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Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. Śrī Śrī Devpurīṣī Mahādeva Kī Jai. Dharm Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Purī Jī Mahārāj Kī Jai. Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Satguru Deva Kī Jai. In today's webcast, Swāmījī spoke very briefly about a bhajan. He said that when the sabjī has no salt, it is tasteless, just as life is without the Guru's name. After the webcast, I contacted Jadan. That bhajan is from Padbīrāṇī, so I obtained a copy. I will try to sing it, though I do not feel confident to play the harmonium. You can try, and I will talk about it briefly. It is a very nice image. Oṁ Bholē Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Satguru Deva Kī Jaya. Guru Sabinā Sādhanā Sarve Phikahēlī... Japa, tapa, yoga, tīrtha, arcana, kare Gaṅgā snāna. O Guru Sabina, Sādhanā Sarve Fikaheli, O Guru Sabina, Sādhanā Sarve Fikaheli. Brahma Hi Brahma Bhake Chahe Nisdhinad Pache Katha Puran... Nāma leta mithānā ko jī, nāma leta mithānā ko jī, mukha nahīṃ mitho jāno Gurū Sābhinnā. Ātmā vyāpak sabhī batāve, kyā hānī, kyā lām. Dubat Bhava Jal Nava Gurusa Bin Na. Nirguṇa Sarguṇa Dono Āp Ho Śrī Satguru Dīna Dayā, Nirguṇa Sarguṇa Tono Āpho Śrī Satguru Dīna Dayā. Śrī Dīpā Kahe Satguru Karadeve, Śrī Dīpā Kahe Satguru Karadeve. O Guru Sabina Sādhanā Sarve Fikaheli Ambole. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Śrī Devpurījī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Purījī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī, Satguru Deva Kī Jai. As Swāmījī said in the webcast, the first line of the bhajan states that without the Guru, our sādhanā is tasteless, like eating food without salt. The bhajan then lists various practices: Japa, Tapa, Yoga, pilgrimage to Tīrthas, performing arcana, and bathing in the Gaṅgā. Again, Mahāprabhujī uses food imagery: it is like vegetables without masālā, without spices, and like chapātī without ghee. This tastelessness occurs when you lack someone with Brahma Jñāna to explain the teachings. You can talk about God all day (Brahma hi Brahma bhake, chahe nisidina) and read the Purāṇas and Vedas, but without someone to explain it, without the Guru unlocking its secrets, it is like having a box for sweets without the sweets inside. Your mouth does not become sweet from that. I think we all witnessed this in the webcast. Swāmījī took a story about a cow going into a cave and began to explain its real meaning. It is the same with any story from the Purāṇa, Veda, or Mahābhārata. When someone like Swāmījī takes it and explains its true meaning, then, as Mahāprabhujī says in the bhajan, it starts to have flavor. It truly begins to have something special. Everyone says the ātmā is everywhere and that there is nothing to lose or gain. Yet, without the love and blessing of the Guru, our boat sinks back into māyā. Even knowing everything is Ātmā, we still sink back within if we lack that blessing and love from the Guru. Then Mahāprabhujī speaks of his Guru: He is the light; He is both nirguṇa and saguṇa, both without form and with form. Mahāprabhujī prays that his Guru will grant him Jīvan Mukti in this life, will give him Mokṣa. That is the bhajan. It is like that. You can have a practice, but when Swāmījī gives it meaning or imbues it with his blessing, it transforms. The practices he ultimately received were so simple. What he attained in the end was so simple. Yet, because they came with his Guru's blessing, they held immense power. What we do in yoga is not rocket science. It is not about doing anything complicated; it is about becoming more and more simple. But only Swāmījī can truly explain to us how simple it is, because I feel we all search for something more complicated. Let us be mindful. I do not know why one wouldn't have joy in their sādhanā. Of course, sometimes it is very hard; I know times when it has not been joyful. But there is an image in many bhajans describing how the lotus turns its direction. This is related, of course, to the kuṇḍalinī and its rising. Yet, I also feel there is another type of face, another type of lotus that turns. There is a point where you begin to see that there is more joy inside than outside. When your face somehow turns around and sees that what is inside you is more special, then it is not about trying to cut away what is outside. It does not need cutting because it becomes uninteresting; you are looking inside. That is the joy we need to find in our sādhanā. Sādhanā is beautiful. It is divine. It is the most special thing we do. But we must turn towards it and look at it to see the divinity within. A very interesting thing with horses in Jadan: if one gets out of its stable, it usually does not want to come back in, at least not before having a good game and some fun, running you through a field. But it is very interesting: if you do not try to catch them, and instead turn around, face the other way, and stand there—with the horse behind you—and just ignore them completely, they cannot help themselves. They come and end up at your shoulder, and then you can just catch them. It works