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In that bhajan, Brahmānandajī seems to be talking to himself. Whether sung outwardly or inwardly, it is as if you are addressing your own mind, saying, “Why are you wandering around, lost, and not joining together with the Guru and with your inner self?” He speaks of wandering as if in darkness, moving aimlessly without understanding. “What to do, what to do? You just don’t understand,” he says. You do not hear the sound of the flute or the voice that is telling you which way to go. For me, the most powerful image comes in the part where he asks, “Don’t you know you’re sitting in your own māyā?” So many of our bhajans, like Khyurakti, Parada, Hamsi, evoke that curtain—the one that actually covers ourselves from ourselves. Our ignorance stops us from understanding Swāmījī, from understanding ourselves, from finding our true self. Then Brahmānandajī says, “Don’t you know you’re sitting in your own māyā and put a crown of truth upon yourself?” Then you will see what is inside the reality. In Strīlī I was telling one story that relates to this. It is not from the Upaniṣad, but a story many of you know about Prahlāda. Swāmījī has told it so many times; it appears in several of our bhajans. Prahlāda was a boy of tremendous bhakti. His father was the king, and he was also a rākṣasa—obsessed with himself being God, demanding that everyone worship him. He was the very epitome of the outward-going senses, someone completely absorbed in māyā. But before that part of the story, there is a part that, for me, is the most interesting. His father’s name is Hiraṇyakaśipu, and he is actually very angry with Viṣṇu because Viṣṇu, in a previous incarnation, killed his brother, who was also a rākṣasa, and Hiraṇyakaśipu wants revenge. He performs great tapasyā so that eventually the gods have to take notice. To stop him—otherwise the world is in danger—Brahmā comes and asks him to cease, offering a boon. As you know from the story, he receives the blessing that he will be invincible: neither man nor animal can kill him, he cannot be killed by day or by night, nor by weapons. In this way he becomes all-powerful, and he sets off searching all lokas to find Viṣṇu and take his revenge. But Viṣṇu, realizing that Hiraṇyakaśipu has obtained this boon and that it spells trouble for him, hides Himself. And where does He hide? He hides in Hiraṇyakaśipu’s heart, because He knows that is the one place this embodiment of outward-going senses and māyā will never look. Hiraṇyakaśipu searches every possible place and, unable to find Viṣṇu, concludes that He must be dead—that somehow the job is already done and he himself is now the all-powerful ruler of the universe. Of course, Viṣṇu is not dead; He is still sitting there, perhaps taking a rest while being carried on a tour of the whole universe. But this is exactly how it is for the human being, and I think this is what Brahmānandajī is expressing in that bhajan. We are all wandering around, searching everywhere for something to satisfy us, while that very thing—what we truly seek—is hiding within us. The same truth is expressed many times in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, which we have been discussing in recent weeks. There are quite a few ślokas that say almost the same thing: the true self, the inner self, is hidden in the cave of the heart. It is the size of the thumb—or rather, the tip of the thumb, just this end there—and it is very subtle, very hard to find. In a different way, it expresses that what we are all searching for is within us. That place where we look for our Guru is also there. The point where we really connect with Swāmījī is actually within us; it is in our heart. All of our senses, everything that draws us into the outside world, simply blinds us to the fact that what we really want, what we really look for, is right there. The philosophy of the Sāṅkhya, which is very much present inside the Upaniṣads, describes a process that moves from everything being one to slowly emerging further and further outward through the senses and toward this material world. The process in yoga is to come back in the opposite direction: to withdraw from those things and return toward our true self. When we do our practices—āsana and prāṇāyāma—they gradually draw us inward. In the beginning, it is easier to relate to something physical because we are so physical in our communities and in our communication with the world. From the physical, from the āsana, it moves toward the prāṇāyāma; the breath is somehow more subtle. And then, like rolling all of those things back up, we come inward toward our mantra and our meditation. It goes further and further inside until we reach that point, until we can be within. There is also the image in the Upaniṣad of the chariot and the horses. Gajānandajī was giving a beautiful lecture about the bhajan “Sādhubāya Jabarata Amara” in Strīloka, drawing on another Upaniṣad. The teaching is about controlling the senses, which are like wild-running horses: to bring them under control and direct them along the path we truly wish to follow. Toward the beginning of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, Yama, the God of death—the one who imparts the knowledge—explains that two things approach us at all times: the good (śreyas) and the pleasurable (preyas). And we make a choice between the two. The wise person, the one who is aware and spiritually awake, will choose what is good. The one who is not practicing that awareness will choose what is pleasurable. This choice faces us continually in the life decisions we make, in what we do, in what we eat. Last night we were talking about how we came to receive something from Swāmījī and instead got something so much bigger. There are people whose whole life, every moment, is dedicated to what they are aiming for, to that competition. Imagine having that same intensity of focus on your spiritual practice. It does not mean running eight hours a day or meditating eight hours a day, but it means that everything we do is part of our practice. If we eat well, it supports our practice. There is a choice in our eating: to choose what is good for us, what is nutritious, or things that are merely pleasurable to the tongue. That choice really affects how you practice. When you change your diet, you see how much difference it makes to your meditation if you reduce sugar or oil, or simply the quantity you eat. The same choice applies to the diet we take in through our eyes and ears: what do we read, what do we watch? There are things that taste good and things that are nutritious—there are things to watch that are also nourishing for our spiritual journey. But there are also things that are merely time-passed. When you think about how many lifetimes it took to come to this point, to have this chance to be with Swāmījī, it is actually a very small window of opportunity. That part of the Upaniṣad suggests: take care not to waste any moment of it. Be aware: is this thing you are doing now good for your practice, or is it simply eating away at that precious