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Part 1: Pūrṇamadaḥ: Fullness in Giving and the Journey Beyond Then Mike came to Nirañjanānandajī—someone everyone will remember so well from Bratislava at the World Peace Conference and many other times. And somehow Nirañjanānandajī was there in the middle, shining. He took the microphone, closed his eyes, and said: “Om pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate, pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate. Hari Om Tat Sat.” And then he simply passed the mic to the next person. It was quite a big crowd—all the sādhus were sitting down and listening, and we were all there listening. And everyone said, “Mahārājī, what about this speech?” He replied, “It’s pūrṇa, it’s full; everything is there.” Just in that one mantra, everything is there. That’s it. And everyone started to laugh and just went, “Oh, Mahārāj Jī.” That was Nirañjan Ānandjī. We were so lucky to have his darśan, his blessing, and his wisdom. He also remembered another short story from that same year. During the Kumbha Melā, Swāmījī invited him to our camp, and he came. It is quite far to come in Allahabad from the main area to where our camp was. I went to inform Swāmījī that he had arrived. Swāmījī said, “Oh, tell him that I’m busy, and he should go and give satsaṅg.” At that time everyone was sitting in the hall and some bhajans were going on. I thought, “Oh, how do I go and tell Nirañjanānandajī that Swāmījī is too busy to come and he should go and give satsaṅg?” Because within the Akhāṛā, Nirañjanānandajī was really quite an intimidating presence at that stage, and I didn’t have much contact with him then. Later I realized just how soft he was. But Guruvākya is Guruvākya. So I went out and said to Mahārāj Jī, “Swāmījī is busy; you should go and give satsaṅg.” I was quite nervous about the response, but he just said, “OK.” And it was fantastic. Everyone was completely engrossed in this satsaṅg. Swāmījī came, and as I remember, Nirañjanānandajī again just went and gave him the mic. Just a fantastic personality. Now, to the Upaniṣad. We will talk about the Kaṭha Upaniṣad. In it, a young boy named Naciketas watches as his father performs a yajña to gain prosperity and access to heaven. Part of that yajña involves giving away gifts to all the priests, the paṇḍits, and the people of the village. Naciketas observes that his father gives away their cows—the main sign of wealth at that time—but he gives away the old cows. As the Upaniṣad says, the cows that have given their last milk and eaten their last grass. Nowadays, those cows normally end up in a gośālā, at least in Rajasthan, where they are taken care of. But the boy sees this and thinks, “If you’re doing this sacrifice and you want something good out of it, you should give the best.” So he goes to his father and says, “What are you doing?” And then, specifically, thinking he’ll help his father, he asks, “Who will you give me to?” Because theoretically, in this yajña, everything should be given away. It never entered the father’s mind that his son was part of that, but his son thinks he should also be given. Here is this small boy with a better consciousness of what the ceremony should be—more open than his father. Three times he asks, “Who will you give me to?” Finally, his father gets annoyed and says, “I’ll give you to the god of death, Yama.” The boy, being a pretty perfect son, sets off. It always amazed me in India that there is a very popular motorcycle company called Yamaha. I never quite understood how it took off, because when I see it, it just says, “Yama is the God of Death, and āhāra is food.” You know, when we give food to the cows it’s paśu āhār—paśu is the animal, āhāra is food. You have phalahārī, again it’s āhār but fruit. It always amazed me that Indians never thought, “No way I’m sitting on that bike; I’ll just become the food of the God of Death.” And whenever I mention it, they just go, “Oh, we never noticed that.” I thought, “How can you not notice that?” So Naciketas goes and waits for Yama for three days—an extremely inauspicious thing for the house where he is waiting. To be waiting in a house and not receive food or water in India is a big problem. When Yama eventually comes, he is quite worried that this boy has been waiting for him and offers him three boons, three wishes. That is the whole basis of the Upaniṣad. When you think about the meaning of these different characters, the father is doing a yajña, he is acting in the world and thinking of getting the fruits, the results of his actions. So he is operating very much on this physical plane, in this māyā. And within that, his small boy has a very different consciousness of what the ceremony is about—that it is about giving completely. When you try to give, it is actually such a skill. If you are giving, you are not