, and again I will be your teacher." Unconditional. The vow which the Guru gives is unconditional. And the vow which the disciple gives? There are many conditions. That moment when the Guru looks a little bit more Rajasik than he should, as per our opinion—meaning a little bit more active—we question: "What is that? He should only sit and meditate and give just a laugh." They say there is no more difficult job in this world than to be a Sadguru. And then it is added: if you are not his disciple. Why? Because disciples, we do not trust our masters. Unfortunately, 99.999% of disciples do not trust the master absolutely. Because of that, it is said the disciple and the master are all the time at war. The disciple uses all the weapons he has against the Master: anger, jealousy, fear, and so on. And the Master has only one weapon, only one: absolute love. We know who is the winner: the master, always, always. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then after hundreds of lives, the Master will be your winner. Why hundreds of lives? Because we are traveling together; we are a family traveling through time and space. We are not here together just because it happened. Nothing in this universe just happens. Everything has its start, reason, and end. It is not accidental, incidental, or coincidental. It is pre-planned, carefully planned before we came to this beautiful planet, which we try so hard to destroy. We had many workshops on our lokas, wherever we were. We were preparing: "Okay, I will choose that father and that mother, and I will be born in that city." "No, you cannot be born in that city. You have the option of this and that city." Why? Because of karmas. "And you cannot be an engineer; you can only be a worker in the factory, or this, or that." So our life now is developing and going on as per our karmas. And before we came to this world, Mother Earth, we were preparing ourselves very carefully together with the master. Our beloved Svāmī Maheśvarānandajī—the difference between him and us is, as Swāmījī very nicely said yesterday, when Arjuna was questioning Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said: "The difference between you and me is that I know and you don’t know." Exactly. We forgot. When we were born, we opened our eyes, we looked to see where we are. "Oho, I came. Okay, now everything is okay." And then our consciousness goes, and we forget. But the master did not forget. Holy Gurujī, who was a great, great saint and who was playing with the material elements, said: "Whatever I got, I got from Mahāprabhujī." But Swāmījī was born as a complete yogī, as a mahā yogī. And what happens with a Mahā Yogī? Just some small shaking, and people, disciples, are shaken. Very good. Where is our trust? Where is our confidence in the master? What have we learned after so many years with him? Just some rumors shake our faith. You should know that two things are going on all the time: śikṣā, which means education, and parīkṣā, which means examination. As we have exams in worldly education, we have exams in spiritual education too. Here, exams are a little different. They look more real, more lively. We think we are talking about real things. We are playing our roles so realistically, and we believe so much: "I am an engineer, this and that. I am the author of that building, or whatever. I am a doctor. I am a physicist, and I made so many innovations, so many patents." It is līlā. It is just divine play in which we are participating. The moment we are stuck on our title—education, status, physical, mental, social, or financial—we are stuck. We are stuck in attachment, and out of that will come many, many problems. But if we understand that all is divine līlā, that we came to play here, to perform a theater... The artists in the theater practice, go on stage, perform, then go back and laugh about how they were doing. Yet we take this thing so seriously. We have two choices: one is to trust that whatever happens to us has to happen. There is no way it will not happen. If it is in one's destiny to be a millionaire, he can sit at home, sleep all day, and he will become a millionaire. And if it is in one's destiny not to be a millionaire, to be a poor person, whatever he does, he will be a poor person. So there is no need to worry. There is no need to be so serious with our theater, with our play which we are doing here. And why are we serious? Because we have no knowledge. Because who in the West is saying: "Oh, my dear friends, my dear children, you are not this body, you are not this mind, you are a soul"? Who came to this planet to improve their karmas with good deeds, to become better and better, to get rid of more and more weaknesses, and to develop more and more virtues? And when they are pure enough, then the door will open—the door through