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Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our summer seminar. I imagine you are not overjoyed to see me here, and, believe me, I am not happy to be sitting here either. We all hoped Swāmījī would now be among us. Yesterday we thought, “It should be bright—let us send a letter for Swāmījī’s birthday,” and I said, “But he is coming tomorrow; it makes no sense. We will congratulate him tomorrow.” So now, unfortunately, Swāmījī is stuck somewhere along the way, and we do not know exactly where. It could be in India. Surely he will come this week, but we do not know exactly when he will arrive. Interestingly, Swāmījī gave us no information. That means there is something in his mind, because he knows us too well. If everyone had known in advance, do you think we would all be here now? Many would have said, “Oh, then I need not come.” And obviously, that is what Swāmījī does not want. So I would see this as a training. You know, when I learn something from Swāmījī—and I have been learning for more than twenty years—the essence of his teaching for me is three simple words. If I remember rightly, I think that theme appears from the very first of all the videos ever published of Swāmījī; it was exactly the title. And it begins with acceptance. So, simply accept the situation. There must be some sense in it. That means we should now ask ourselves: what does it mean for me to be here while Swāmījī is not present? I would say it is a kind of test. How serious are we in our will to do our sādhanā? How serious are we in our discipline? Now, of course, the special program Swāmījī has been conducting these last weeks will not continue in its full length while he is absent. That special program he was introducing is this new Brahmavidyā Kriyā. This, of course, cannot be given now, because only Swāmījī can teach it. But it does not really matter for us, because we go back to the normal Kriyā Anuṣṭhān program and the other group. So we will have, as it has been for more than twenty‑five years, the Kriyānuṣṭhān program. And when Swāmījī comes, then we will see; he might change things. But we should also not be too sad about the situation. You know, Swāmījī has said: when the master shouts at the disciple, the disciple should actually be happy. Because when he is kind and explains and teaches, that is just the input, the teaching. But when he shouts at you, then he is really, directly working on you. That is much more—a kind of blessing. So we should simply accept the situation in which we find ourselves as a special blessing. Swāmījī is directly working on us. And Swāmījī gave an example of that: how Mahāprabhujī worked on Holī Gurujī. Holī Gurujī was singing bhajans, but Mahāprabhujī did not like his voice very much. One day Mahāprabhujī shouted, “Holī Gurujī, stop this voice!” Remember this story? Do you remember what happened next? Holī Gurujī, in full devotion, accepted that as a blessing. And it was a blessing, because from that day on, his voice changed and became beautiful—the very voice we know from Holī Gurujī, and which, fortunately, we have on many recordings. But the point is to accept it. There are many stories of the Guru awakening the disciple in a very simple way. I will give you one example. There was a disciple in Tibet. He had to participate in a big ceremony with his master. He was a very devoted disciple. But on that day of the ceremony, he felt so sick. He had a really terrible stomach ache. Now what happened? On that day, the master came straight to him. Because one person is like the official head of the ceremony, and there was a special pot or a special hat that person would receive. So now the master came straight to this disciple and placed it on his head. He felt so bad, and suddenly everyone was looking at him. He was now like the main person. And then what did the master do next? He took his fist and—boom—struck him in the stomach. Can you imagine? Now the Guru attacked the disciple. As a result, something happened in his stomach, and he began farting quite forcefully. Of course, everyone heard. His face turned completely red, and then the Guru said, “That’s it.” And that was too much for the disciple. His mind gave up, and he went into samādhi, and that was his enlightenment. He became a great guru and later told this story of his own enlightenment to his disciples. Guru Kṛpā He Kevalam. So that can also be Guru Kṛpā, but we have to accept it. Yet there is a “but.” That cannot happen at just any time. There is something that comes before, and that something is sādhanā. That something is the purification process. Only if the disciple is ripe and at the point, then the guru can do this and really give the final kick. There is another very similar, well‑known story about a Tibetan yogī named Nāropa. He had to go through certain trainings, I would say. And the last step in his enlightenment story was that the guru took his shoe—I believe it was a wooden one at that time—and beat him very strongly on the head. And that was enough; the disciple attained enlightenment. To give an idea of what this is about, I will just read the very first, the smallest text. He was searching for his guru, but he had never met him. He had received an indication that he should go to the east. But understand, in the Himalayas there are not many paths. So then it says he arrived at a very narrow pass with a large rock on one side and a river on the other. There he met a sick woman lying on the path. She had leprosy, so severe that her whole body was affected and extremely ugly to see; her hands and feet had nearly disappeared. She had infected wounds all over her body. And she was lying right in the path where he had to go. She saw him coming and said to him… He jumped over her. If someone practices the spiritual path, one must have love and compassion. If you lack love and compassion, you will not obtain the fruit of the path, and you will never be able to find the teacher. At a later stage, the master actually told him that in all those twenty situations, the one he met was the master. So that woman who looked so ugly was just a māyā of his own master. He was already there, testing the disciple and then teaching him: “You should not just jump over me.” And that is actually the main point of why we are here. Let us not forget that. The fact that Swāmījī is not here at present is already a kind of tapasyā for us—a kind of hardship, you might say. The sādhanā itself, especially now the Kriyā Anuṣṭhān sādhanā, is also a kind of tapasyā, and how often we try to escape from it. This is something Swāmījī spoke about just recently, a