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We are having a beautiful retreat in Vip, Hungary. The weather is fitting, everything is fitting, and we are practicing Yoga in Daily Life. I am sure you are familiar with it. Swāmījī is not here because he is in India at the moment. There are some urgent problems he has to solve and go help with, but we are still guided by him, though we miss him very much. He will be with us in spirit. We have this retreat in three parts. We have clear understanding from Yoga in Daily Life, a slightly more intensive group, and then we have yoga for health. The other group is the children’s group, and they are specialized. I tell you, children from Yoga in Daily Life are special children. I am sure it is about education, about the knowledge that parents already have. It is very important to behave in the right way so children can learn from us how they should behave in their life. Now I have a question. Everybody, can everybody listen, or is it too...? I’m speaking not loud enough? No answer? Okay, it’s good. Yes, now I am sitting in the place where Śrī Gulābjī was teaching us and giving lectures. He shared such deep knowledge, knowledge coming from the heart. You could ask him whatever you wished; he had a special view about everything. He told us yesterday evening—maybe you were listening to the lecture—that we would say, in our language, secondhand things are passed on, and they are just like a blessing. Now I feel really blessed and protected, not only by Swāmījī, but also by this deep knowledge from Śrī Gulābjī. Śrī Gulābjī is a dear friend of Swāmījī, and he is protecting our Yoga in Daily Life very much. You know, we need it. We are a non-profit society across the whole world, and Swāmījī has so many good projects. We need protection from everybody. I was asked to speak about the Upaniṣads. My knowledge about this, I hope I can bring it to you. I do not have such great knowledge, but all the knowledge I have is from Swāmījī. The Upaniṣads are the essence of the Vedas. "Upaniṣad" means to sit at the feet of your master and to listen to what he is telling us. He explains in a way that we can understand, because it is not easy to understand with the intellect; we have to understand with our heart. There are 108 Upaniṣads, and 10 or 11 of them are more important at the moment. Maybe in a different yuga, there will be other, more important ones. Is it 11 or 10? These are the ones we are speaking about and what Swāmījī is speaking about. You know, Swāmījī is always saying that we need to get self-realization, bhakti and jñāna—both knowledge and love. It is like a bird. A bird can only fly if it has two wings. If one is broken or defective, it cannot fly anymore. It is the same with us. We need knowledge to understand why we are doing our sādhanā. We need to understand how we can grow in bhakti, because bhakti, love, is such a fragile thing, or plant, or feeling. It means we are taking care of it, that we believe, that we have śraddhā, but that we are also obeying. Guru Bhakti is when Swāmījī tells us something. Some instructions we can follow immediately; it is very easy. But some of them, we need many years to really understand and follow, to obey, because our ego is quite strong. We are like, how should I say, children of three years. You know, everybody who has children knows that three years is just a stage where the children feel the ego coming. They can do something with their ego. When they do not get what they want, they just cry and make noise. Some you can watch throw their body on the ground and fight with the earth. That is the ego. That is the first feeling that you have some power with the ego, but the ego is very dangerous. When you listen to satsaṅg, then I, for myself—maybe you are not—but I, for myself, I think sometimes I am like an old child. Because Swāmījī tells us to do this or that, suddenly I have this feeling that it is very difficult. Maybe if he would not say anything about the special thing, maybe I would have done it by myself. But it suddenly becomes difficult because still I am feeling like... I am a child, a naughty child sometimes. Swāmījī tells us to understand the Upaniṣads, the holy words, the ślokas. He tells us a lot of stories. You remember, Mahāprabhujī taught through bhajans, through singing. It was coming, just flowing from his heart, over his lips, and people understood. Swāmījī tells us stories also, about what Holy Gurujī was doing. When he sees we are not really understanding what he likes to teach us, what he likes to give us, a story comes to my mind. I know everybody knows it, but still I will tell it. There was one sannyāsī giving satsaṅgs, wandering from city to city and village to village. Once he was going through fields and meadows, and he saw from afar a hut, a small one. There was somebody walking up and down, up and down, again and again. He came nearer and saw it was an old woman. He asked her, "Are you searching for something?" She said, "Yes, I am searching for something." "What are you searching for?" "I am searching for a needle." Then the sannyāsī swāmī also started searching. He thought it might be difficult to find, but they had to find this needle because everybody was going barefoot and it could be dangerous. Also, the woman would need it; otherwise she wouldn't search for it. After some time searching, he had the idea to ask the woman, "Where did you lose your needle?" She said, "I lost it inside." He said, "But then we have to search inside." She said, "No, because inside it is dark. I cannot see anything inside. That is why I am searching outside." What does this mean for us? It means there is still darkness in us, and we are always searching on the outside to find what we are searching for: divine