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Śrī Śrī Deva Puruṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai. Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Mādhavānanda Purādhyāya Mahārāja Kī Jai. Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purādhyāya Satguru Deva Kī Jai. Hari Om. Reflections on Health and a Teacher Named Sultan To those who have come from Switzerland today, welcome. Because they are here, the translation will be into German. Welcome to Jaraṇa Āśrama, especially to our friends from Switzerland. Grazie. Svāmījī is today in Nīpal with the group from Europe and is staying the night there. Tomorrow morning he will return towards Jaraṇa. Tomorrow night he will again be on the webcast here in Jhāḍaṇa. I thought I would take this chance to give a kind of news report on recent events. Svāmījī spoke about the conference he attended in Bangalore. Perhaps I can offer a slightly different perspective and a few more details. Svāmījī was invited to this conference by an Indian government department called ĀYUSH. This department is responsible for Āyurveda, Yoga, Yūnānī, Siddha, and Homoeopathy. It works to promote and develop these systems within India. This conference had a particular focus on Yoga and Naturopathy. There is a large university in Bangalore dedicated to teaching these subjects. Promoting Naturopathy was a dream of Mahatma Gandhi, who saw it as the cheapest way to maintain good health in villages, believing it could save medicine and keep people well affordably. This conference reflected a move back towards that vision. The government is strongly pushing to establish facilities, especially naturopathic hospitals, for the public. As Svāmījī said last night, the four most important medicines are water, earth, air, and fire (mṛttikā, jala, sūrya, vāyu). The conference had a Hindi slogan stating these four are worth a thousand allopathic medicines. Many people attended: doctors from various practices, yoga teachers, and spiritual leaders. The organizers felt spiritual backing was essential for success. They held a large program inviting leaders from across India—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, and various South Indian traditions. The two main speakers were Svāmījī and another Svāmī, Soham Bābā from Bengal. It was a long, inspiring function of three to four hours where everyone was united in the goal of improving health. Every speaker emphasized that physical and spiritual health must go together. The Sanskrit and Hindi word for health is svāsthya. This word combines sva (the self) and stha (established)—meaning to be established in oneself, in harmony with one's own body and needs. Yoga and the naturopathic approach complement this perfectly. Unlike allopathy, which tries to kill viruses and bacteria, naturopathy aims to remove disease from the body. Sitting in the conference was inspiring, yet I also felt a little sorry. The simple fact of human nature is that we hear these great, good ideas but often walk out the door and do not implement them. It is funny how we are satisfied with states of existence we could change, yet upset about things we cannot change. We may not be sick now, but does that mean we should be satisfied? We could be better, more well. An example came from Bangalore. A decade ago, it had a million people; now it has eight or nine million. The traffic is terrible. That Sunday, traffic was light. We asked the driver how long a three-kilometer trip would take. "Only about half an hour. Today the traffic is very good." For him, this was a good condition relative to Monday, but that does not mean it truly fits. The people of Bangalore cannot accept forever that traffic should be so bad. Something is changing with new construction. Is it the same with our bodies? When we feel "good," is our concept of good health like Bangalore's concept of good traffic? Could it be much better? Using naturopathic principles—simple things like drinking more water, warm water in the morning—could our health not improve greatly? From the yoga perspective, practicing a little āsana daily and seeking to improve our intensity. These are powerful things. Why should we not improve? Who knows our potential? We should ask ourselves: why not increase it? To be satisfied with our body does not mean we could not achieve much more. Many may have experienced this during Navarātrī, when fasting for nine days, often on just fruits and milk. Around the fifth, sixth, or seventh day, an energy comes. You become aware of how heavy we make ourselves by eating too much. We gain awareness during those nine days, but on the tenth day, the fast ends. From my experience, by the twelfth day, we generally forget until the next Navarātrī. It is funny: we know how good we can feel by caring for our diet and practice. What is it about us that thinks we do not deserve to feel like that all the time? That is what we need to change—to realize we deserve to be so well. Parts of our health we cannot control, but the parts in our hands, we can. It was a beautiful conference. I went without much enthusiasm, as it was government-run, but I was pleasantly surprised. The enthusiasm from both the spiritual leaders and the government officials was great. Their efforts were rewarded; on Sunday, over 100,000 people came through the gates. Now, a second piece of news. Perhaps sad, perhaps not, depending on your perspective. Yesterday, our old horse Sultan, who had been here for so many years, left his body and went to his next race. Sultan was a thoroughbred who came to the āśrama about 14 years ago. Before that, he was a racehorse in Mumbai and Pune, then in Bikaner, owned by someone who worked here. He was quite unmanageable, which somehow delivered him to us. For me and many others, Sultan was a teacher, a presence that gave everyone a lesson or two, or maybe a hundred. When he first arrived, he was truly wild. Trained as a racehorse, his instinct was to run when mounted. He was like a Śakti, an energy going out without direction. Over time, he changed profoundly. At that time, Durgāpurī from Australia was here. He knew about horses and spent much time with Sultan. It was not just care; Sultan was therapy for all of us, a release for frustration. The transformation over the next two years, through the love Durgāpurī and others gave him, was amazing. He became peaceful and calm. It was almost unimaginable compared to the horse that first arrived. I once saw him lying in the stable with his head on Durgāpurī's stomach, both sleeping. A fantastic example of love's power to transform nature. As time went on, Sultan became so peaceful that all our hostel children learned to ride on him. With a small child, he would never give any problem; you could be completely confident. Yet, the power was still there. If you did not respect it, you could get a lesson. Many years ago, some may have seen Phulburjī get a lesson. Phulburjī was walking Sultan near the Omāśrama to eat grass. He had past experience riding camels and thought it similar, so he jumped on with no saddle, reins, or bridle—and without real communication of respect. Sultan proceeded to set a land speed record from the Omāśrama to the workshop, with Phulburjī holding his mane. He came around the workshop corner at full speed towards the woodshop doors, then demonstrated his excellent brakes by stopping on the spot. Phulburjī went flying. As he lay on the ground, Sultan just looked at him with a very peaceful expression, as if saying, "A little bit of respect." There are so many stories about Sultan. He was a very special soul here. In one way we will miss him, but he will always be in our hearts as a teacher on the yoga path. One more short story from Sultan relates well to the Naturopathic Conference. He is the greatest example I know of diet's power over the body. Here was this huge thoroughbred horse, withers up to here. One capātī (wheat bread), and he would become completely crazy. He could eat other grains, but wheat made him mentally lose it. We learned this early on when he was hard to control, experimenting with his diet to see what calmed or agitated him. This animal weighed five or six hundred kilos. In later years, if someone gave him a capātī, we could see from a distance and think, "Oh no, somebody's given him a capātī again." It was inevitably the fellow who had left him here. We would ask, "Did you give him a capātī again?" "Oh, I had to; he looked so hungry." The effect of that wheat in his system would last for two days. For me, this is a powerful example of what a different diet does to us. How does our diet affect us mentally? These things may take time to understand in ourselves, but it is worth knowing. By paying attention and gaining that knowledge, we can transform our life, our being, our health, and our mental balance. It is easy to dismiss, saying, "Maybe it's for someone really imbalanced, not for me." But come back to the Bangalore traffic analogy. When we bring awareness to our yoga practice, diet, and lifestyle, we may find we can feel even better than we ever imagined. It does not require a big external transformation; it is already there. It just requires some fine adjustment, fine tuning, fine setting. Amarāja kīrya.