which we will be able to enter into that divine light. And this is possible only through Guru Kṛpā. So the Guru, Sadguru, is essential, absolutely essential if one wants to achieve self-realization, enlightenment, or God-realization. If one wants to go over the border which does not allow us to see what is behind, then for that, trust is absolutely important: obedience. What did he mean? Swāmījī said we should not eat chapati. This is not possible; he was joking. And he said in the āśram we should not eat onion and garlic. He is not serious? Oh yes, he is serious every time. And then he goes to his room and looks: "What are my disciples doing? Who is going to the kitchen at night? Who is eating what was not meant for them? Who is not following these few rules which Swāmījī gave: how to eat, not to eat with the right hand, to take food from the pot because that pot is jūṭhā, that food is jūṭhā food?" Small things: to keep mauna during lunchtime, not to talk too much. Small things. Who is following? Okay, I see. And then again, Swāmījī speaks in satsaṅgs, changes a little bit because we are not capable of following. "No chapati? Only one chapati? We will be hungry." Oh yes, you will be hungry. If you don’t believe that you will get enough of everything because... it is not only the chapati that is the blessing; it is what is behind it. So, obedience. And we are so weak in that. And then, guru seva. How much seva do we really do? Do we really do it? "I’m working all day like an employed person." It is not for the master that we are working; it is for us who are working. The great saint of Tibet, Milarepa, came to his teacher, his master, his Gurudev, and said: "Bhagavān, I heard that you can give me self-realization, that you can show me God." Marpa said: "Yes, I can, but you will have to do what I tell you." You know the story. Milarepa had to go to the mines, break stone, bring the stone to the place which Gurujī showed him, and build a tower. For one year he built a round tower because the Guru told him: "Build a tower." Gurujī came and said: "What are you doing? Whoever saw a round tower? It should be square. Break everything and build a new one." So Milarepa broke the tower down and started to build a new one. It took him one more year. When the tower was nearly ready, Gurujī came. He was not interested at all in what Milarepa was doing. But before the tower was ready, he came and said: "What have you done again? I told you it should not be square; it should be rectangular." Break it, make a new one. He built six, seven towers. After building six towers, Milarepa ran away. It was too much for him. He came back after some time, after many things happened to him. That time, the master received him with amazing love and gentleness and told him: "My dear son, you made a lot of sins in your life. To clear your karmas, I had to have you build seven towers. You managed to build six, so I cannot give you the brahmajñāna. But because you are very obedient and very hard-working, you will become a great saint, a great, great saint." So we do not know why we have to do this, what it is he is giving us, but he knows. He knows. And if you are tired because we had to work all day in the workshop or on the site with the workers, and we have had enough of everything—master, workers, sites—then okay. We have to repeat a class, or we go a little slower to the next one. Am I talking too long already? How long should I talk? Oh, that you will not sleep, so I will try to repeat the trust. Do you remember that beautiful story of Swāmījī? Once he said, when a Gurujī and disciple were walking to some distant place, they came to a forest. It was evening; they had to stay overnight in the forest. The forest was dangerous, with many wild animals. Gurujī said: "Okay, we’ll just put our āsan, our blanket here on the ground. Half the night I will guard, and the other half you will take care that we are protected." "As you wish, Gurujī." And he slept. In the night, a heavy cobra came, a big one, 1.75 meters, and came towards the disciple. Gurudev told her in cobra language—oh yes, it is possible to talk to animals—so he told her: "My dear, where are you going?" The cobra said: "To take the blood of your disciple." "Why?" The cobra said: "You see, the two of us have an unsolved karmic problem, and I came to take my part, to revenge. In every life, one of us kills the other one. In one life he kills me, in another life I kill him." The master said: "You need his blood?" The cobra said: "Yes." "Okay, if I give you his blood, will it be okay?" The cobra said: "Yes." So the master took a very sharp knife from his pocket, leaned over the disciple, and cut his neck a little bit. When the knife touched the skin of the disciple, the disciple woke up. But he saw above himself the master. So he