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Good evening and welcome to all, including those on the webcast. Let us begin by chanting Aum. Śubhaṁ karoti kalyāṇam ārogyaṁ dhana sampadā. Satra buddhi vināśāya, Dīpa jyotir namo ’stu te. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ... We are slowly approaching the end, coming now to the last three of the Niyamas. There is something special about these last three. In the ślokas I gave you, where the Yamas and Niyamas are directly treated, something is actually missing. These three principles were already mentioned earlier in the Yoga Sūtras, not in the context of the Yamas and Niyamas, but at the beginning of the second chapter. The first chapter speaks about the aim of yoga, samādhi, but the second chapter explains the practical path. This is where we also find the start of Rāja Yoga. The Yamas and Niyamas are from sūtra 30 to 45. However, right at the beginning, the very first śloka of the second chapter deals with these three already. The sūtra is very short, as all ślokas are. This is the nature of a sūtra—a type of scripture that is very terse and condensed. Sūtra means thread, a red thread connecting different points. You must imagine that Patañjali was a saint who most probably had many disciples. He gave them lectures and instructions, teaching them sādhanā. Perhaps he spoke about one of these Yamas or Niyamas for an hour, two, three, or even a day. At the end, he would write on the blackboard one sentence, the essence of the essence, in two, three, five, or seven words. For the students who heard the whole lecture, they would immediately understand. He would tell them, "Now you learn that by heart, and through this, you will always remember what I have explained to you." Unfortunately, his lecture is lost. At that time, there was no audio or video recording, but the red thread, this mini, mini summary, remains. Of course, it now needs an explanation; it needs that lecture. Only saints who are on that state of consciousness can give such a lecture. Therefore, we should always read such scriptures, called sūtras, with the commentary of a saint. Here, the first sūtra from the second chapter is very clear and very short. It has just four words. He mentions three things: tapas, svādhyāya, īśvara-praṇidhāna, and says that is kriyā yoga. There are actually many discussions about this sūtra. In the text I gave you, there is no explanation, and the following sūtras do not explain it; they go forward. So the question is: why is he mentioning these three principles, which are the last three Niyamas, and already calling them Kriyā Yoga here? There are three different interpretations. Some simply say, "Okay, he mentioned them already," and give the same commentary on these principles there and here, saying it’s just a repetition. I do not think this is the right approach, because he tried to make it as short as possible, and when he repeats something, there must be some reason. Others refer to the modern understanding of Kriyā Yoga as a highly developed meditation technique, which Swamiji also teaches when he initiates us into a Kriya. They refer to this one sūtra and say, "You see, even Patañjali mentioned already the Kriya Yoga." But one has to stretch it a little to say that what he says is our modern understanding of Kriyā Yoga; it is not really. In my opinion—and this is really only my personal opinion—the third interpretation is most likely. It always helps to look at the Sanskrit words. We have here the word Kriyā Yoga, and kriyā comes from the root kṛi. But the word karma also comes from the root kṛi, which means basically to do, to act. So from the Sanskrit meaning, karma yoga and kriyā yoga can have completely identical meaning. How the word kriyā is used depends really on the context. Mostly, we actually have it only in the sense of a technique, something we do: we follow a certain technique. For example, the Haṭha Yoga Kriyās are physical purification techniques; we use neti with water. It has nothing to do with meditation techniques. When we understand Kriyā Yoga actually as Karma Yoga, I think then we get closer to the meaning. We produce in our life so many karmas, and through Karma Yoga we try to purify ourselves from the karmas. This purification is actually a preparation for our spiritual path and an important part of it, as we discussed already in the principle of śauca, purity. Therefore, most commentaries explain these sūtras as Kriyā Yoga, a preliminary yoga, a preparing yoga. I think it is likely that the words here, though they are the same, are understood in a slightly different meaning. This is the beginning of yoga, or the preparation for the later following Rāja Yoga, and it is like a test for us. One commentary, for example, says it is a test in three levels of our being. Tapas refers more to our willpower to stand through. Svādhyāya, study, refers more to our intellect. And Īśvara Praṇidhāna, devotion to God or bhakti, refers more to our emotions. One cannot really clarify this, because this sūtra is so short and has no explanation, so it is really open for many interpretations. I just want to make you aware that this is not the first time these points are mentioned in the Yoga Sūtras. Now, the one we are dealing with is the eighth Niyama: Tapas. It is already not easy to translate tapas. We can understand the meaning when we go to the root, which is the word tap. Tapas comes from tap, which means fire or heat. What is the principle of fire? When you put something dirty into the fire, it burns. What happens to the dirt? It also burns. What remains is the ashes. The ashes are so pure they cannot be purified