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Welcome, everybody, here in this hall and in different parts of the earth. I am happy to hear from you that your Kriyānuṣṭhāna is proceeding well. This morning I was sitting in meditation, and I looked and saw that some people were sleeping. Then I realized that I, too, was sleeping. So I said to myself, you cannot be angry, nor can you offer any commentary, because you are also sleeping. If you are eating ice cream and another is also eating, do not be jealous. Some had problems with their back and their knees, but you know very well that in summer we have Kriyā Anuṣṭhān. You must prepare yourself half a year in advance. From now on, you should begin to prepare for next year so that you will have no difficulties with sitting. Last‑minute effort is too late. You know, from the first week of January—or the middle of January—factories and companies start preparations and production for Christmas in December. Eleven months and one week ahead, they are preparing to supply the same kinds of items, which number in the millions, not merely thousands. Similarly, we should prepare for next year starting now: prāṇāyāma, āsanas, meditations, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and kāya-sthairya. Āsanam sukham—that āsana sukha means it gives you no trouble. Consider a water glass on a table, half full of water. The glass is very stable; the glass itself is stable, and there is no movement at all in the glass. Inside is a liquid. If the table is unbalanced and moving, then the glass also moves, and then the liquid moves. You see? If it is not moving, if it is stable, then nothing moves. In the same way, if our body is in discomfort, our mind becomes restless. When the mind is restless, concentration is lost. Concentration means dhāraṇā. Āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi—so yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi. Before meditation comes dhāraṇā, concentration. But we cannot concentrate if the body is not comfortable. Therefore, kāya-sthairya, the steadiness of the body, is necessary. Then you can focus your concentration, your aim, on one point. It is very hard. If you can concentrate on one thing for half a minute—you, practitioners of Kriyā Yoga—the rest of humanity cannot do it. I am giving you a challenge: half a minute, and you are not capable. So, how can you have hours and hours of meditation? And how can you imagine that for months and years you are in samādhi? Of course, one day we will be there. There is a soundless, soundproof place we will get, two meters deep in the earth, perfectly packed so that no vibration reaches us—and samādhi. Still, you have not achieved concentration, and you say, “I am meditating.” What a joke! Simply closing your eyes and sitting down is not meditation. Mostly, people who dwell in this modern civilization, with its stressful day and the stressful, restless vikṣepa of family life and the problem of existence—when you close your eyes, all problems become very clear again. So you cannot concentrate, you cannot meditate. Dhāraṇā, concentration, means you can peacefully think on one point. When you sit to meditate and say, “I will not think anymore,” and then thoughts come, and you say, “I will not think, I want to meditate,” you are already thinking that you do not want to think. “I want to meditate.” So it is impossible for people who practice irregular sādhanā merely to concentrate. Then meditation is far away. Dhyāna comes from accepting—that you accept something and become one with it. There is motionlessness of the body. When the body is motionless, every energy center in the body relaxes and begins to radiate its energy. That becomes a beautiful aura or radiance around the whole body. It goes through the earth; every direction is equal. You are sitting in a beautiful ball of auras, like the earth surrounded by water, floating on the water, and the water floating in space. The Creator has made a miraculous work. If we pour this water out, it flows down. Yet such a vast ocean is nowhere pouring out. Though God gave enough possibilities or space, the ocean could go… we do not know where it would be lost. And what about earth? It would also go somewhere. But the creation of God is so perfect that it created within itself gravity. There must be some strong power of gravity. At most, the water element can rise a few thousand meters; then it must come back—there is no way to disappear. When you travel by airplane from Europe to India or America, sometimes the whole way is only clouds and more clouds. Thus, more than in the oceans, the water that is in the ocean is in the air and in the vegetation, but it does not go away; it remains in this manner. Similarly, the ātmā within us, which is connected with the jīvātmā—and this jīvātmā is that gravity—so that all the energy, everything, all desires, every thought, every feeling, every imagination, concentration, meditation, all are subject to one, this jīvātmā. And we do not want to lose anything. It surrounds us, and this jīvātmā is fluttering in the ātmā, but it always returns