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Essentials Of Teaching And Practicing Yoga In Daily Life

A satsang and yoga teaching workshop led by Swami Vivek Puri and Swamiji.

"If you want to practice yoga in daily life, it means something like you try to build a pyramid. We know that we have four yogas: bhakti, rāja, jñāna, and karma yoga. To reach the aim of yoga, we must practice all four together."

"Teachers, organizers, and the helpers should be humble. Try to learn to listen to negative critique. Positive will support and develop your ego. Proudness, that will grow in your mind like a cancer."

Swamiji introduces Swami Vivek Puri, who discusses the integrated system of Yoga in Daily Life, emphasizing the need for a living master (paramparā) and comprehensive practice beyond mere physical postures. Swamiji then addresses teachers directly, offering practical and ethical guidance on running a center, teaching with humility, minimizing verbal instruction, and contributing to humanitarian projects. The session includes a live demonstration of a precise āsana practice.

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

Deep Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī very good morning to everybody, and blessings of our divine Paramparā. Nice to see you, and I do hope that you had a very good night. Today, this noon and afternoon program is dedicated further to the well-being of humans’ good health, harmony, and peace, in which yoga and life have a great role. But around the world, there are many teachers, thousands. Some were not trained or did not have the time to attend certain teacher trainings. Here, under the umbrella of the fellowship, sometimes everything needs to be updated. I have in my hand a small telephone. It’s a very simple one, but I always said to please update it. We have to renew also our thoughts, our knowledge. So, more or less, this is for the teachers as well as the practitioners: practical instructions. And many are waiting for darśan. So we are happy, and we welcome our dear Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar Swāmī Vivek Purījī. You know, he has been with me for nearly 38 years, since his teenage years, and still he is as young as a teenager. He had the opportunity to travel with me around the world, and wherever he came, every center wanted to keep him there. I had a battle between Anandi and me, because she was afraid that Vivek Purī would remain in other countries and shake up our Croatian bhaktas and practitioners. She was fighting to get him back. Who doesn’t want to have good things? We all do. So Swami Vivek Purī is a very excellent teacher, and not only teaching theoretically but practically also; he himself practices. So now he will have a talk on our yoga systems, and whatever he’d like—I don’t want to influence him—but I will also come to know what he’s talking, then I... then I will upgrade him. So Vivek Purījī, the floor is yours. People who come for darśan, they should from here go again to that side back. So, welcome all dear brothers and sisters around the world, and bless you in the name of our Siddhapīṭha Paramparā. Enjoy. Śrī Avesh. Śrī Avesh. Śrī Avesh. Śrī Avesh.... Siddhipadā bhagavān kī jaya. Praṇām Gurudev, Hari Om dear brothers and sisters. After such an interval, I have a little stage fever because I don’t know anything. The only thing is nāhaṁ kartā, the most important thing, and without nāhaṁ kartā nothing is possible. Everything is in the hands of our Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā. But often people ask about yoga in daily life. I also, when I started with yoga with Swamījī, asked which kind of yoga we practice. And Swamijī said, "Yoga in daily life." Yes, but which kind of yoga? We know many kinds of yoga, and we want to know: Rāja Yoga, Haṭha Yoga, Bhakti Yoga—which kind of yoga do we practice? For many years, Swāmījī tried to explain to us what is the yoga in daily life. If you want to practice yoga in daily life, it means something like you try to build a pyramid. We know that we have four yogas: bhakti, rāja, jñāna, and karma yoga. To reach the aim of yoga, we must practice all four together, and that is one of the very important things in yoga and daily life. I often joke with people: if you want to make a baklava, you know, baklava. We have here also nice baklava. But if you know how to prepare baklava, first you put this—I don’t know the name of it—it’s like a paper, and a lot of walnuts, and again something like a paper, and you bake this. And that is not eatable. But also, in the second pot, you put sugar and water. And also, it’s not edible. Only when you mix together these nuts and this something like a paper from the wheat, I don’t know the name, with the sugar and water, and if we have the patience to wait through the night, tomorrow morning we will have a nice baklava. If we have a dry intellect, like these dry walnuts, and from that, we have only emotion, sugar, and water, we will have a problem. Only if we mix together knowledge, bhakti, love, discipline, to wait through the night, we will have nice baklava. If we want to practice yoga, Swāmījī teaches us that we need discipline, we need āsanas, we need prāṇāyāma, but we need everything. In yoga in daily life, it is excellent to see that we don’t have only a physical level. Because nowadays many people who practice yoga practice only on the physical level. They are perfect in the āsanas. They are perfect in the prāṇāyāma, but on the way, it's like hoarding some weights. And also, if we have only devotion but without knowledge, we will not reach the aim. The second thing, what is very important in yoga and daily life, is that we have a paramparā. What means paramparā? That is our lineage of our master. When we start to speak about lineage and about masters, and we put pictures, some people have a complex about this, but why? If we are under some university, we will see also that the university is very proud of the lineage of masters and professors in some cathedrals. And always they will say, "In our