closed his eyes and slept back, very peacefully he slept. The master gave the blood to the snake, and the snake left. The next morning, after the disciple’s turn was over, the disciple and master woke up. The disciple had been on guard, so when the master woke up, they were ready to go further. They were preparing breakfast. The master told the disciple: "Yesterday when I was above you and cutting the skin on your neck, you opened your eyes and you saw me. You saw me, and then you slept back. Were you not afraid when you saw me with a knife above you on your neck?" The disciple said: "Why? You are my master. Whatever you do, it is good for me. Why should I be afraid?" This is the relation we need to develop. And then the master will carry us towards the Light. But if you are hiding in all corners, when somebody comes just running here and there, what then? What can the master do? What can he do with us? So there are many, many more things I could talk about, and talk and talk... You will be bored, so I will stop at this place. Maybe next time we will continue. Gurudev is divine. The divine soul comes from very high levels of consciousness, from very high lokas which we cannot achieve. He is a person who has immense powers and immense siddhis. Believe it or not, Svāmī Maheśvarānandajī now sits in the Kārtū āśram, and he listens to this satsaṅg. Not only does he listen, he is within every one of us and listens to our thoughts, our reactions, observing everything. And he plays so innocent; he does not know anything. A Sadguru will first show his divine nature to the disciples, and then he will do everything to convince the disciples that he is not the one whom they realize he is. He will play the fool, he will play ignorant, he will play—if you want—stupid, he will play whatever to convince disciples that he is just a normal, worldly person with limited intelligence and capacities, abilities, physical problems, and so on. Based on that, the disciples will start to believe he is just human, as we are. Oh no, he is not. He is not. There are tests, tests. There are examinations for us. Will we believe what he says, what he teaches us in satsaṅg? Will we believe the experiences we have had with him? Or will we believe our mind and be a victim of his līlā? It is up to us; it is up to everyone separately which way we will take. I wish for all of us that we will have trust—full, unconditional, not one hundred percent, but one million percent trust. As Swāmījī said: "The stars can fall from the sky, the sun and moon can change their way, but I will never die; I’ll always be yours, always." Something like this was said by Yogananda, beautiful paramparā of you and a boy, mate. So it is up to us; we have to decide. There is one American Indian guru talking to his disciple, a grandfather talking to his grandchild. The grandchild asked him: "Grandfather, you said that within every one of us there are good animals and bad animals. There are deer, antelopes, rabbits, birds, and there are tigers, jackals, and wolves. Grandfather, which are stronger? Which are those who will win?" And Grandfather told him: "My dear child, that one whom you will nourish. If you nourish deer, they will get strong. If you nourish the wolves, they will get strong." So it is up to us which qualities in us we will nourish: anger, passion, jealousy, or understanding, tolerance, universal love, forgiveness, dedication, honesty. It is up to us. We have a divine teacher who is showing us the way, and it is on us: will we walk on it or not? It is up to us. There is no one else to be blamed. It is not the guru who is guilty if the disciple is not prospering; it is the disciple who does not want to prosper. So I wish for all of us good progress, a lot of blessings, and Guru Kṛpā, that we will become those disciples with whom the Guru will be happy. Madhyam, Uttam, Uttam disciples. Not Kaniṣṭha, not Madhyam, but Uttam—that one which makes the Guru proud and happy, that he has such a disciple. Let us become that. We have everything. We just need to decide with a very strong will. Say: "I have had enough of you, my ego. I will not allow you anymore to be my boss. I have had enough of you, my crot. I’m not crot; you are here and making me crazy. I will not allow you anymore." So it is we who have to decide. We have everything; we just need decision and will. Then it will be done. So I wish that all of us will become uttam disciples and get the blessings and kṛpā of the beloved Gurudev Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Maheśvarānandajī, great son of the 21st century. Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Sāvīmāda Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai Ho. Viśva Guru Mahāmalāśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Savimaya Sanjīva Satguru Deva Kī Jeho.