expecting anything back. If you are really giving, it is just going out; it is not a business transaction where something should return. If you give someone your love, you simply give it—it is unconditional. When you are expecting something in return, it is a different type of thing. But what that boy had understood, which his father did not, is that when you give everything, you end up getting it back. And it tends to come back, let’s say, with interest. As much as we can give to Swāmījī, as much as we can let ourselves go and simply put ourselves there in front of him, we get back thousands of times more. There is no limit to Swāmījī’s love, because he is not worried about it running out. It is just giving and giving, and it just keeps coming and coming. When he gives, he is not there expecting that it will come back; it does come back, but without expectation. He may ask about us, check on us, worry about what we are doing—but that is because he is concerned about our spiritual path. There is such a freedom in giving; you are completely free of any tension about what you are doing—just giving. In this way, the father represents worldly life, and the boy represents an opening of consciousness. In the story, you see the father reacting the same way our ego reacts when we start to open spiritually, trying to cut that opening out and draw us back into the material world. As that friction occurs, it tries to pull us even more and more into that world. And yet, the father says, “Go, get there.” Look at the fearlessness of that boy as he goes toward death. Somehow, that is one of the things we also do on the spiritual path—preparing for this journey. There was a beautiful documentary about one disciple of Neem Karolī Bābā, an American named Rām Dās, called Fierce Grace. In the film, Rām Dās, at one stage of his life, actually had a stroke and was physically dead. He came back and was talking about all the issues of recovering from the stroke—he lost the use of half his body for quite some time—but he spoke in the most incredibly open way about his experience when he passed away. He said, “All my years of practice, I was thinking I was such a good yogī, but at that very moment I got scared. I saw the light, and I got scared.” And he added, “I had a test, and I failed.” He continued, “I’m so glad I get a chance to do it again.” It is part of our practice, you know; we are preparing ourselves so that when we leave this body, which is just a body, we freely let it go and move on without attachment. When I try to visualize this, I think of a peach and a cherry. In a peach, the flesh of the fruit is very attached to the seed. In a cherry, it is not so attached; when you press it, the seed comes out. I see it as something we don’t look for, not something we want to happen soon—we want to stay here as long as possible and be with Swāmījī—but through our practice and detachment, somehow, those bags can always remain packed. In my family’s house in Sydney, my parents live directly on a national park. Sometimes we have large fires, and they have been asked to leave because the fire might burn the house down. In the house, all the important documents and special things my parents hold as memories are kept ready—the possibility is there, and they are prepared. That eventuality will also come to us one day. We don’t want it to happen, and we don’t want it to happen soon, but through our practice, the bags can be packed. There is a saying in India: If you wake up and think you will pass away today, one time you will be right. It sounds terrible, but it is the Indian way of reality. It is there; it is part of life. And this boy boldly walks toward death. Of course, because he goes of his own will, Yama is not really expecting him. There’s a small story about Yama. As I heard it told—I’m sure it’s told in many places—there was a man in Jodhpur going to see his Gurujī. On the way, in the market, he saw Yama. He panicked, ran to his Gurujī, and said, “Gurujī, Gurujī, I’m going! I just saw Yama. I have to get out of here.” His Gurujī said, “Just sit down; don’t worry.” But you know how hard it sometimes is to listen when Swāmījī gives good advice. The man said, “No, no, no way, I’m out of here.” He got in the car and immediately drove to Jaipur. A short while later, Yama came to the Gurujī—they were on good speaking terms. The Gurujī said to Yama, “What were you doing this morning, terrorizing my disciple? He was so scared he just ran away.” Yama replied, “I was really surprised to see him too, because I have an appointment with him in Jaipur in the evening. I couldn’t understand why he was here; now I have seen him in Jaipur.” You can’t run. So the boy goes, and Yama says to him, “I will give you your three wishes.” The first thing Naciketas asks for is that when he goes back, his father will welcome him and not be