knowledge, God, everything that we are missing. We are always searching outside, also for happiness. But everything is in us. This little story shows us that we have to search in us, not on the outside. This story, I would say, belongs to the Īśā Upaniṣad, because the Īśā Upaniṣad speaks about ātmā and paramātmā, about ourselves. In this way we get a lot of knowledge, and we will remember. I have now another story in my mind. In the pure time, you had to make some examinations to get a mantra. There were three boys or young men. Everything was settled down, and it was going well in the family and also in business. He thought, "Now should be the right time for our spiritual growth. We will go and find a master." All three went together, listening to many satsaṅgs of many different masters. Once they came to one and were touched in the heart. They said, "Okay, this must be our master. We will ask him if he will take us as students, and we will ask if we can get a mantra from him." When the satsaṅg was over, all three went to him and asked. He said, "Yes, of course, you can be my students." Then they asked if they could get a mantra from him, because they already had this knowledge: without a mantra, you will be nowhere, not where you would like to be; you will not reach your aim. He said, "Yes, we will see. We will make some tests." His servant brought three chickens, and everyone got one. The master said, "Now go somewhere where nobody can see you, kill them, and then come back." They went in different directions. Two of them came back quite quickly; they had killed the chicken. The third took a long time. The two who were sitting there thought, "Oh, we will get the mantra; the other will not get the mantra because he doesn't know how to do it, how to deal with this matter." After quite a long time, he came back, and the chicken was still alive, walking around. The master said, "Sit down." He meditated a little, then asked him, "Why did you need so long, and you still have this chicken with you?" He told him, "I couldn't find any place. I was in the cellar, I was in the forest, I was in the bush, I was everywhere. I couldn't find any place. Everywhere I had a feeling God could see me." You see, I am still touched by this story. I think it is important to know that God can see us everywhere. It doesn't matter what we are doing, what we are thinking. He is always in us, not outside of us. We cannot hide from him because he is always present, like Swāmījī is always present. He was the only one who got the mantra because he already understood a lot. The other two had to wait; they also got the mantra, but they had to wait a little until they understood at least the basic things. This is also, I think, a story that belongs to the Īśā Upaniṣad. Yes, in the Īśā Upaniṣad—I didn't read it, I just didn't know it—there is also something written about Oṁ. About Oṁ I also would like to speak a little. Oṁ is a very important sound. It was the first sound on earth. You can read a lot about it. But Oṁ you also have to feel in your heart, and then it purifies everything. It will lead you to your master, to your goal. It will carry you. You can see a lot is written about Oṁ. I was before, now I am in Munich, and we didn't find a media center. You know, it's not easy. I had a little time, and I thought I would use this time to go to university and study Sanskrit. I can read Sanskrit, probably; I can write Sanskrit, but I don't know what it means. My longing is to read the original text, but it will happen sometime. We had two teachers. One had the responsibility to teach us the Sanskrit language so we could read and understand. The other professor had the duty to teach us which languages are connected with Sanskrit. He was a Wissenschaftler—a scientist. Yes, okay. Sorry, my English is not so good, but I hope you will get everything I'd like to tell you. I was the only one there in orange, and there were about 80 students. The first thing he said when he saw me—I was sitting in the first row because my sight is not so good, so I could see everything written on the board—he looked at me and said, "Some people think through knowledge of Sanskrit you can get self-realization, but it is not like this." I didn't show any reaction about my thinking. Then he told us that in the Himalayas, there are some very high valleys. In that time, there were no airplanes or helicopters. Still, they found the same texts, word for word. It was sure the people couldn't come from one place to the other; it would have needed years and years. Now they are searching for how this could happen. In one valley or hill of the Himalayas, it is the same as in the other. They are seriously searching, but you know... Knowledge in the pure time, like now, is also always given from master to student, to the śiṣya, from heart to heart, not from brain to brain. Swāmījī tells us a lot of things, but we often don't remember, mostly not. Maybe it is also not so important, because what is important is given from his heart directly to our heart. Then we remember forever, and we can feel the truth in everything in us. I couldn't say anything because he just... yeah, he wouldn't believe. Then the next thing he told about Oṁ—and this I believe what he was telling—he said, "Oṁ, Oṁ..." You say "Om," or also in English many people sing it like this, and they think it's right. But this singing is like "AUM." Science found it the first time in the Middle Ages—now, when, what is, I think sometime after Jesus? I don't know exactly. I think it was like this. And before, it was never "Aum"; it was only "Oṁ." When you listen to Swāmījī, he is singing always only "Oṁ." And only Gurujī is singing only "Oṁ." I think we should follow this. We cannot reach any spiritual level with our brain, with our