anymore. Therefore, what is pure is seen as holy. These ashes are respected as holy, and many actually touch a finger into the ash and make a tilak. Some Śiva devotees cover the whole body in ashes. Here we get the point that fire is the principle of purification. We have it in another context, which you all know: the three tapas. Who remembers? Say it loud. Yes, Ādhibhautika, Ādhidaivika, Ādhyātmika. Those are the three ways karmas come to us. You remember we have the bhajan in which the three tapas are also mentioned. The line is, "Tinoṁ tap pāp mitā jā." "Tinoṁ tap" means the three tapas, and the next word is important: "pāp." What does "pāp" mean? It means sin. So it says the sins, the negative karmas, or in general the karmas, come in the form of the three tapas to us as an obstacle, basically, in our life and in our spiritual path. This is the normal way of life. We act, we create karma, and the motivation is mostly selfish. This karma comes back, and when it is a selfish karma, it comes back in a not-so-pleasant way: some kind of problem, suffering, or disturbance. This is what comes back through these three tapas. It is the fire of the tapas that makes us know the problems in our daily life. When we live through these, they get purified, or you can say we get purified. It is a purifying process when we live through these fires of the three tapas, but it is not so pleasant. Some kind of suffering, trouble, or problem is always there. So we speak all the time about the word tapas, fire, and the suffering that comes from it. This is what every normal person experiences. To experience that is not a yogic achievement. The word tapas here comes from the root tap, but it is slightly different. Tapas is actually short for tapasyā; these two words are one and the same. On the background of tap, we can understand it is similar but a little different. It is also to go through something challenging, something not so easy, but the difference is that you choose it. You do it voluntarily as a yoga sādhanā. Let’s take an example. Someone has stolen, and as a result, it is stolen from him; he has no money and cannot buy food. He is suffering and is involuntarily fasting. That is normal karma coming back; this is normal suffering, and there is no achievement in that. Now, when we come to Swamījī, he gives us a mantra and says, "You should keep a fasting date." It has nothing to do with any karma we inflicted. He simply advises us to follow a certain discipline as a yoga sādhanā. So we are also fasting. It looks the same, but it is quite different. Here we have free will, a free choice. We say, "OK, I do this now." I take fasting as an example because it is the most common and accepted way of a spiritual tapas. Did you get the point? The difference between tap and tapas? To get it theoretically is one thing; to get it practically is another. You know, when Swamijī sent me to India in ’94 or ’95, I was in a student group. Swamijī accommodated us in the White House in Jadan, which was at that time still under construction. We were, I think, 10 people, but he put us in three rooms. He said, "You go together in one room, you go together in one room, you go together in one room." The White House was quite big and had many rooms, so we protested. We said, "Swamiji, there are so many rooms; everyone could have their own room." Swamījī said, "No, I want that." We asked, "Why?" Then he said, "That is tapasyā." At that time, I had no idea what it is. I had to look in the dictionary to see what tapasyā means. But practically, I understood quite soon. It means, practically, that you cannot do what you want. You always have to respect the other person in the room and find some compromise or agreement. If one wants to read and needs the light on, and the other wants to sleep and the light off? If one wants the window open because he feels hot, and the other wants it closed because he feels cool? But not only that. There is also some logic in who came together in one room. I was together with a boy from Austria who came from the Hare Rāma, Hare Kṛṣṇa group, ISKCON, and was still quite dogmatic. He was Swamiji’s disciple, but one could still feel a lot of his background. I, in my previous political time, had gone through dogmatism already and, as a result, had actually become dogmatically anti-dogmatic. So it was quite a challenge mutually for us. It was difficult for him to accept and understand me, and difficult for me to accept and understand him. But you understand? That was Guru Vākya. That was tapas, and through this you learn. You widen your horizons; through the difficulties, we grow. So tapasyā is always some kind of self-inflicted or at least accepted difficulty, and through this we grow. As I said, the root is tap, heat. I understood very soon what this means practically because in Jadan, everything was hot: the weather was hot, the food was hot, and even the temper of the people was hot. So we got boiled up, and then I also became hot. When you boil up, everything comes up; it becomes visible, it comes out. You understand? We speak about the principle of purification. In some way, we can even refer to the story from the Purāṇas about churning the ocean. We are searching for the amṛta of immortality, but first, before we come there, comes up all this poison—all our negative qualities. It is all boiled up. This is the process of tapas, the process of purification through heat. We have this in a certain way also in our yoga sādhanā. What, for example, are the heating techniques we have in yoga? Agni Sākriyā—yes, even the word is there, Agni, fire. So Agni Sākriyā, the fire awakening technique. Yes, more? Some