university, there were so many great masters." And it is completely normal. The same thing must be in yoga. If we want to learn something, we will learn only through masters. Swāmījī once said that Gurujī often said, "If you have two horses, one is on the picture and one is in the stable, which horse will you ride for everything in life?" We need the living master. If we have only the master in the book or a new age master in some astral form, it is excellent for our ego, because all the time we will say, "My master said," and maybe we will talk nonsense. And if somebody will tell, "Yes, but you told a few nonsense," such a person was Swāmījī’s joke, that is not a guru but a kangaroo, without lineage, without paramparā. You will realize that one day. But if we said something that is not correct in yoga and daily life, we know that. Immediately, our master will say that it’s not correct. And all the time, Swāmījī will correct us and try to teach us. That is the most important thing in yoga in daily life. If you want to learn something, you must have a teacher. And only through this training we will learn something. Also, yoga in daily life is not only on a physical level and only sitting somewhere in a dark room. Yoga in daily life has more things; it is also social health. What does it mean? We hear many times from Swamiji the sentence, "We do care." We do care about animals, we do care about people, about the environment. And what is real spirituality? How to be better men, better humans, not to make trouble for other people, nature, and animals. In yoga in daily life, again I must say that a yoga teacher passed a very strict program. Many people ask how to become a yoga teacher; they often think that it is 200 hours of practice. Because I hear in the world and around, if you pay for some extra good program, you will attain 200 hours of practicing, and you will get a diploma. But we like bananas, hi-yah, which are for a not so good program. In one weekend, you will get a diploma. When people come and ask how to become a yoga teacher, in yoga in daily life it is completely different. First, we must practice yoga. Everybody knows that we have eight levels in yoga in daily life, and each level is practiced for approximately three months. But three months is very optimistic. When we start with the fourth, fifth, or seventh, sixth—which level? The eighth level—we realize that three months... it is a really optimistic level. And we must practice every day. If we calculate eight levels with three months, every day practicing yoga class and practicing and seminars, it is more than 200 hours. But that is only initially that we practice yoga. The second thing, what is really important, is that we must go to the other level, not only the physical level. And that is spirituality. We must go to the—not must, but it will be completely normal for us that we go to the seminars, to darśan. We have the opportunity to be with Swamiji. Because, you know, I think that all of us were playing broken telephone. Broken telephone—I don’t know how it is in English, but I will explain. You have a few people around, and you tell a sentence into the ear of your friend, and he tells it to his friend. And after 10-15 persons, you hear the sentence again out loud, and we see that everybody of us put something inside, changed something, and that is the broken telephone. But we are really lucky to have satsaṅg lectures without broken telephone. Because here is Swamiji, and his message is without changing insight. Many times we learn from Swamiji that is the secret: how to teach is "nāhaṁ kartā." Because we don’t want to put something with some color of our intellect. But we try to get and give further without changing. We have such opportunity to be in the satsaṅg, and in satsaṅg, I said also yesterday, we try to clean our part of our mind so that we are able to get that knowledge from Swāmījī, and Swāmījī gets it from his Gurujī and from the paramparā. Knowledge, and to give further, as clean as we get. Through that satsaṅg we have also other, and that is the very important, and what is also something different than only practicing physical level, that is the spirituality satsaṅg, so that we become a disciple. To be a yoga teacher is not only okay in yoga and daily life. It will be good—that’s not good, but it will be advisable that you are a disciple. Well, okay, I will take a mantra. "Take" is not a good sentence and word. You can only receive, not take. And remember this nice bhajan from Mīrābāī: "I got a present from my Gurudev, divine name," and that is the mantra. "Take it," it’s not good, and I know that is only a word, but with words we make some feelings. And please change this behavior to say, "Take." No. Everything in this world we can get, receive, but not take. When we become disciples, we continue to practice, but not only spiritual and meditation, but also on a physical level, āsanas. And we become, if you want to become a yoga teacher, a yoga assistant. For the next two or three years, I was learning from Swamiji, from your yoga teacher in your center. And after that, we have the opportunity to go to the exam. And if we calculate, it is not 200 hours. It is four or five years, and after that, we are yoga teachers. But I must explain and say what happens with me. I was practicing yoga before I met Swamiji, and I became a yoga teacher in one or two years of practicing. I wanted to learn how to meditate, and I met Swamiji at one seminar, and I realized that I don’t know anything. I was practicing, practicing, and I know that every time I meet Swamiji, I realize that I don’t know anything. When we got a diploma as a yoga teacher, really, like Swamiji said, everything needs an update. If we are only at home and if we think, "Oh, I am great, oh, I know everything about yoga," we will very soon go very, very deep down. The important thing is to have, all the time, that I am a disciple. Often I joke that when we are on the seminars, when we are on the satsaṅg, we are in a support group. Like we have some really dangerous