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Evening Satsang Fom San Francisco Bay Area, California

A spiritual discourse on the purpose of human life and overcoming obstacles to self-realization.

"Destiny is not given by someone... whatever happens to us, good or bad, comes from our own past deeds."

"God gave you these beautiful hands to give, to give good things. Don’t give in their hands guns, give in their hands flowers."

The lecturer addresses an audience, explaining the human body is a gift for serving others and seeing the divine in all. He explores themes of karma, attachment (moha), and the practice of devotion, using teachings from Kabīr Dās, the Bhagavad Gītā, and Yoga philosophy to describe the impurities (mala), disturbances (vikṣepa), and veils (āvaraṇa) that obscure one's true nature.

Filming locations: Bay Area, San Francisco, United States.

Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai. Śrī Śrī Deveśvar Mahādev Kī Satguru Svāmī Madhavānandjī Bhagavān Kī Jai. Satya Sanātana Dharma. Blessed self, dear brothers and sisters here in this hall, and our dear Amṛtsāgar, thank you for organizing this beautiful program. The ashram is very beautiful, filled with light, good energy, and good people. Also, to all my dear ones around the world—you have early morning, so good morning, and good evening, afternoon, and so on, in different places. Blessings are coming to you from a beautiful place called Auckland, the Bay Area of San Francisco, not Auckland in New Zealand. Welcome. This program is designed to help us know our destiny, yet we will not come to know it. When destiny appears, we will say, "Oh God, why does this happen to me?" Before asking, "Why does this happen to me?" know there is no one to blame. Destiny is not given by someone. Even parents cannot give us destiny; they give us birth. They can give us education for a future destiny, but whatever happens to us, good or bad, comes from our own past deeds, which we have done knowingly or unknowingly. We know we are not guilty. We have not made a mistake. We are humans; we have human weakness. But the law of karma says that even if you drink poison without knowing, the poison will affect your body. This is a bitter truth. Therefore, great sages said, "Know the purpose of human life, for what this life is given." 8.4 million different creatures are created by one creator, and this is a cycle of birth and death. This individual soul is fluttering on the waves of time, through the whole universe, within darkness or light, experiencing joy, happiness, or pain and mystery. We are fortunate ones that we got a human body. What good luck, what good destiny we have, we do not know, but we can only say thanks to God, our Mother Nature, or whatever you believe, which has given us this human body. The human body is given for two things: first, to serve, meaning to help. Help the meek ones, help the needy ones, help those who are suffering with pain and who have troubles. Try to give your hand, folding. Helping hands have little value compared to praying hands. So humans are here as protectors, not destroyers. This is the human dharma, to be helpful. Even if someone has made great mistakes, we humans have the knowledge and abilities to understand, forgive, and support, like the great Jesus said on the cross: "Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing." So it does not matter who is who, animal or human. Whatever they do, negative things are out of their ignorance, and we can only pray for them and try to help, and not become an obstacle or a more destructive power. Do not put petrol in the fuel or in the fire. Do not put fuel in the fire of anger, hate, jealousy, etc. That bhajan, which our dear Amrit Sagar would like to sing, is written by one great saint. He had great knowledge, and his songs we call bhajans. Bhaj means the glory of God. Seeing the glory of God, in very short form, he said, "Why does it all happen to humans? What should not happen, the cause is only one: attachment." Moha has two meanings. If you go to the dictionary, moha will be only ignorance or darkness, but here moha means attachment. Attachment is the cause of suffering, the cause of jealousy, the cause of greed, the cause of hate, the cause of anger, etc. My, my... And when you touch my property, I will kill you. This is the reality. But do not attach into the attachment. Understand and take it as the highest principle or highest law. Accept the glory of God, meaning repeat, remember prayer to God. Which God? God is omniscient, omnipresent, and everywhere is God. But we humans are born in different cultures. Where there is a human, there is a culture. Where there is a culture, there is a human. And where the human is moving, bringing its culture with it. So according to the climate, according to the circumstances, people believe in different forms of God. But ultimately, God is God. We have the sun. In English, we call it "sun." In