prāṇāyāmas are also heating, like bāstrīkā. Therefore, one must in India be careful with these heating prāṇāyāmas in the hot time. Some exercises are also heating. We don’t need to list them one by one, but I think of another type of yoga which is all together heating: Kriya Yoga. When we practice Kriya Yoga, something also comes up. Be sure it is always connected to different levels. When some physical heat comes up, it works also on other levels. We should never be astonished if suddenly we have effects on these other levels. You see, whatever difficulties we accept in our yogic sādhanā, we can say it is a kind of tapas. I remember very well the moment, shortly before I became a Swami, Swāmījī spoke to us and said, "To become a Swami means to go through the fire lifelong." That was a little before these other things happened which I mentioned before. At that time, I understood it more as symbolic language, but I realized it is quite strong and real, this fire. When we speak about tapas, we must also make sure we do not confuse different types of tapas. For example, during the Kumbh Melā, film teams always like to film all the sādhus there, who are practicing many different types of tapas. Not every form of tapas is actually a yogic positive sādhanā. Some, for example, hold an arm up until it withers and has no life anymore. What is the point of that? Many do sādhanā that goes to extremes and actually destroys, or at least harms, the body. Remember the life story of Lord Buddha. In the beginning of his spiritual path, he joined a group of sādhus who did strong tapasyā. After some time, his body had become so weak that he realized something was going wrong. Then there is a famous short story: a girl came with a musical instrument, and he realized that the strings, like on a guitar or another string instrument, when they are too loose, do not make a sound, but when you tighten them too much, they break. Both extremes are not good. It must be not too loose and not too tight. Then he started to declare the path of the middle. This advice is generally valid for the spiritual path: to avoid extremes. An extreme would mean, on one hand, indulging too much in māyā and not living a spiritual life, having no self-discipline. The other extreme is having too strong a sādhanā that weakens us and in the end destroys our body, which is our vehicle for liberation. Exactly the same is said in the Bhagavad Gītā. Lord Kṛṣṇa says, "Yoga is not for the one who sleeps too much or who stays awake all the time. It is not the path for the one who overeats all the time, and not the path for the one who fasts all the time." We have to find a common sense, middle path. Fortunately, here we have a great help in a certain part of the Bhagavad Gītā. In the 14th chapter, Lord Kṛṣṇa explains the three guṇas. Then in the 17th and 18th chapters, he gives a lot of examples. Tapasyā happens to be one of these examples. We are speaking about chapter 17, numbers 14 through 19. He distinguishes between sāttvic tapasyā, rājasic tapasyā, and tāmasic tapasyā. Regarding rājasic tapasyā, he says this is austerity performed for the sake of renown, to get honor so that others would adore you, or for any other selfish interest. The main point is our motivation. Then there is a kind of tapasyā that comes out of a foolish, stubborn understanding—meaning out of one's own thoughts, not following proper teaching—and is accompanied by a kind of self-torture. In history, you also have, for example, some Christian monks who would beat themselves. Such self-torture is not really tapasyā, or it is a kind intended to harm others. This is called tāmasic tapasyā. When he speaks about sāttvic tapasyā, he distinguishes three different types. This is very interesting for us. He says sāttvic tapasyā can be tapasyā of the body, of the speech, or of the mind. When he speaks about sāttvic tapasyā of the body, he mentions reverence to the gods, to the seers like the ṛṣis, to the teachers and the saints, the gurus, then straightforwardness and harmlessness. He mentions the Sanskrit words: ahiṃsā, śauca, and brahmacarya. You see the connection? We are not in the Patañjali Yoga Sūtras here; we are in the Bhagavad Gītā. He says when we practice ahiṃsā (not to hurt), śauca (purity), and brahmacarya, we are already practicing tapasyā. Brahmacarya, as we discussed, if we really want to control our desires, is not a small achievement. These are called the virtues of the austerity of the body. The second is the austerity of the speech: to speak without ever causing pain to another (also a form of ahiṃsā), to be truthful (satya), to always say what is kind and beneficial, and to study the Holy Scriptures regularly. This practice is called austerity of the speech. Here he mentions study of the Holy Scripture, which relates to the next Niyama, Svādhyāya. But to repeat, this is not the Patañjali Yoga Sūtra; it is a completely independent holy scripture, but it is the same wisdom from the same source. Now, austerity of the mind: the practice of serenity (being peaceful), sympathy, meditation upon the Ātmā, withdrawal of the mind from the sense objects, and integrity of the motivation. This is called austerity of the mind. You see, it has a very wide range, what is covered under the topic of tapasyā. When we really can follow that, we work already so much on ourselves. Wrong tapasyā can destroy our vehicle, weaken us, or awaken our ego, making us proud, which is definitely not better. Do you remember from Līlā Amṛt a story about wrong tapasyā? We also have a bhajan about that. Exactly. A group of sādhus came to Mahāprabhujī, who used to meditate in the middle of five