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I am preparing a story, but it is not ready yet. It is not properly cooked and must wait until tomorrow. It will be a long one. Today, however, is also a story, though not like tomorrow's. This is a story I read from Swami Satyānanda. There were two Swāmīs living in a village, always together. They were famous for one thing: they were always laughing. It did not matter what happened, whether something good or something bad. They were just enjoying it and laughing, smálí se. People could not understand it. How could they be enjoying everything so much? They were not lazy; they were not joking. They were doing their sādhanā; they were truly great sādhus. But everything was fun, everything was amusing for them, everything was something to enjoy. People watched and wondered: there must be something they would not enjoy. Eventually, one of them died, took samādhi. In the village, people thought, "Now we will see how the other one reacts." They had been together so long; surely now he would be sad. They prepared for the funeral. Before his death, the Swāmījī had left notes about his funeral. He said he did not want to be buried in samādhi but wanted to be placed on the fire. And he wanted to be placed on the fire in his favorite jacket. They made the preparations, gathering wood and readying the fire. Everyone felt sad; they had lost such a great personality. Except for the other Swami—he was still smiling. They thought, "It is not possible. Surely, at some stage, he has to be upset." They brought the Swāmījī’s body, dressed in his favorite coat. With great ceremony, they placed it on the wood and started the fire. And then the fun began. It was his last wish to be burned in his favorite coat, and before he had gone, he had made sure the pockets of his coat were all filled with fireworks. So, as it started to burn, things were going everywhere, and people were running. And his friend, the other Swāmījī, was enjoying it so much, watching everyone. The people in the village saw that from beginning to end, this was a laughing Swami. The whole village understood that, yes, until the very end, it was laughing with you. Why did I want to tell you this story today? When we talk about the Upaniṣads and all these things, it is quite serious. It is the knowledge we need to know; it is the guidance; it is something very useful for our spiritual path. But at the same time, we should not lose the joy which is in practicing, the joy which is in doing yoga, and the joy which is in being with Swāmījī. It can still be hard, but it is up to you whether it is a complete suffering or something you are—you cannot say enjoying sometimes—but appreciating, because something is happening; you are doing something good. As Gajananjī was saying last week, when he was talking about Milarepa and Marpa, again, these practices which Marpa got were so simple. But it took so long to get them. The essence of what we do is actually so simple. And it should be something done with joy. When we sit to meditate, in one way it is a posture; it may be hard. But when you close your eyes, there is a joy of being with yourself, of being inside, of going in. How are you going to see it? If it is a joy, then it is going to be much more inviting to do. You all know Father David. He has been here in Europe, and he is often with Swāmījī in India. I once asked him how he copes with all his responsibilities. He was the head of a Catholic church in a state in Australia. He managed all the Catholic schools in Australia and all the media for all of Australia. And he did that in the morning. In the afternoon, he worked for the government as the head of two departments. Once I asked him, "How do you cope with all the problems you must have with that?" He laughed and said, "No, no... I do not have any problems; they are all just issues." There is a very big difference if you see something as a problem and see it as an issue. This issue is what we have with our mind, or with trying to guide our senses, or trying to keep on the path. If you see them as problems, they somehow terrorize you; they make life hard for you; they are something difficult to deal with. Whereas an issue is something you look at, you acknowledge it is there, and then you start to try and deal with it, start to try and find the answer. It is a very subtle difference, but it makes a very big difference in how you practice. We are going to have to deal with these issues sometime. We cannot hide from them eventually. So, in Australia, we would say, "Bring them on." Let them come, let us do it, but also, at the same time, try and enjoy it. I remember once in Jāḍān, we got a notice from the tax department. There was no basis for this notice. We had done nothing wrong. But it was my first experience of this, and they had written this and this and this, and you will be punished with this and this. It was huge—three pages of things. I was looking at it and thinking, "Oh my God, what do we do with this?" I will never forget: we took it to our accountant in Jodhpur. Our accountant is a very soft man, very peaceful, very calm. I was in there saying, "What are we going to do with this? Look at this, look at this. They say by tomorrow we have to give them everything they want." He looked and read for about five minutes, all the pages, reading some things again. I