every time. It really does. It is the same with our vāsanās, all that we are attracted to in the outside world. If we turn our face around and turn it inward, they also come behind to see what is going on, what is more interesting. In that one turn of your perspective, of your eyes, of your face, it goes from you running after them to them coming after you. It is a very, very small change. It is just like the change from before 12 o'clock to after 12 o'clock in the sun. One time it is going up, next it is going down. But our tapasyā, our practice, is to just come to that point. And then, I would say, at that point you start to have the darśan of the Guru. Then, as sung in so many bhajans, it is so beautiful that it pulls you, and that generates your further journey. The same is true with our mantra. When you look at the mantra, "Śrī Dīpinī Rañjanā Sabudūkā Bañjanā," there are two parts. From my perspective, on one side is the light, Śrī Dīp Nirañjan, that spotless light. On the other side is our duḥkha that we want to remove. The mantra works to remove all that duḥkha, but as long as we pay attention to the darkness, that part stays with us. Our concentration in the mantra should be on Śrī Dīp Nirañjan. We concentrate on that light and let that light do the work of removing the duḥkha. If you want to remove darkness, you need light. And if the light is there, there is no darkness. For me, the meditation is upon Mahāprabhujī, upon Swāmījī. It is said over and over in the bhajans: they will take care of all those problems. We should not feel we have to run around and cut the entire garden down. We must be there planting the new plants, the beauty, the beauty inside. That is the joy within our sādhanā: to fill ourselves with that light and with love, and to keep feeling it more and more. Feel it, and then there is no place for those other things to reside. There are two ways to do it. One is to try and push all those things away. The other is to leave them there and fill yourself. Last year in Jadan, during a function like yesterday's Independence Day, I listened to students singing many songs about protecting their borders, protecting them from enemies on the other side, like Pakistan. They sang of needing to do this to protect their culture, their future, their religion. I sat there thinking and tried to explain to them that there is actually a much better way. When you have an empty plastic bottle without a lid, if you try to crush it, it crushes easily in your hands. But if you have a full bottle with water and the lid on, you can try to crush it as much as you like; it takes a huge amount of strength. For me, in India, we protect the border, but the culture from within was becoming empty. It is far better for every person to take care to cultivate that culture, their own religion, their own dharma. When everybody is that strong, it is very hard to be defeated. It is the same within ourselves. When we try to protect ourselves from the māyā outside, concentrating just on protection, it is very easy to get crushed if we are not paying attention, lose our awareness, or have a bad day. But if from inside we fill ourselves with love, with delight, with good things, with good thoughts, by doing Seva for others and for ourselves, it becomes much harder for those external things to impact our "bottle." That, for me, is also the joy that should be in our sādhanā. When you come to do āsanas, the most important thing is that you are aware of yourself and developing a relationship with yourself. It is about re-establishing communication with yourself, becoming physically aware of who you are and what is inside you. That is not austerity; that is beautiful. The same applies when we do prāṇāyāma: we come more inside and become one with our breath. It is so intimate, something so close and so divine within yourself. That is not fighting; that is not pressure; it is something really, really beautiful. And when we are doing our mantra, that is the time when you are there with Swāmījī, one on one, whether or not we are aware of it. As we chant, somehow that is the time when His blessing is on our head, when He is with us, when He is inside us. We are opening within us that divine word He has given us, that divine knowledge, that light, that love which is within. In one way, it may be hard to sit, but inside, something so beautiful and special is happening. That is the joy within sādhanā. The joy is also within karma yoga: to be with people who are doing the same thing you want to do. As we were saying and talking with Yogesh yesterday, to be with such special people, to have a chance to work with those who are so talented. And also, when doing karma yoga and trying to do it properly, to be with people who accept us as we are. To be a group together, knowing I will do my best and everyone else is also doing their best, that we are one group working together. I do the best I can, the others do as well, and there is nothing better than this. What more could you want? It is something so beautiful. Viśvaguru, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda, Purī Jī, Satguru Deva, Kī Jai.