mind. We just destroy many good seeds that Swāmījī is planting in us with our thinking. Just follow him; it is very important. I have one more story in my mind. There was one woman going regularly to satsaṅg, to meditation, to the yoga class, and to her master. She was really longing to see God. She was asking every day, "Dear master, I would like to see God. I would like to see God, really. How can I manage? Please teach me how I can see God." The master didn't react, didn't show any interest in this question. But she asked again every day. Then once the master lost his patience and said, "Okay, sit down. I will show you. Try to meditate, try to go deep. I will show you God." She sat down, and after some time, she went very deep. What she saw, you will be surprised. The master called her out after meditation and asked her, "What did you see? Did you see God?" She said, "Yes, but I just cannot believe it. I saw my son as a small baby. I saw my son." The master said, "Yes, you did see God. God is everywhere and in everybody, and you did see God." "But it was my son, my small son, like a baby." He said, "Yes, but now you should be fair, and you should see also the opposite." She said, "I don't want to." He said, "Yes, you should see now." After some time, she agreed. She said, "Okay, you're right. I should see also the opposite." She sat down and went again, after some time, very deep. What she saw made her start to cry. The master called her out of meditation and asked her, "You are crying. What were you seeing? Were you seeing the other side?" "Yes," she told him. "I saw it, but now I feel pity because I was asking you to see God. Now I have to see also the other side. I saw..." "And what did you see?" She said, "I saw again my son. Now he was growing up, and I saw... my son. Now I'm very, very sad because he's not divine anymore." The master said, "You see why it happens? Why it is like that? He didn't get the right education, didn't have the right guidance, doesn't listen to the teachers. He's not going to satsaṅg. Oh, you see, there is only darkness, ignorance around him. Now you know it, and you will help him to be more aware, to take care of him. I will also take care of him, and everybody has to help." It means also—I don't know to which Upaniṣad this story belongs, maybe to one that speaks about education—but you see how important it is that we are helping each other. Everybody falls down sometimes. It just happens because we are weak; we are not strong enough. But it is our duty to help each other to stand up again. Then we will come again near to the light. We can understand again the words from our master and what he likes to tell us, what he likes to say to us. There are many, many stories. The most important is that we have śraddhā, that we have confidence, that we believe, that we trust our Guru. It doesn't matter what he is asking for, what he is telling us. It doesn't matter in which situation we are. The most important is to trust and to work on the love. And how do we come to open our heart? We come through Karma Yoga, because this is really cutting our ego, and it is necessary. I think nobody among us is without ego; some have a very small ego. When you do your Karma Yoga, try to do it silently. Don't talk too much. Do it silently. Then you will feel love rising up, and then you are ready to practice Rāja Yoga, because then you will have discipline. You can do a lot of āsanas for 24 hours; you will not grow. Also, if you can wind your legs sometimes around your head, it is not enough. You have to work also on yama and niyama. It is very important. Then, āsanas can do their function for the dhātu, so that we get rid of blockages, that we get a new flow, that our consciousness can be widened, and we do not have all this narrow thinking. And then, prāṇa. We know prāṇa is connecting the soul with our body, but many people don't like to do prāṇāyāma. But it is very important. Start with small steps, and then you will see; you will have experience, and then you will also like Prāṇāyāma. I have now something else again in my mind, because everything is Upaniṣad when you are sitting at the feet of your master. Also when he is speaking about the Rāmāyaṇa or the Bhagavad Gītā. We say this is mythology from India, but you see, everything that is mythology was once reality. About Jesus, maybe in 2000 years we will also say it's just mythology. It is, it was. Why are people still speaking about Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa? It is about their character, about the strength that they have. I have been reading the Bhagavad Gītā for 20 years now, and still I like it. I am always newly touched. The first chapter, I was reading, but I was not really with my heart in it. I told myself, "Now this has to be changed." Because this first chapter is only names, names... names and great warriors, great warriors and names and names. But this also has its sense. I was thinking, now I will find out what is with this first chapter. Maybe you are thinking differently about this, but it was like that with me. Now I understand the Pāṇḍavas much more, the greatness of the Pāṇḍavas. They are really, really great souls who were fighting in this war. That is a matter of which side, Pāṇḍavas or Kauravas? Both sides. There was always only one person who was destroying everything. About Arjuna, I knew quite little. I was still not aware that he was married to Draupadī. Everybody knows who Draupadī is. She was the daughter of King Drupada. We know a lot about her, but that she was together with Arjuna, I didn't know, or at least I was not aware of this. I think it is important, a little bit, to tell about this because a lot of people here with Swāmījī are married. A lot of people have maybe the feeling, "Now I