thought surely he would start to feel my panic. He put the paper down and put his glasses down. Then he said, "I think we will have to make a reply." My mind was thinking, "Yes, I think we better make a reply." But that was it from his side; it was so casual and so calm—just no problem. Let us make a reply. What can you do? On one side, you can panic. You can get all nervous and think, "Reply, reply... reply." Or, like our accountant: yes, we better make a reply. And he slowly started to write and write. He prepared such a good reply, they just said, "Okay, no problem." But you know, when your issues come up opposite you, when something comes and disturbs you, or one of the negative things about your personality comes in front of you, there are two ways we can react. One is, "Oh my God, what do I do with this? Oh, again it has come up. How am I going to deal with this? I have tried so many times, again and again." Or the other way to react is to make a reply. Just observe it, see what is there to be done, and try to do it tomorrow. Or try and do it now, or if it is in your meditation at this moment, try and change what you are thinking. Become aware that these vṛttis are there. Okay, now you are aware of them. Now let them go. As soon as we get worried about them or wish that we did not have this vṛtti, or get upset with ourselves that we have it, we have taken one small vṛtti and made it into a huge wave. So what? So what if we get disturbed in our meditation? That was already one second before. It is the moment that is before us now that matters. So what if we made a mistake? Let us try and do it better next time. That is how it goes. We all make mistakes. I lost my train... one badger. I will think of it. Laughing is one thing. Laughing can also be silly. But joy is another thing. Joy is there. And it can also be sāttvic. Sometimes it may seem foolish, but to rejoice, that is sāttvic. Thank you. Abhijanaya Sare Nantaryamimi Javo Kashi Javo Charo Dhamakire Kashi Javo Kashi Javo Charo Dhamakire Gurujī used to say: if something comes, it is welcome. If it goes, then the crowd is little. But really, if you think of that, then that is that joy. If something comes to you, then it is welcome. It is really great. But just as important is to enjoy letting it go. Joy is not about attachment; it is about being free from that. When you have a desire for something, then you are attached to it, but you can enjoy something without being attached to it. If it comes, it is welcome. If it does not come, so what? Or if it goes, so what? It leaves a space for something else to happen. What I was trying to think before, and then it slipped out of my mind, was a saying from a Zen master. It is about when you are meditating and the vṛttis come in your mind. He said, "If the vṛttis come in, then no problem. Let them come in through the front door of your mind. But also leave the back door open so that they can go back out. And under no circumstances serve them tea." You have really good chai shops in Czech, no? If that vṛtti really comes in, do not sit down with it and say, "Oh, would you like a cup of tea?" and start discussing and thinking about it and getting involved with it. Just as much as they come in by themselves, leave also the way open that they can go back out. Do not involve yourself with them in your meditation. Oh, you have come in, welcome. Přicházíš, vítej. Now, more seriously, this is one bhajan that Swāmījī has been translating several times lately, or talking about in Indian satsaṅg. I do not know if he has also talked about it here, but I see that in some parts of it, he speaks out very regularly. So I just wanted to sing it. I do not think it is in the bhajan book at all. It is called Sādobāī Yemanā Bhadranāḍī, and somehow it means Sādobāī. This mind is very naughty. As much as you try to explain to it, it does not understand. And it is just constantly talking nonsense. The next part is what Swāmījī is always mentioning. He says that yogī spends lots of time making a beautiful garden. And this mind, like a monkey, comes jumping through and destroys everything so quickly. And then he says it is also like a very strong ox that is pulling along—here we go with the chariot again. It is pulling along the cart, but it is pulling it around and around in the fog, in the nighttime. And if you are not careful, it causes you to fall in a hole. And Gurujī says that without coming, it is there. And it is always able to run in front of us. And in one second, it can cross the length of the whole world. Without a mouth, it is constantly eating, day and night. And even so, it is still hungry. If you remember the story the other night from the little Amṛt, where Mahāprabhujī said that you should not have any form of hunger when you are in his ashram. And he also said, "If you do not know about the limits of your stomach, then how can you deal with other thoughts?" But it is this hunger of the mind that is so hard to satisfy. Often, Swāmījī quotes one Gajūdāna, Rājūdāna, Vajūdāna, saying that you can have all of the riches in the world, but the greatest riches is to have satisfaction. For your mind to be satisfied with what you have, with what you already have. Because in reality, we have those things which can make us happy if we utilize them. It always sounds so simple, but it is the same things: we have our mantra, we