Hindi, we call it "sūrya," and sūrya has twelve names. In other languages—Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Mexican, or many, many other languages—they have different names for it. Sun, so I will say it is a Sūrya, and He said, "No, it’s not Sūrya, it’s the sun." I said, "No, I believe in Sūrya." He said, "No, we believe in the sun." That fighting is only of the language. And if you will say, "I believe in Sūrya," then we all Indians will say, "Oh, this is a great person. He adores the Sūrya." So this is the language. Then they say, "No, I don’t adore Sūrya." Then they say, "Son, this is the language problem." So, hari bhajan ko manre, trust, believe, accept the name of God, the glory of God. What I used to say, I like one thing very much in America, that on American money, currency notes, it is written, "We trust in God." It’s good. They didn’t write, "We trust in dollars." So, if you even have one dollar in your pocket, be sure that you have the name of God in your pocket. Why don’t you see it like this? We are all struggling for the dollars and this and that. One wise American Indian said, "When all the trees will be chipped off, and the last fish will die, oh man, then you will realize that you can’t eat your dollars." But you can say, "I can’t eat the dollars, but still God is in my pocket here, near to my heart. I trust in God." So "Hari Bhajan Ko Manare" is that same: we trust in God. And India writes, "Satyameva Jayate," where truth is victory. And what is that truth? It’s written in the scriptures, and the core point of the Vedānta philosophy, which is the highest philosophy, is "Brahma Satya, Jagat Mithyā." The world is mortal, the world is unreality, and Brahman is the truth, God is the truth. "Satyameva Jayate" was the slogan of Mahātmā Gandhījī and so on, the Indian emblem, when you have that three tigers—no, lions—three lions, and that is written Satyameva Jayate. Because Gandhījī was doing satyāgraha, devilish, you know, that we will not use any kind of weapons. We will not use any aggressive behavior. But we know we are working for the satya, for the truth, for our rights. So, money, even if you have only one dollar, but with that you have in your pocket God, the name of God, because we know only the name of God. We don’t know how God looks. We create a nice form as a human form. This is Gaṇeśa, this is Hanumānjī, this is Rāma, this is Śiva, this is Viṣṇu, Lakṣmī, or Jesus, or whatever we believe. And some say there is no form, there is only sky. Yes, sky is good, but I can’t buy with sky one pizza. If I have a dollar, I will buy so that God will feed me anyhow. The name of God is His presence, and actually, the great saints have created God. If the great saints would not have researched this and said there is a God, we would be also like animals, and these words of the great saints are called spiritual injections. This is injections of the truth, injection of the divine knowledge. This is called the words. Injection means the words, Guru Vākya, and Guru Vākya means the words of great saints or great philosophers, or those who have realized the truth. Their words are Vākya. Vākya means the words, and that leads us, that guides us. And we all, if we would follow this Vākya, all these books here is Guru Akhyā, the words of the great saints. So Kabīr Dās said, "Mat kar moha tu, do not fall into the attachment in the darkness of the ignorance. Mat kar moha tu, Hari bhajan kumārī, do believe in the glory of the supreme, and believe why he gave you the human body. Nayana diya darśana karne ko." Darśana is a very spiritual word, but it means to see. But what to see? Someone gives you a flower; this is also darśana. This flower made me happy, this flower made the person who gave it to me happy, and others happy also. And all were sitting peacefully. Oh, Swamiji got beautiful flowers. Our eyes are informing, "Be happy, be relaxed." But if she will come with a gun, do you think I will be relaxed and happy and looking, "Thank you"? And others will say, "Oh God, you see." So darśana, what we see, it is said, "Jaisī dṛṣṭi, vaisī sṛṣṭi." How you see the world, the world will be like that. So, darśana mostly we use for seeing a holy picture, a holy statue, something divine which we want; that we call a darśana. So nayana diya darśana karne ko, don’t see bad from these eyes, which is said in the Purāṇas and in the Upaniṣads also. Also, Gandhījī used this word, gave the picture of three monkeys, closing ears—don’t listen to bad things; shut off your mouth—don’t talk bad things; and close your eyes—don’t see the bad things. These are the external vikṣepa and kleśa, disturbances and quarrelings, fear, but we call the blackmailing that frightens us when you hear something wrong and when you create through your intellect the negative words towards someone. Then your whole inner space, the space of your intellect, is darkened, polluted, and that we call manipulation, blackmailing. If