few weeks ago, at the other summer seminar. He mentioned that there are certain points that he tried and tried with us, and simply, he did not succeed. Let us take the example of fasting. We do only spiritual fasting, which is not a real medical fast. But consider the example of someone truly fasting for a few days or weeks: medical fasting. What actually happens? First of all, it is a great process of purification. Not only is unnecessary fat reduced, but whatever impurities are in the body are released one by one, day by day. Yet the body still has energy; one does not actually feel weak. This is because the body switches to inner nourishment. Instead of waiting for food from outside, the body now knows that none is coming, so it takes food from inside. Just reduced and controlled eating—we still eat one meal a day. And what Swāmījī always advises is also to have control in our eating every day. You remember, he always says, “Fill fifty per cent of the stomach with food, a quarter with water, and leave a quarter empty.” So, who is really doing that? And what is the point? Another master, Mikhail Ivanov, actually explained it. He said, “If you do not eat until you are completely full, but stop before, then after some time you will realize that you are actually no longer hungry.” This is because that missing quarter is now filled with fine energy, with spiritual energy. So, as in the example of physical fasting, it is actually replaced through inner knowledge, and here it is replaced through fine energy. Thus it helps us on our spiritual path. When we keep discipline, when we keep tapasyā at some point, in the end it helps us spiritually a great deal. Mauna is also a kind of fasting. I do not know if everyone has really experienced it now, but I can say that when I kept real mauna for some time, I listened much more carefully to myself and to what I was saying. I would somehow stand aside and say, “Gajanan, why are you talking such unnecessary things?” It is just a waste of energy. So we become finer, more sensitive, when we do this type of practice. It is a kind of purification and sensitization, and it makes us strong. Because when we go through something and succeed, it raises our self‑confidence. When he initiates us, he gives us a mantra and says we should practice, but he also gives us the duty to fast once a week. That is exactly why: because it is an essential part of our spiritual path. And if we always try to avoid it—well, if we keep on avoiding it, we should not be surprised that things do not work as we thought they should. Tapasyā is really a very basic element of the spiritual path. I am presently studying the Rāmāyaṇa, and there is a situation where Pārvatī is advised. She wants to have Śiva as her husband. Ṛṣi Nārada comes and gives a prophecy: “Yes, he will be your husband. But under one condition: you must practice tapasyā.” A little more than just fasting one day a week—real tapasyā. Then she had a dream, and in the dream again a ṛṣi told her that this is the right way. So he says, “Go, mountain maid, and practice penance, or tapasyā. Be assured that Nārada’s prophecy is true, and it is also known to your father and mother. Tapasyā leads to joy and puts an end to pain and karma.” That is a very important thing to think about, because we usually see only the unpleasant aspect of tapasyā. But in fact, it is the way to remove the karmas that make us suffer and, in the end, to lead us to true joy. And then he says: “By the power of tapasyā, God Brahmā creates the world. By the power of tapasyā, Lord Viṣṇu protects the world. By the power of tapasyā, Śambhu, Lord Śiva, in the end dissolves the world. And again, by the power of tapasyā, Śeṣa, the god of snakes, Mahāśbhu Hāḍu, supports the earth on his head. In fact, the whole creation rests on tapasyā. Keep this in mind; go and practice your tapasyā.” And her reaction was that she was happy; she gladly went away and practiced tapasyā. “Give up now your tapasyā, and Lord Śiva will be yours.” But this came after some stronger effort. So when we compare this with the training we receive from Swāmījī, I would say it is just nothing. Yet even that seems to be too much for us. And how hard it is now for Swāmījī to deal with this situation? Let us simply try to accept it, happily, as Pārvatī did. Let us try to have a very beautiful and harmonious seminar together. We also have a bhajan about one aspect of tapasyā, or rather about the hardship of renouncing something—the aspect of vairāgya. So let us sing the bhajan, “Vairāgya Nahi Hovare.” It is Mahāprabhujī’s bhajan. He says, “Vairāgya nahi hovare bina satsaṅg.” He says you cannot develop vairāgya, non‑attachment, without satsaṅg. And then the second statement is like the other side of the coin: “Bina Satsaṅg Nahī Lage Hari Korang.” That means without satsaṅg, you cannot develop the color of God, or you cannot be colored in the color of God—and that means bhakti. Bhakti and vairāgya belong together. But how? There was a guru working in a garden, and people asked him, “What is the way to enlightenment?” He said, “It is very simple. You see this plant here; you take it out and plant it there.” That means you give up your attachment to worldly things. Without vairāgya you cannot overcome worldly attachments, and this is not possible without satsaṅg. When we are stuck in our worldly desires, worldly thoughts, and the complications of life, we need satsaṅg. Because through satsaṅg we will accept the tapasyā, the difficulties, and in the end every sādhanā is that. Only then do we know exactly why we do it—what we really want. This is also said about Pārvatī when she performed her tapasyā. The more she did that tapasyā, and the more she continued her very strong sādhanā, the more her love for Lord Śiva grew. She had it before, but now it really came forth; it was purified. Tapasyā is a way to purify our karmas. And this, in the end, is the point of this whole Kriyānuṣṭhān program, of this whole summer seminar. Because in our daily life—yoga in daily life—we are very much in daily life. Always there is something just today, and again tomorrow, and again the next day, obstructing our sādhanā. Here nothing is obstructing, at least not from outside. So, if you wish, you can choose, for example, to keep real sādhanā in mauna here. If you wish, you can keep sādhanā in eating less, fasting. If you wish, you can also concentrate more on the spiritual during the sādhanā and not talk so much or go so much here and there. Swāmījī now creates the situation, the chance, for us. It is up to us to take it. Okay, so now: Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān, Kī Jaya.