burning fires when it was hot anyway. They came to him and said, "You should also do this type of sādhanā. Then you are a real sādhaka, a real yogī." Mahāprabhujī said, "Sit down a moment and listen." Then he sang to them as an answer the bhajan "Khyātum Dhuni." We have another bhajan about this fire, actually the fire of the śrī tapas, in which we are burning. Oṁ Holī Gurujī. Fire means Agha. You know this? Mahāprabhujī is the one who, in the middle of the burning fire, is making a wonderful garden. This burning fire means actually the sufferings of the three tapas in our life. Through spiritual guidance and spiritual life, we are actually safe and protected from that. When we speak about tapas as a purifying technique, we must understand we have much more to purify. We mentioned purification on the physical level, but we also have to purify our karmas. Techniques that purify this are also a kind of tapasyā. What would that be? First of all, mantra. Second, kriyā. Third, prāya. Basically, all our yoga sādhanā, in some sense, you can put in the category of tapas. When we keep the discipline—because it is not so easy—it is also some kind of fire. For example, every morning to get up at a certain time and keep the discipline and do the sādhanā applies. The more strict we are in our sādhanā, the more this applies. Through this sādhanā, we also purify karmas. We have special occasions when we do it in a compressed form. This is what we call anuṣṭhāna. When we have Mantra Anuṣṭhāna or Kriyā Anuṣṭhāna, that is actually a quite strong form of tapas. The problem is that we, because of our present lifestyle, are mostly not really able to do that. When we just think of the simple rule Swamijī gives us—keep a fasting day once per week and on full moon day—who is really doing that? But if we would do it, we would gain so much. First, physically, it is good to eat less. Second, if everyone in the world would do that, no one would be hungry. It helps us develop self-discipline and willpower. When we have challenging situations, it helps us go through them because we already know, "I can stand through something like this." In the original programs for Mantra Anuṣṭhāna and Kriyā Anuṣṭhāna, there were many more points. Somehow, one by one, Swāmījī gave up on that because he sees we cannot follow. First, it is connected with extended fasting for some longer time, as long as we do this sādhanā. One part is usually mauna, not to speak, and that is the hardest one. Swamiji gave up on this already 20 years ago. He knows we cannot follow. It is so hard for us just to control our speaking for a limited time of a few days. That means we are missing a chance. When we always speak, we lose energy. Every teacher, politician, and lecturer knows that. Whoever has to speak a lot is quite exhausted. When we can keep this energy, our spiritual energy goes up. There are more rules connected with this, but our weakness is that we mostly try to escape from this kind of tapas. I think we are quite at the end. One important point is our motivation when we do tapas. It was already mentioned in the Bhagavad Gītā text. There are people who do really strong tapasyā for a selfish interest. The problem is that it also works. Think, for example, of Hiraṇyakaśyapu, who got a certain siddhi, or in the Rāmāyaṇa, Rāvaṇa, or Holikā. These are actually yogīs who practiced tapasyā for selfish interest. There are many stories about asuras, like negative swāmījīs, sometimes like devils, who practice tapasyā, get siddhis, and use them in a negative way. Can you imagine the karma that comes out of that? The most important is that we are clear in our purity of thought, purity of motivation, and never ever do tapasyā for selfish interest. Maybe one story for the end, to make clear what a negative outcome could be. We mentioned tāmasic tapasyā to harm others. Once, Swamiji told a story: a yogī practiced tapasyā and was successful. He got a siddhi that his wishes were fulfilled. But when he developed this siddhi, he realized a strange thing: whatever he wished for and got, his neighbor, who knew nothing about it, got double. He was a poor person and wished to live in a proper house. He realized his neighbor now had two houses. OK, he said, "I will wish that my house is much nicer." He wished for a big palace, and his neighbor now had two big palaces. Whatever he wished, his neighbor got double. He was so annoyed and started really hating his neighbor. He thought, "How can I get out of this?" Then he had an idea—I guess the worst idea he ever had. He wished to become blind in one eye. Understand what it means? His neighbor would become blind in both eyes. Can you imagine this karma? This is when we are not clear in our motivations. We achieve something, misuse it, and destroy our whole life. Through tapas we can achieve something, but with this is always connected more responsibility. We have to be very careful how we use it. So, is there anything from your side, some question about the point of tapas? I guess for you it is already tapas to sit here still, huh? Because it was so much now, today, over this weekend. Yes, this is something also like an anuṣṭhāna, what we are doing. But I have really the saṅkalpa that we get through this weekend, and now we manage in every session too. That can happen, yes. Misuse of a siddhi can happen. I would say, fortunately, that you lose it then. A famous example is Holikā, who had the boon to be untouched by fire, but when she used it to kill her brother, she lost the siddhi and died in the fire. So somehow it is good because at least it protects us, so we cannot do more harm with the siddhi. OK. So then, adios.