angry with him. The second wish is that Yama will teach him the secret of that fire ceremony. Coming back to the cows: when the boy questions giving the best cows and feels troubled that his father gives only those no longer giving milk—for me, that is one of the most special messages of the Upaniṣad for all of us. Part 2: The Quality of Our Sādhanā and Facing Death: Reflections from the Kaṭha Upaniṣad Look at your life and your sādhanā. Ask yourself: which quality of cows do you give to your sādhanā, and which do you give to other activities? The most important thing we do is our sādhanā. It doesn’t necessarily take the biggest part of the day, but it deserves the parts that are truly quality. Coming home exhausted, then starting your mālā—that may be pleasant for relaxing before sleep, but it is not necessarily the time to receive something deep from that mālā. For me, rather than doing it in the evening, I would go to bed half an hour earlier and give that half hour in the morning, offering the best part of the day. It is good to occasionally look at how you fit everything together in your lifestyle and ask if you are giving the best quality time to what really matters. I found a wonderful example in the biography of Steve Jobs. One chapter described their manufacturing philosophy. Normally, a company first has components and then gives them to the design department to make a product around them. But Apple’s approach was the opposite: first the design team created the shape they wanted, then the components were fitted inside. I thought, this is how we should design our lives. Very often we work around obligations and fit our spiritual life in wherever it fits. Instead, make a spiritual outline of what you want to do each day, then fit the other things inside and around it. It may not require much change, but the effect is very different. Most things you do can fit into that box, and it becomes a far more compact and efficient container than the other way around. So, when the Upaniṣadic image speaks of not giving old cows that no longer give milk, it means: do it now, not later. Do not keep saying, “I will just finish this first.” A spiritual journey is long; it needs energy and constant practice. The later we wait to truly begin, the more difficult it becomes. Before we lose the energy to get it started, it is better to start now, while we still have that fire and enthusiasm toward the spiritual. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, Yama tries to dissuade the boy from asking his question. “Please do not ask,” Yama says, “it is too difficult; even the devas do not understand.” Yama offers him everything: immense riches, kingship, all forms of temptation—hundreds of elephants, thousands of horses, hundreds of dancing girls—just to avoid that question. But the boy is fixed. He knows all those things are impermanent and will never bring true happiness. He tells Yama, “I know that everything you offer is fleeting.” He wants that knowledge—that jñāna of the Ātmā, that knowledge of Paramātmā—for which Swāmījī also waits and for which we sit here practicing. Only then does Yama consent: “Okay, I will teach you.” Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān kī Jaya. Jasrat Purījī unpacks the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, which deals with death. In the story, one man escapes to Jaipur, but death is already waiting there. I know another version set in Āraṇya; there must be a thousand such versions. The point is not a single event, but the principle: death is an unpleasant topic. We try to escape it, run away from it, which practically means we refuse to deal with it in our lives. We ignore it, forget it. It is a social agreement, because one of the five kleśas is abhiniveśa—the fear of death, or clinging to physical existence. Patañjali says in the Yoga Sūtras that even the wise and even animals have this. So there is a collective arrangement where old people are no longer central to family or social life. In many Western societies we have gone even further: old people are sent to old-age homes and hospitals; the family often only learns of death after the fact. In traditional Indian society, generations live together, old people are integrated into the family, and their suffering and death are witnessed even by young children. We must be aware that the tendency to avoid death lives in all of us. The real challenge in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad is that the boy goes to death—he accepts it. He is not afraid. This is a profound provocation, and that is why Lord Yama honors him with three boons. Wise persons integrate this very topic into their life. There is a small Zen story: a master would hold tea ceremonies every evening, then wash the dishes very carefully and put them exactly in their place. Someone asked, “Why? You