you do the blackmailing, then you have destroyed all who will come in your view, so that all who is misguided through your talk, through your words, through your behaviors. Then that is a sin. This karma will come to you sooner or later, so that you will suffer because you put them in the darkness instead of bringing them out, showing them the right way. So be like a light which can remove the darkness within, no time. If you are wise enough, you have the heart of the human, you have the mercy of the Divine Mother, and the light of the great Divine Lord, and you can digest, you can dissolve. Otherwise, you will suffer and let others suffer. That’s called misguidance. That is an easy way to see the good. You come on the road, there’s one man standing, or there’s some woman standing, writing something to give, asking for somebody. Now you see it, maybe you will see the poor, maybe you will see the beggar, or maybe you see the lazy one who doesn’t want to work, etc., etc. Oh, he will go and buy the alcohol or this. Well, you don’t know which circumstances brought this person into this situation. We don’t know. Then who are we to give the commentary in such a way as to judge that person? If you want to give, give it. If you don’t want to give, don’t give. But at least don’t create in your mind, in your intellect, in your consciousness, negative energy that will attack you. And if you give him or her, the needy person, even half a dollar, a quarter dollar, or one dollar, you know what that person will say to you? Thank you. So, thank you means also a blessing. So you got a blessing. You paid one dollar, and you got a blessing of that ātmā, that’s all, of that person. It’s not great. And if one day your money pocket is stolen or lost, you will digest, "Oh, I lost my money, there was money, and this and that." That you can digest, but you can’t digest if you can give someone something, needy ones. So he said, "God gave you these beautiful hands to give, to give good things." Don’t give in their hands guns, give in their hands flowers. Give in their hands bread, give in their hands such an energy to bless them, to hug them, to help them. One is moving, going through the street, two suitcases in hand, one backpack on this, one other bag is hanging there, and sweating and hot, walking and then stopping and then going. You see, no one can I give the hand. If you support this person, the person will say thank you. But now the situation is so far that a person thinks, "You will take my suitcase and run away." This happens too, unfortunately. So these words, what Kabīr Dās said: "Mat kar moha, tu," don’t be attached and greedy. "What you have, don’t be so full of arrogant, the ego." This is not yours. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad Gītā, "What you have today, yesterday was someone’s. This space, what we have today, yesterday in the past was someone’s, and today we have, and tomorrow will be someone else’s. Why are you crying for that?" Be happy in the presence of whatever you got, and utilize it in a good way. So, no muhammad karamoha, no hari bhajan ko manare. Believe, trust in God, and repeat the name of God, the glory of God, your mantra, your prayers, etc., etc. The eyes gave you to see God in everyone. There was a primary school, and in primary school, there were kids from five or six years to nine or ten years. So, one teacher one day asked a question. There were about 17 or 18 students or children, and he said, "Sorry, I have something today. Good to tell you, children said, 'Yes, what in my pocket? I have ten dollars, and if someone will answer me correct answer, I will give you the dollar, ten dollars.'" So immediately children raise up hand, more and then two hands, so said, "Yes," tells. So, one about six- or seven-year-old child said, "Yes, God is in my mother." Others say, "God is in my doggie, my dog." Others said, "God is in the flowers." Others say, "God is in the temple." Everyone is saying something. One child was sitting in the front, waiting and looking this way. So he said, "What about you? You don’t answer. What is your opinion? Where is God? Tell us." He stood up and said, "Respected sir, my dear teacher, I love you. Your question is wonderful, and we all are very happy and delighted that you put such a question. But you know, my dear teacher, I do not have ten dollars in my pocket, but I will clean your car one day. Can you tell us, please, where is there no God? Can you tell us where there is no God?" The teacher was surprised, and he said, "What are your parents doing?" He said, "My parents are doing yoga and daily life, because they learn in yoga and daily life that God is everywhere. So, you know, God, oh God, is beautiful in the forest, in the desert, in the mountains, in the hills, in the ocean and the rivers, in the lake and fountains, in the flowers, in the birds and animals, in the humans, oh God, beautiful on the earth, in the sky, so where is no God?" That kind of darśan view, if we will have, we are already liberated. We will get to the cosmic light automatically without anything, but that we have to awake to see this. So hands is forgiven to give the donation. Dāna means donation, or you can say helping, charity. Or what else? Badan means body, this whole body. The whole human body, so God gave this body to us to see the glory of God. This is said, Kabīr Dās, listen, oh my brothers, oh saints, oh spiritual aspirants, listen to this. If you follow this in your body, which God gave you, in your body, such a cave, divine minds will awake, where there is only gold and gold, because people are praising God more. Golden chants, golden chants. So that is gold, and what kind of gold? Wisdom, self-realization, knowledge. So this song is very beautiful, and people like to listen and sing. Great, great singers in India, they sing so well. And there is another one who sings so good. She is our dear Amritsar girl. So we will sing and support her, okay? So now I told you the meanings, and when you will sing, it will be something good. Deep Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān kī, Deveśvara Mahādeva kī, Mādhav Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān kī, Jai Sanātana Dharma kī, Jai. Mat kar moha, tu Hari bhajan ko. Tu mat kar moha, tu Hari bhajan ko, Harī darśan karne ko. Bhadkaramohattu, Bhadkaramohattu, Śivajanakum, Śivajanakum, Madhyayahganakum, Śivajanakum, Śivajanakum, Bhaṭṭākāra mohātum ribājanako, ribājanako, Hīrā suno bhāī santu, nānīpājat khanāre, kājanā nipājat khan. Thank you. Very good. So, therefore, whatever is coming, we have to accept it. And further to prayer, that divine energy will guide us in different directions. There’s a lot of dirt and garbage lying in the street. And we know that we are not able to clean all, but there is. But suddenly, a very strong wind will come, and it will clean everything away. And heavy rain will come, it will all clean. So, very strong wind is the divine thoughts, our pure thoughts full of understanding, humbleness, kindness, and that water of the devotion, the devotion, the purity, that will clean away all. Where there’s love, there’s only pure. Where there is no love, there is hate, greed, and negative, negative, negative. So the divine thoughts, pure thoughts, full of wisdom, which are given to us by great sages and the water of that bhakti, the devotion, that will clean up all our garbage, that dirt, which is in many, many lives. One after another, layer on our unconscious level, conscious, subconscious, conscious, to come out of this which is written for us. And you know that, what we call Hidden Powers in Humans, this book you have, and you should read it once more. There are three obstacles that we can’t see through to our real self. And this is called māla, vikṣepa and āvaraṇa. Mala means impurity, physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual impurities. And impurity is such that it doesn’t let you come to pure thoughts and pure feelings. So impurities in eating, impurities in air, impurities of the societies where you are, etc., there are many, many, and physical impurity. This leads us to the suffering and doesn’t lead us to the clear way, the best way. Vikṣepa. Vikṣepa means disturbances. And when the disturbances are there, you can’t meditate, you can’t sleep, you can’t live in peace. And these disturbances are of two kinds, and Patañjali said they are kliṣṭa or akliṣṭa vṛttis. Kliṣṭa or kliṣṭa vṛttis. Kliṣṭa means troubles. Or kliṣṭa means no troubles. Vṛttis means thoughts. Thoughts. So when we have good thoughts, that will not disturb, create disturbance in us and in the society. Aśliṣṭavṛtti is this, that we think positives. Atlistavṛtti is what we create, the troubles for ourself and troubles for others. There are some people who, day and night, think about how to create troubles, how to make things more complicated, how to make things this and that, only because of money. They will make big, beautiful advertising in your favor; you have priorities, you have this, but down there it’s written very small, and this is on only two seconds. So there’s a lot of trickery in the world. That is, kṛṣṇa-vṛtti also will not let us come to our achievement, either direct or indirect. That is, direct means we have some illness, we have physical problems, we have mental problems, we have depressions, we have inside many different situations in the human body, and animals too. Indirect is that our friends are ill, our parents are ill, our dog is ill, our cow is ill, there happened something, there happened something, that aeroplane disappeared, you know, nearly 300 people. So we cannot just say, "Oh, it was 300 people." Now, you have to be with those people who were mother, father, husband, or wife to someone. What is their situation? So, can we give our support, understanding, our hand for them? How? With prayer, we can do, we can approach them only through our good wishes and good prayers, that it should not happen to anyone, and what happened, it is terrible, and God should help us. And that you are talking, only 300 people, but how many millions of animals are killed every day just to provide meat? Who is praying and thinking of them? So karma is difficult to understand, but in my opinion, it is very easy to understand. It is our actions, so we are disturbed by our neighbors’ problems, they have a problem, they have—there’s an accident happening. Oh, God. Now, let’s say an accident happens, a person is lying and crying and has big pain, and I say, "I will not call the police now because I’m doing my meditation." After meditation, I will do that? That’s not good. Stop your meditation. The best meditation will be to immediately call the ambulance and go there and see what’s happening. If you are not a doctor or if you have no first aid training, then don’t move them, don’t touch them. But you can do one thing. Put a warm blanket on it, or something we can do. So this is a cluster: the troubles from outside and trouble from inside. Don’t let us see. First, seal the problems, solve the problems. So the people who are searching for pearls in the ocean, but there are many waves. So what they do is they create a window frame, about 40 centimeters, and they put it on the water. Now it is glass. So now the waves are broken through this glass, and you can see very clearly till the floor, the ground on the bottom of the water. Similarly, if we can create such a frame and prayer for them, we can solve, at least temporarily, some problems. The problem or suffering of the whole world, we cannot do. We can only pray, and only God can help us, and God can help all. So this is the first point: so, mala, vikṣepa, and then comes the āvaraṇa. Āvaraṇa means the curtain. Āvaraṇa means ignorance. Now we can’t see through because there is a heavy curtain. If we remove the curtain, then we can see through and through. We don’t know what is behind this wall, so this wall is ignorance. So how to remove it? This curtain of ignorance, through the practice of prayers, meditations, mantras, and constantly thinking, "Who am I? Go home. Katham idam jātam? Ko ve kartā? Śiva duty. Who am I? From where do I come? For what I came? And what am I doing? Where I will go?" This is a question, and this was put by Ādi Guru Śaṅkarācārya in his teaching. So, what am I doing, and where will it lead me? So, malavikṣepa and āvaraṇa is the purifying of the antaḥkaraṇa. Antaḥkaraṇa is for, antaḥkaraṇa means inner function, inner motivations, inner things happening which force us to do something. And this antaḥkaraṇa is mana, buddhi, chitta, and ahaṅkāra. Mana is the mind. The mind is a mighty power within us. We cannot stop the mind. If you try to stop or block your mind and thoughts, you will get schizophrenia, you will get depression. Mind is like a river. We should not block the river, but we can give a direction to the river. We can make a dam, but we must have an outlet. Similarly, when we meditate, the flow of the mind, which is going left and right and there, we can do one thing: try to direct our mind towards our destination, our aim, what we would like to do. If you are a student, then you should direct your mind towards your study. That’s your aim or destination: to pass your examinations and become a doctor, or anything—whatever you are, a farmer or anything—so mind... Manas, buddhi, our intellect, the mind brings the thoughts and goes away. The mind is not responsible; the mind is only a messenger. It brings the message from outside, gives it to you, and from inside, it gives out. That’s all. So buddhi is our intellect. How is the mind? It brings knowledge and information to our intellect. Then we say, "Oh God, this and that." Confused. Chitta. Chitta is the space within which we are thinking. Chitta means also chintan. Chintan means constantly what you are thinking. So when in your intellect there is negative feedback, then constantly you are chintan, thinking, repeating, wrong. So manabhūti and ahaṁkāra, then you are fixed in such ideas that you don’t accept. Your ego comes up, and you fight for that. So, manas, buddhi, citta, ahaṅkāra—these four antaḥkaraṇa—which are covered, polluted by three things: mala, vikṣepa, and āvaraṇa—impurities, disturbances, and the curtain of ignorance. So then it is likely that we have to work this out to know our destiny, or to save our life and protect ourselves from destiny. So that’s all for today. Thank you. Wish you all the best. If you have any questions about this, you can ask. So, the webcast will be next from Fiji if there will be proper equipment. Thank you, Naren, for your beautiful work doing the webcast so that our friends around the world can be with us. Everybody, bless you, and those who have midnight sleep, good adios.

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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