have our sādhanā, and we have our path. And if we go on it in the right direction, that is actually all the tools that are required. And he says, then next he says that with knowledge, with knowledge the yogī catches that mind, which he is now—Gurujī is still having the image of it being like a buffalo. Sorry, not a buffalo, a bull, a very misbehaving bull. And in India, there are not a lot of tools to catch a bull. You cannot believe how it is when you have to try and give the cows immunization against certain illnesses. I always thought that it was only in nursery rhymes that cows could jump over the moon. But I have really, with my own eyes, seen a cow jump over an eight-foot gate. If the other guys who are working in the gośālā had told me, I would never have believed them. All the cows are loose, you know, so the first ones are getting their injection, and the other ones are seeing what is happening. And then they start to run. We usually have six or seven guys trying to do this job because, you know, in one gośālā there are two or three hundred cows, and the others are somewhere else. You see these guys at the end of the day; they just come back going, and that is when they have managed to do about 80. But this one, he was a young bull, maybe one and a half years old. I never saw anything like it; he was running faster than our horses. And he was running towards the gate, and we were all just looking, going, "Oh my, what is going to happen now? When he is going to hit that gate, something is going to be very messy." But really, this cow—I mean, it was like something from the Olympics from the equestrian. At full speed, he ran towards this gate and just went... The gate is here; it is above my head. I can touch it with my hand like this. And somehow he got two legs over beautifully, and he kind of got caught on his stomach. And then he managed to wiggle himself over, and he was gone. He went running towards the Om Ashram. Then he had one friend. They were probably like the laughing Swamis, you know, these two. And he went running in the other direction. If you know in Jāḍān where the Gośālā was, the upper Gośālā in the ashram, on one side there is a wall. It is a stone wall, and it would only be about four feet high, four or five feet. But on the other side, it is about eight feet down. And there are trees, and then after some distance, there is a road. And he took that way, and he just went sailing over this wall. And again, we are all going, "Oh no, oh no, he is going to break his legs when he lands." But again, they had obviously been training together, because he landed perfectly and just went off at full gallop through the fields towards the Ayurvedic hospital. He did not like allopathic treatment, obviously. He wanted an Ayurvedic injection. So here they have got this bull. Gurujī did much better than we did. And then, actually, the best way to hold them is by the nose. So you grab them by the nose. And then Gurujī says to give them a drink of medicine, of jñāna, of knowledge. So here, to your mind, catch it and then give it a drink of knowledge. And then the word he is using is a drink, but as in a medicine, a drink. And then that illness will be cured. Then he says that Mahāprabhujī took the jñāna of his mind, the lack of knowledge of his mind, by the roots out completely. And Gurujī says with joy, with bliss, that the Kṛpā of the Guru is so, so deep, so, so full. Śrīdīt Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Nikki Jamboree, Śrīdīt Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Nikki Jessie, Śrīdeputist Mahādeva key term Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Svayaṁ Aravinda Pūjā Mahārāja key to Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa. Swayam Eshwar Nampuri Satguru Devaki Jai Saro Bhai. Yeh mana bara nadi, Saro Bhai. Yeh mana bara nadi, samjhaya samjhaya nahi morak. Samjhaya samjhaya nahi morak, ese niche labadi, Saro Bhai. Ye mana bada naadi, yogi jati koi mehnat karke. Kove bhajan kī bāḍī Jogī jātī koī mehnat karke, Kove bhajan kī bāḍī. Yemānā bandarā bāḍo harāmī, Yemānā bandarā bāḍo harāmī. Palame baḍī bigaḍī asaro bāī, Yemānā baḍā nadī Sadobāī, yemānā baḍā nadī. Inna moṭā velā hoyā kar, kiche grasta kī gaḍī. Ye manna mota vela hoya kar, kiche grasta ki gadi. Andha dundame jāve dhartā, andha dundame jāve dhartā. Pāde viṣayaki kādi āsaro bāi, ye mana bādā nādi. Sāro bāi, ye mana bādā nādi. Samjāyo samjē nāi mōrak, samjāyo samjē nāi mōrak. Eso nīcala bādi āsaro bāi, yeh mana baḍā nadi. Ākār sākār khai je. Dore sab ke ugadi Inna aakar saakar khai je, Dore sab se agadi Ek palak me kalak firave. O Sarobhai, ye manna bada nadi, Sarobhai, ye manna bada nadi. Samjayo samje nahi morak, samjayo samje nahi morak. Esani chalabadi Sarobhai, ye mana bada nari. Sarobhai, ye mana bada nari. Mukha jaaro jaare raat din, to bhi bhukh nahi kaadi. Mukha jaaro jaare raat din, to bhi bhukh nahi kaadi. Kahu mana neech na layak kya. Kahu mana neech na layak, Ven sakho ke paadi a sarobhai. Ye mana bada nadi, sarobhai. Ye mana bada nadi. Samajayo samajay nai morak, samajay samajay nai amorak. Āg kī davā pilāī, āg kī davā pilāī, metī bhīmadī jaḍī, o sarobhāī, ye mana baḍā nadī. Sadobhai, ye mana bada nadi, Samjhāyo samjhe nahī̃ mūrak, Samjhāyo samjhe nahī̃ mūrak, Mādhavānandajī Ānandāī, kahe Mādhavānandajī Ānandāī, Guru kṛpāvai, gaḍī asarvai, jemaṇā bara nadī. Thank you.