can leave it for the morning.” The answer: “I do not know if I will wake up tomorrow. When I leave this body, I want everything to be in perfect order.” That is the attitude of a true spiritual person: to weave mortality into our thinking. Yes, we are mortal; one day this physical body will die. But the point is not just physical death. In reality, physical death is no death. It is merely closing one chapter and opening the next—as the Bhagavad Gītā explains, just as we discard worn clothes and put on new ones. The Jīvātmā does not die; only the physical body is changed. The problem is that within the jīvātmā, the ego remains; our individuality persists. When the body dies, unfortunately our ego does not die. So this outer death is also a preparation for the real, necessary death: the death of our ego. That is the true operation the Guru is trying to perform on us. I would like to share something I analysed from an old lecture of Swāmījī’s, from 1991—a video, number 37, titled “Disciple and Wake Up.” I love this lecture so much that I listen to it at least once a year and made pages of excerpts to dive deeply into its subtleties. Swāmījī’s lectures are not logical, not intellectual, not straightforward. They come from realisation, not from linear thought. Because of that, he often seems to jump from one point to another and then back again. Years ago I tried to analyse why he suddenly shifts topics. In this talk, the subject is the Guru, and the question: who has a chance to attain mokṣa, to self-realisation? It is all about the ego. Yet, remarkably, he leaps from one image to another—not logically, but associatively. When you listen closely, you see that in Swāmījī’s mind, the death of the body and the death of the ego are basically one. I will now read his exact words: “We have to become like clay in the hand of the potter. And then he can make any form out of us as he likes. He may put us in cold water or in hot water. He may beat us left and right. May throw us a hundred times on the stones, and then come with some stick. And then let us just lie for a long time. Then he may take us in his hands. And let us go round and round, chakras, 8.4 million turnings. And then, when we are a little bit saved in form, then he puts us in the fire. What remains is the best part. But before accepting it, he is testing us, knocking upon us. If there is a good sound, or if there is anywhere a hole or something like that, but if there is somewhere broken, or there is some little crack, then it doesn’t have such a sound. So if there is somewhere a defect, then what does he do? He takes it and throws it in the garbage. That’s it. So now listen. So this little mistake, this little crack, that could be our doubt. That could be our little personal ego. No, I don’t want. Or inner anger, so it is very hard, harder than anything. But it is very easy. The people who have already died and who are in the astral form are not afraid anymore. The hard thing is only to come to this point. We are not afraid of death, but afraid of the process of dying.” He speaks about the crack—the ego—and then suddenly speaks about physically dying. Another example from the same lecture: “Though our mantra is the best mantra, everything is inside, but it depends on us. The river is flowing here, and you can take as much water as you like. That’s it. But how much you realize, how much you are dedicated. How much do you still have your personal existence, your personal ego? One day, sooner or later, we have to give it up. Either you give it, or you have to give. So before we lose our reputation, we had better give it. Because one day we have to give all that which we think is mine. And then death will laugh or smile. Where is yours? Leave everything here, go out. At that time, we have to give everything up. Everything that you have, you cannot say, ‘That’s mine, I don’t want.’ Therefore, it is better to give it to God beforehand, and then He takes care. You will not be ill so much. I mean, you will not have any heavy, big problems. And if there’s a heavy problem, it’s not your problem. It is his problem because you gave it to him already.” Again he spoke about the ego, and suddenly he speaks about death. From this perspective, the Upaniṣad’s logic becomes clear. The story begins with a boy going of his own free will to his death. This represents a life-attitude that accepts death—accepting that I am a mortal being, not escaping, not running away. That acceptance actually makes us ready for the real death: the death of the ego. Then, not only does the body change, but the one who changes—that one dies. When we are inwardly prepared, we become qualified for the highest wisdom. And that is the boy’s third question. Thank you. Děkuji. Can we again do just five to ten minutes of meditation? Swāmījī was for those in the webcast world, hurry on.