time? Think of millions of years, and then think of whatever time we have here: seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred years, or maybe one hundred fifty if you are very healthy. It does not really matter; relatively, it is not very long. And this moment—this time when everything has come together, when we have received mantra from Swāmījī and have chances to practice—is that one opportunity. At times a moment comes when your job will change, or you have to leave a job, or find a new place to work. Do you ask yourself first, “Where will I get the most money?” or “Where will be the best for my spiritual practice?” It may be that both come together; that is perfect. But sometimes certain opportunities will be more nourishing: better colleagues, a better environment, or more time for practice. Which one do you choose? It is a personal decision, but Yama is saying in that Upaniṣad: take care to choose what is good rather than what is merely pleasurable or profitable. This does not mean not to earn, but it is a question of establishing priorities for your spiritual life. At the very start of that Upaniṣad, there is a small boy, and his father was performing a sacrifice—a yajña, the fire ceremony—giving away things to the priests, the paṇḍits. He was giving away cows, and the boy objected, saying, “But these are the old ones that no longer give milk. Why don’t you give the best that you have?” It is the same with our spiritual life. From my own experience, I know that when you look back and ask, “Did I really give the best parts of my day to my sādhanā, or did they go to something else?” very often everything else gets done first, and then what is left over—like the old cows—is when you do your practice. It may be late at night, or rushed between other things. But truly, your spiritual practice, even if it is not long, should be given the best quality moments you have in the day. Try to arrange the day around that fact, so that your time with yourself is special. At some stages of life, this might not necessarily mean doing a mālā. For instance, when you have young children under five or seven, they deserve the best quality bits of your day. I would feel that at that time, giving them real quality time is the main sādhanā—not just the minutes when there are ads on television, but truly present, focused time. In Apple, the company that makes telephones and the like, there was a book last year about Steve Jobs, the CEO. They spoke about their design philosophy and how their products feel different, always so aesthetically beautiful. Someone asked how they manage it, and he explained that their concept of design is different. In normal tech companies, first the hardware is brought together, and then the box is made to fit that hardware. But at Apple, the philosophy has always been to first make the box according to the shape they want it to have. Then they give it to the hardware people, who must fit the hardware inside that design. It is completely the opposite way of looking at things, and the challenge falls on the hardware engineers to make everything fit. When I read that, I thought how wonderful it would be to apply in our daily life. For I would say ninety-five percent of us design our days with work and obligations first—that is like the hardware—and around that we fit the box of everything else: spiritual practice, family, friends. But as a practitioner of yoga in daily life, it should go the opposite way. First, look and see what you want to practice and which times of the day would be the best to do it. Once that serves as the frame, then try to fit all the other pieces of life around it. Some compromises may be necessary, just as even Apple sometimes compromises on design, but when you look at it this way, it is amazing how many things you can fit inside and make it work. Our spiritual life is the treasure we carry every day; it deserves the most special place—the time when we are most aware, most awake, most alive, most peaceful. If you come running home from work and then try to sit for meditation, it is a calming meditation just to come back down. But if you start from a position of already being quite peaceful and then go into meditation, it is a completely different journey. It may be hard to change, and some things may not be possible to change, but please, while you are here, take a few moments to think about this and consider what adjustments you could make in your life. How can you give the best quality moments to your sādhanā, to the time you spend with Swāmījī and with your mantra? We are here now, and it is a chance to step back, look at what happened during the year, and see how you can improve it for the next year. Go back refreshed and put it into practice. After all, phone companies bring out a new model every year—why can’t we remodel our lives once a year? They don’t change the whole thing, just adjust a few small bits to make it work better. So this is our chance to make the yearly new release. This morning as we walked around, we kept passing that house where Gurujī stayed when he was here in Vipā. The wish came to sing that bhajan, because at that time he was always asking that it be sung. Many of you were here then. Gurujī was not here for very long; he actually became quite sick. I will always remember it as an extremely difficult time. In the nighttime Gurujī had such a high fever that there was simply no sleeping at all. But in the daytime he was somewhat better, so I had the night shift. By morning, when everyone had arrived, Gurujī was sitting and seemed okay. People would say, “Why are you acting so tired?” And I would think, you should have seen how it was here last night. Gurujī could not sleep a moment; the fever was so intense. Amidst all this, there was one very beautiful thing. Some of you may remember, if you were cooking—I think everyone took a turn trying to cook Gurujī’s kadhī—because he was not eating anything. No matter who prepared it, he would always say it was not cooked: kacchā, meaning the grains were not properly cooked. He would simply say, “It’s kacchā.” Then Swāmījī, in the small kitchen there in his room, came and started to cook the kadhī. You know, when kadhī has been boiling for twenty minutes or half an hour, it is well and truly cooked. But as I remember, Swāmījī was there for about three hours, stirring that pot. The whole time, he sat in the kitchen with the spoon, and we were all running in and out having darśan. It was cooked three or four times over. Finally, after all that time, we took it to Gurujī. And he said, “It’s not cooked. What to do?” When your stomach is upset, nothing tastes proper or goes down well. But that love, that dedication—you could see Swāmījī doing seva. The kadhī may not have been cooked, but I know I was cooked by that. It was simply beautiful. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Kī Jaya, Śrī Śrī Devpurīṣī Mahādeva, Kī Jaya, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Purī Jī, Mahārāja, Kī Jaya. Viśvaguru, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī, Satguru Deva, Kī Jaya.