disease. We need a support group, and when we are not at the seminars with Swamijī, we have satsaṅg in our centers. That satsaṅg is something that is keeping us on the right way. The satsaṅg and being with the Master is a safety net. How to stay and how to be on the boat. In one moment, when we think that we don’t need a boat—"I am strong enough. The boat is limited." Me and we try to go out of this boat, it will be hard. And our boat is our lineage. And all the time, have in the mind, "I am a disciple, and I am on the boat." That is important also when we practice yoga, yoga in daily life. And if we are yoga teachers, we must practice. If we are only trainers, like in football, and we are only yelling at the other people with the beer and with the cigarette and with the beer belly. Okay, but try to play football. Maybe 20 years ago, we were playing football well, but now, a few days before, we have a heart attack and brain damage. And who will take us seriously? You know, when you come to the doctor and the doctor is with a cigarette, and he says, "Smoking is not good for your lungs." We will take seriously this doctor? We know, everybody of us knows a story about Gandhījī and this small boy who was eating a lot of sugar, and his mother asked Gandhījī, "Please, Gandhījī, tell to my son that his sugar is not so good." And Gandhījī said, "Okay, but please come in two weeks." Mother was not so happy, maybe angry, and you know what was in her mind. But in the end, when she asked Gandhiji next time, "Why did you say that we come two weeks later?" Gandhiji said, "Yes, because two weeks ago I was eating a lot of sugar also." If we really want to be a yoga teacher, we must practice. Not only leading yoga classes, but also showing how to practice, how to perform āsanas, prāṇāyāms. And also in our life, if we speak about ahiṃsā, vegetarian food, what is important? Everything we said must also be in our life. It’s only a little. What is the good to know when we lead the yoga class? But now, Swāmījī, we have the opportunity to be with Swāmījī, and Swāmījī will give a satsaṅg. Thank you, thank you. Well. Very beautiful and useful information. Updating we need, always changing cloth we need, always cleaning our socks we need. So, there are many things in the world. The struggle is so quick, running in the world, as I told you yesterday. Unfortunately, sustainability means economy. In Budapest, two months ago, there was a conference on sustainability and water and so on, and there was a subject called green economy, and I was thinking, finally, thanks to God, they will talk about environment, trees, organic vegetables, and what they spoke of: developing the roads, the skyscrapers, the buildings, etc., etc., to create the partnership—and partnership has many meanings now—I thought they would talk about a happy life. There is happy partners. There was no question about life, etc. Updating. Yes, yoga in the life around the world is in the middle of the scientific system. And especially in our Europe, thanks to Mahāprabhujī, and thanks to all of you, but teachers should have certain upgrading qualities. First, the teacher should not be weak in hearing. What do I mean now? There are ten people in your class, and one tells you something; they are not good. And the teacher is feeling irritated. One person said, "Oh, I didn’t like the class." Then the teacher feels humiliated, offended, or sad. Blaming oneself, probably I’m not a perfect teacher. God is perfect, and we humans are imperfect. So, listen carefully, but digest that and see the other nine people sitting out of... ten. That’s it. Teachers should have the spirituality and the great ability of digestion, to hear the good and bad critics. And teachers should not become sad when the people go away. People come to yoga class like you go to the doctor, take the medicine, and you go. But those who are spiritual, they will not go. So people have so much weakness in hearing. We say their ears are not ripe, so it is sensitive. This is one thing. Teachers, organizers, and the helpers should be humble. Try to learn to listen to negative critique. Positive will support and develop your ego. Proudness, that will grow in your mind like a cancer, and always you will blame others. Very easy to blame others, very easy. But look to yourself, what have you done? What are you doing? How many mistakes are you doing every day, or every month, or every year, that you don’t see inside, only outside? That is injustice until you say about others. So this is one thing that teachers have to be humble. Mahāprabhujī said in his bhajan: Jīvatahī mordasam reve Ne sidd nahī, Pīr Swāmī, div avadūt avaliyā, Mahāvīra, Kabīr, the great heroes of the heroes, is that one who lead life simple. Like he first die, and then he live. And I think somewhere in the Bible said also, some people told me, I didn’t read, unfortunately, all: "To live, you have to die." Which was said in very old scriptures before, in the Upaniṣads and in the Purāṇas. You should be like a seed. A seed has to die to let the inner ātmā grow further. Parents have to give birth to the child, get old, and die, but that quality is continuing. That is sustainability. Now, in the hectic world, people have no time. Even the yoga teacher has no time, and even those who are spreading the yoga message in the world also, they have no time. When I go, they say, "Please stay two days more." I say, "Sorry, perhaps next time." Some of our teachers became too passive; they became too comfortable. They just sit and talk and instruct, like me. I’m sitting. I can face myself. Due to certain reasons, I can’t practice all postures. Maybe that is my laziness, and when I begin to demonstrate some posture, the camera is standing in front of me, and it will be very painful for me. People will ask, "Oh, Swamiji, how is he doing?" So, in order to protect my self-respect, I don’t demonstrate. I sit here, do this, do this. My laziness, my ego.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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