am married; I was married before I met Swāmījī, and maybe now I cannot reach my aim." But it is not like that. As we see about Arjuna: King Drupada was making a festival for his daughter Draupadī because she should choose a husband. Princesses and everybody who was in a higher state were invited, and also the Pāṇḍavas. Draupadī—I don't know which task she set; I think a fish was somewhere, and one had to look in the water. It was shining in the water, and he had, I think, to look in the water and to kill the fish somehow like this. And Arjuna could manage this. Then Draupadī went to him, giving the garland, and it meant, "Now I have chosen you; I will be your wife, and you will be my husband." The Pāṇḍavas took Draupadī home. You know, there are five Pāṇḍavas. Three sons were from one mother, so it was five. The father died quite early, and then Kuntī was educating the other two sons like her own sons. And so we have the five Pāṇḍavas. Kuntī had a boon that everything she spoke would come true. When the Pāṇḍavas were coming home, they were very happy because Draupadī was really a beautiful young woman. They were standing at the door, but Kuntī, their mother, was doing some work and was with her back to the Pāṇḍavas and didn't see what they were bringing. But they were very amazed, very proud, and very happy. They told, "Oh, mother, dear, we are bringing something special home." Without turning, she said, "But then you share honestly with each other." Then she turned and said, "Oh God, my God, what did I tell you? What did I say? Now you have to share the woman with each other." You see now how we would react. We would say, "Oh God, what I said is such a stupid thing. Of course, she can marry only one of you." But no, they obeyed, and all five did marry her properly. It was a little complicated, but it was not complicated for them because the guru of the family said, "Every month we will take care; one brother will be with Draupadī." And if you do not obey, then you have to go for 12 years away from the family and from Draupadī. So it was going very well. Draupadī presented to all of the Pāṇḍavas one son. We heard yesterday from Śrī Gulābjī, Arjuna has Abhimanyu; this was his first son. He has three sons, but Abhimanyu was the first. Once, it was functioning perfectly. They were much more developed than we would be. Maybe we would be jealous, thinking, "Now I cannot be with her, and my brother is with her." But it was functioning. Once there were some people coming who needed help from Arjuna. You know, he was very good in archery. But he had been with Draupadī the month before, and at the moment it was Yudhiṣṭhira's turn. He needed his bow, and he said, "How to do? How to get my bow?" Because nobody else should touch his bow. Otherwise, you could have just said, "Yudhiṣṭhira, please give me my bow." It was not functioning like that. He went to Yudhiṣṭhira and told him what was happening, that he needed his bow, that he would go and take it, do his duty to fight against some rākṣasas, and then he would go away for 12 years. Yudhiṣṭhira said, "No, you do not have to go away because you are not going out for selfish reasons. You are going to take your bow." But as Arjuna did, he took his bow, fought the rākṣasas, and of course he was the winner. Then he went away for 12 years. He wanted to keep his word, you see. We should be like this; then we will be maybe also as strong as Arjuna was. But what are we doing? We give our word, and then we see, "Oh, what have I done? Now the situation is different, and maybe it's not necessary." We are just forgetting. Everything is not right. We should keep our word. Arjuna was going in the forest, wandering around, and he met Ulūpī. What a beautiful name, Ulūpī. I don't know what it means. Ulūpī was, of course, also a beautiful woman. She was telling him, and she was crying; she needed some help because her father was going to die. He was very ill, and he was the king of a country. There was no man there, only she. The rule was that the kingdom should be ruled by a man. So Arjuna helped in this case, and he got a second son. In something like this, after some years, he got a third son, but I have forgotten the name. You see, it was not because he did not like Draupadī—never. He didn't forget Draupadī; he was just helping, just doing his duty, taking care that the kingdom could be ruled in the right way, as it should be, as the rules were in that time. We have to see it is different from nowadays, where husbands, or also some wives, are jumping just from one flower to the other. It is not the right way. We are not helping anybody; we are just destroying ourselves. We destroy the family, the other family, and our family. So we also have to get some viveka, so we can know why things are and why we are doing what we do. It is very important. When Abhimanyu was in Draupadī's womb, there was this fighting in Kurukṣetra, etc. This is the reason why, as Śrī Gulābjī told, he already had the knowledge about how to fight, how to make war in a good way, as it is possible with a war. He learned it already in the womb from Arjuna. You see what we are doing? Not everybody, but a lot of people, when they are having children, they are helpless. They don't know what they should do. Just give love to yourself and speak with the child. Everything will be good. It doesn't matter if you are married or not, but it can always happen, something... yes. I think that is the most important thing I would like to tell you about the Upaniṣads, because the Upaniṣads encompass everything. But now I would... In the normal way, we should sing a mantra in the beginning, but I will finish with a mantra. Pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate. Pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ.