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Science Of Life

The four pillars of human life are dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa.

Human life is for God-realization, not consumption. Yoga and Āyurveda, given freely by saints, sustain health of body, mind, and spirit. God gave freedom; negative emotions postpone divine grace. Misusing these sciences—commercializing or adulterating them—brings karmic retribution. Teaching authentically under spiritual lineage accrues good karma. Half-knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. The sense of taste enslaves; overindulgence harms the body. Meat-eating entails killing, causing suffering to the creature’s family and violating God’s creation, thus sin. Such karma returns to the consumer. Human dharma is to grasp others’ suffering and avoid provoking negativity. Do not inspire harm; if unable to do good, at least do no evil with words, eyes, or stomach. Dharma protects those who uphold it. Artha is the material capacity to give and serve. Kāma, desire, must align with dharma. Mokṣa, liberation, follows from living dharmically. The body’s innate functions are Sanātana Dharma, universal and eternal. Yoga burns karma seeds, opening the curtain of limitation to see God. All religions are seeds within the Sanātana Dharma, the eternal umbrella.

"Half-knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge."

"If you can’t give nectar, don’t give poison."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Thank you, dear Sklarol, for that most interesting talk. Food for life—now we say food for health, not food for life. Thank you. We have known each other, I think, for about 35 to 37 years. At that time there was a different government, and people were less informed about the vegetarian diet. Yet I was surprised to find, here in the middle of the communist countries, someone completely vegetarian. I was surprised, and then I asked his wife, and she was also vegetarian. And then I asked his eldest daughter—now she is not so young—also vegetarian. So I felt very safe to eat in their house. He is working very hard for the health of the nation, the Republic of Czech. Thank you very much. When we hear such a lecture, we think very seriously and we would like to do it, but when we come to the dining table, we forget Mr. Squirrel. That is our case. So, if you would like to be healthy, do it. And if you don’t or can’t, then live life with your beautiful illness. Thank you. As he mentioned, yoga practice is very important. Yoga and Āyurveda—which means nourishment—are parallel, and this was meant for a healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy spirit. Many great people wrote about food and health, and now many are also working for food, nourishment, and research. The whole world now knows that organic food is healthy. Yet the farmers complain: if you create one organic farm, the neighbor farmers complain. Either they should be sprayed, or they are not allowed to have organic farms. So food companies are trying to have healthy food, but they can’t. It has become a big business. We consume more than we need, and that is the problem. Anyhow, we shall think it over. Yoga and all spiritual techniques were created by the saints for free. God said, "I give the body, all the functions and elements, free of charge." If you are happy, if you are content, if you are joyful, and if you are very kind, it doesn’t cost you money. God gave you freedom—but if you are angry, jealous, hateful, greedy, and the rest of that, God postponed. Then He manifests in the form of the ṛṣis or saints and brought this beautiful science of life, like Āyurveda: nourishment, yoga, spirituality, mantra—everything. And it is given freely to humans and other creatures. It is said: do not misuse. But now in Kali Yuga, we deny this. We are not only misusing, but manipulating. We now have a system: you make some company or some nonprofit organization, which is constituted as a nonprofit to help all needy ones—animals or humans, the environment, etc.—with no compromise. Yet people begin to manipulate something, which is not correct. Karma will come back. So that spiritual science brought yoga, and if you use this yoga in the wrong way, then it is a sin. When I came for the first time to these countries, five decades ago, there were only one or two systems of yoga. And now, in every corner, there is one system. In every hotel, there is one system, on every beach at holiday places—and Āyurveda too. On the Adriatic coast in summer, for example, people have a little tent and offer Āyurvedic Abhyaṅga, 25 to 30 minutes, for 58 euros—or maybe more now; I saw it eight years ago. That is not doing something good. What is Abhyaṅga? It’s a little massage. Tell your husband he will give a nice massage, and you can give him pocket money, 50 euros. He will be very happy. Similarly, yoga has many different names, and people who don’t know about it think this is yoga. It is a pity, very pity. But what to do? The ṛṣis know their vākya comes true. In that way, those who are doing so will not be happy. So we are very happy and proud. I am proud of you. For years and years, you teach firsthand yoga, what we call Yoga in Daily Life. Many of our teachers are teaching, and not only that—they are teaching, but they will get more karmic benefit. And many are mixing, putting in their half-knowledge. Mahāprabhujī said, "Half-knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge." Temporarily they are happy, as Mr. Skvirol said: you buy three big ice creams or cakes, sweet. Three is too much, two is little, and one is like nothing. But this one which you think is nothing, your body accepts; the body will adjust and digest. But when you take three or two, the body system will not accept. And believe it or not, when you swallow it, after the vocal cords, the taste that you want to enjoy is not there anymore. Only this small part of the body—so we are the slave of it all, the Svāda Indriya, the sense of taste. So, if you are teaching authentically under such spiritual lineages and properly, seriously, then you will get good karma. You know, in the last century there was one master, the great master Paramahaṃsa Yogānanda, who lived, and his disciples who followed his mission practice exactly and correctly, and they are doing it. They understand spirituality. They don’t go to certain blim-blam yoga. Just now, I saw a newspaper from Austria last Saturday; I saw it in the airplane, and there was a big article, two pages—and with good yoga they don’t even give four pages—and that’s called Naked Yoga. And of course, who would like to see a naked man? No one is interested. So, congratulations to women? That everyone wants to see them naked? There were four or five pictures, completely naked. And I wanted to read what they were writing, but my neighbor said, "Oh, the Swāmījī is interested." Another problem. So I just closed the P.V.C. and went the other way. But someone I told read it, and there was a written account that in India they practice like this. I can tell you, except for two- or three-year-old children maybe running naked and practicing, no one is like this. Yeah, maybe in their own room, under four walls. So how people are spoiling and destroying the divine science—karma will come back. Better not to teach anything than to give someone wrong things. If you can’t give nectar, don’t give poison. If you can’t say good words, don’t say bad words. If you have nothing good to speak, at least don’t speak bad. And if you can’t speak bad, then at least don’t hear bad. And if you can’t hear bad, at least don’t look at bad. I mean, not that naked women are not beautiful—very good—and men are also very beautiful. But nobody puts us in the newspaper, except Nāgā Bābā at Kumbha Melā. So, thank you. Follow, and then eat the food of immortality, which also gives a happy, relaxed, healthy, long life. Human life is not given for all that we were talking about. It is given for higher knowledge, for higher achievements. It was given for becoming one with that God whom we have not seen and will never see—because the way you want to see, God is not existing. And when you see God, you will say, "No, that cannot be." But the day you get realization, you will see God. You know, a very famous Swāmī or Yogī in the last century, Svāmī Vivekānandajī—everybody knows him—and his master Paramahaṃsa Rāmakṛṣṇa. Vivekānanda went to many masters and asked them, "Have you seen God?" Someone said, "Yes, and how, and this and that." So he heard about Paramahaṃsa Rāmakṛṣṇa in Calcutta and came to Rāmakṛṣṇa and asked, "Master, have you seen God? When, where?" He said, "I saw God many times, and even now I see God." He said, "Really? Where?" Paramahaṃsa Rāmakṛṣṇa said, "I see God in you. Do you see God in me?" Of course. "Can you show me?" "Yes, you see, but you don’t see." These words, this answer of that great saint Paramahaṃsa Rāmakṛṣṇa, changed the entire feeling, opened the door wide. So, my dear, yoga or human life—sorry, human life—my dear, human life is given to open the curtain that limits our vision and which limits everything. Mala, Vikṣepa, and Āvaraṇa in yoga say: mala is impurity. Impurity means the dress is not clean. There was one person whose dress was smelling; he didn’t change often. I asked, "Why don’t you change your dress?" He said, "I’m very afraid that someone comes near me, so this is the way to keep a person away." Yes, there’s also technique. He said, "When I’m sitting somewhere meditating in a group, people stand up and go far." But inner purity is important. Your inner feelings: if with little things you are offended, how poor you are, how many wounds you have inside, how much pain you have inside, how much you are tortured inwardly, that one word someone told you or didn’t accept your opinion—and you are offended. You are not far on the spiritual path. So, human life is given for God-realization, but it needs inner purification, and it has given dharma to humans. Every creature, including the vegetation, stones, mountains, oceans, and rivers, has its own dharma. If a river does not flow, nobody will say it’s a river; it’s a lake. That flow gives the name river. So, human dharma is to follow certain principles, to fulfill your dharma, and these are the four pillars of dharma: dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa. Dharma is the discipline, the principle. As a human being, what should we do and what should we not do? So it is not a matter of eating. But what are you eating? When you eat meat, think over: what are you eating? From where did the food come? Some creature, some living being has been killed. So, what was the pain of the mother of that meat, which you already think? Definitely, that mother did not give birth to that baby—maybe the calf, or the fawn, or any animal. So the first sin is: you kill the child of that mother and father. This is the first; it’s a sin. Secondly, you kill the brother or sister of others. If someone kills your brother or sister, what will be your reaction? And third, God created and gave life to that one. With what right do you kill? And the fourth and fifth points: you know what will be the consequences—the pain of the mother, the father, the brothers—and destroying God’s creation. All this karma will come to the one who consumes this meat. When you see this on your plate and you analyze it, you can’t even see; the tears will come. How much pain this creature had to go through. You take the fish out of the water, hanging a hook in its throat. Let’s play theater: you become a fish, and one puts a hook in your mouth and brings you out for everyone to see. I think you will already be a dead body. What is the pain in the throat? Unbelievable. When we swallow something and it gets stuck in the throat, we cough and cough; it is unpleasant. So, the human dharma is to understand the suffering of others. Do not provoke negative feelings in someone, and do not inspire someone to harm others. If you can’t do good, at least don’t do bad—with your words, with your eyes, with your ears, and with your stomach, with your selfishness and ego. If somewhere a fire is burning in a house, do not pour fuel inside; put water to calm the fire. Therefore, there is a song they have in a film from Assisi: Lord, make me the instrument of your love. Where there is pain, may I bring them happiness. Where there is sadness, may I bring joy. And you know that. So, how many times do you try to bring joy to an unhappy one? Of course, for our good friends, yes, that is selfishness. But love is that which you bring, even if you don’t know the person. Many people died in the war, but we feel love toward those who are left behind in the family. So, dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ: if you protect your dharma, meaning you keep your principles, your human qualities, then that dharma will protect you. Don’t think that dharma will not protect me. Therefore, it is said, "Dharma, dhīraja, mitra, or nārī, āpada kāla parākrama cārī dharma." So, the first pillar, the strong foundation of human life, is dharma. And the second pillar is artha. Artha means the material means that you can give something. When someone comes to your home, you should be able to offer a cup of tea, a cup of milk, or water. If it’s cold, a blanket—but from where do you get a blanket? From where do you get tea? You have to earn some money to give. So we work to give something. Maybe previously there was no money, but the whole village was rich: whoever had a few cows gave milk to everyone; who had a good vegetable garden gave vegetables to all; who had crops, good crops, wheat, etc., gave to everyone. So everyone had enough; no one was hungry, nothing was missing. You had everything. There is one apple, one orange, one pear, one plum, and one tomato—five. Now, I cut the apple into five parts. I give one piece to each of the other four, and I have one. One who has oranges opens them and gives one to everyone. Who has the pear cuts it into five pieces and gives the other four one each. And who has a tomato also cuts it into five pieces, so everyone had five. Everyone had. So that was the old principle: one hand was the other hand. Being able to give something, that is called artha. So, giving helping hands has more value than folded hands. Give. Tulsīdāsjī said, "Tulasī, kara para kara kara, para kara kara na kara, tā dina para kara kara, tā dina maraṇa kara." Keep your hand over others’ hands; be generous, give, give, give. Don’t be a beggar. On the day you do nothing and you are only like a beggar, it’s like death. Therefore, artha—what God gave us, and in the last yugas, we humans are used to a more comfortable life. You know where we are sitting, and in this part of Europe there were some tribes living called Neanderthals, and they were living under rocks and such, no clothes, cold, no heaters. But they were healthy; they had muscles. They were a little smaller, going like this—Nandatalā. And if we spend only one night under some cold rock, without anything, we will be a case of pneumonia. That’s it. So our immunity, our way of living, we are not capable of going back. So everyone needs the centers, so give. So dharma, artha—then comes karma. Karma. Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam, Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said in the Bhagavad Gītā, the third chapter of Karmayoga. Arjuna, your practice of yoga will be in the yoga chapter, where Kṛṣṇa asked him to practice yoga. One will be successful with niṣkāma karma, so both fruits are there: good fruits are niṣkāma karma, and troublesome is selfish karma. So karma, yoga karmasu kauśalam. When you practice yoga, then, as he said, "Yoga Agniḥ, Karma Dagdhāni"—through the fire of yoga or power of yoga, all your karma seeds will be burned. Therefore, this planet is called Karmabhūmi. Karmabhūmi, so your Janmabhūmi and Karmabhūmi and Dharmabhūmi. Janmabhūmi is where you were born; Karmabhūmi is where you now work and do good or bad karmas; and Dharmabhūmi is where you fight against the asuras and protect your positive Devīk Śaktis. The first begins in the Bhagavad Gītā, the first śloka: "Dharma Kṣetra, Kuru Kṣetra." In the Dharmakṣetra, Kurukṣetra, the land of the Kauravas, where the Mahābhārata took place, they were not fighting against anyone; they were fighting for the Dharma. So dharma and karma, dharmabhūmi, karmabhūmi, janmabhūmi—these are all adorable for us. This is your dharmabhūmi, āśram. You are sitting and coming to know what dharma is. Dharma and adharma: dharma is pure, and adharma is sin. So dharma and karma, these two, are very important words in Buddhism too. The monk, also known as Dharmachārya, the Buddha, was a Sanātana Dharma Hindu. He was the son of a warrior king, but when he got enlightenment—before he was Siddhārtha, but Buddha was Siddhārtha. Bodhi, the bodha. Bodha means knowledge, intellect. When this intellect is enlightened by that wisdom, then you call it bodha. Bodha means knowledge. Either you have bodha, or you don’t have bodha. You broke a very valuable vase, a flower vase, because you did not know; you did not have bodha about that. That’s ignorance. But when you have bodha, then your buddhi is enlightened. That intellect is known as enlightened; it’s called bodhi. So, Buddha means the enlightened one. So it is a branch of Hinduism—the Sikhs, the Jainists, the Buddhists, many, many. And all other dharmas, maybe Islam, Christianity, or Judaism, are all within the Sanātana Dharma’s range. You know, there is one fruit called a pomegranate, or anār. When you peel it, inside there are so many beautiful seeds, like rubies. These individual seeds are individual religions. And that cover, the shawl over them, is Sanātana. So Sanātana doesn’t belong to someone; it is that one under whose umbrella all are surviving, growing, and doing the same work of God. That’s why Sanātana Dharma is universal, not man-made. Your heartbeat, this is called Sanātana Dharma. Your blood circulation is Sanātana Dharma. The veins, nerves, arteries—everything—this is Sanātana Dharma. That which you can see through your eyes, good, is Sanātana. The entire body is living in Sanātana. So this is a principle, this is a dharma, and this relies on karma. Then the door to mokṣa is open. So dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa—these are the four pillars of human life. Next, rest tomorrow. The rest tomorrow. Karma Deep Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Deveśvara Mahādeva Kī Jai, Mādhav Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Sanātana Jai, Jai.

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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