to that point. So, when we sit in meditation—I hope one day in your life you will sit in meditation. You are not sitting in meditation in the morning; you are sitting in concentration. And that concentration is a struggle, a fight between body and mind, and intellect. Someone once said, “Today, during Kriyā, one was thinking.” No one told me; only he was talking to me. I was in my room, and he was in that hall, not with a mobile phone. He took his mālā and said, “For what am I here? I could do it differently.” Yes, I replied, “Answer, my friend, we will come later.” So I am not telling only those who are sitting here; I am speaking to all who are with us via webcast, or anyone around the world who practices yoga and meditation. Where is meditation? What does meditation look like? We cannot even describe it, and if we try more and more, karma comes in the way. That karma attacks us, creating an obstacle on our path toward meditation. And when you think, “Ah, I meditate,” that is called Tāndrā Avasthā—the state of drowsiness. He said, “Neighbor, do you meditate?” He replied, “Yes. What a beautiful mudrā.” Tandrā means half‑sleepy. Why does it come? Tamas guṇa. Therefore, before we come to meditation, or Kriyā, or concentration, or the best healthy way of life, we must overcome Tamas Guṇa. About seventy‑five percent of our sleep is artificial, and that is because of the Tamas Guṇa Tāndrā Avasthā. And that is caused by gases in the body, and these gases come mostly from grains. That is why yogīs try to lead a phalāhārī life. But now here, our phalāhārī—I see some who consume half a kilo or a kilo of nuts every day. “Because I am phalāhārī, I can eat almonds, I can eat cashew, I can eat pistachio, I can eat raisins, oh, it is very good. Brazil nuts, para nuts, coconut is very good.” My God, you put more cholesterol, more fat, into your body. And then the fruits—oh, this is a very good fruit—and vegetables, milk, of course, yogurt is all right, cheese, and fruits. That is not a phalāhārī diet; it contains more tāmasika also. The proper limit: five almonds, five cashews, five pistachios, one cup of milk, and some fruit—that is all. No potatoes, no ice creams, no potato chips. They say, “Yes, it is fried potatoes; it is a phalāhārī”—what they call chips. One day I was sitting in my room in Jadan alone, in the evening or afternoon, and I was checking what my karma yogīs were doing. Three karma yogīs were sitting together. I could not imagine, I could not believe it: everyone had in their hands such big plastic bags, and they opened the potato chips, and how quickly they were eating! So hungry, I thought. You see, reality is not seen by me. So, my dear ones, you must examine these tendencies and remove tamas guṇa. That is called Mala, Vikṣepa, and Āvaraṇa—impurity, disturbance, lack of concentration, and a curtain. In due course, techniques coming from the Maṇipūra Chakra will remove these three. From Maṇipūra to Ājñā Cakra, you then obtain that vision—subtle visions. In the beginning of the Mahābhārata, at Kurukṣetra, the Kauravas finally decided to fight the battle. They refused to give their nephews or brothers even a small part of the kingdom. Hastināpura is what we call New Delhi; there is a place from which New Delhi comes. Kurukṣetra is in Haryana, about two hundred kilometers away. There the whole army from both sides, all the battalions, camped. The blind king Dhṛtarāṣṭra wanted to know, “How are my children fighting? What is happening now? Who is fighting against whom? How will I know? I want to go there.” But they refused to let him go. Then Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said, “Dhṛtarāṣṭra, you can stay here. To your minister, your secretary Sañjaya, I will give divine vision. So while sitting here, he will see everything that is happening two hundred kilometers away, like on television.” And so, when the time of battle began, there was always the principle that no one should fight at night, and no one should raise a hand or weapon against a woman. In the battle, if a woman came between them, they had to stop fighting. You see how, thanks to God, there are women in the world. But now woman becomes a cause of battles, in the house or between husband and wife, because they do not understand their wives or their husbands. We have forgotten the principles, the dharma. And you know, the same strict rules existed in Islam—very, very strict and clear. When the battle began, the blind king was sitting there, and Sañjaya was sitting there. The king asked, “Has the battle begun?” Then Sañjaya looked and described everything: “Now the conches are blown by Bhīṣma. Now the Pāṇḍavas are standing with their army here, and the Kauravas are here. What is my son Duryodhana doing? What is Duśāsana doing?” and so on. He could see and give the answer. When the evening battle was finished, his vision would disappear again. When the battle was won, the king asked, “Who was winning?” He said, “The Pāṇḍavas are the winners.” And what happened? He said to the king, “Your Highness, I have no more visions; I have lost them.” That is evidence: as long as Guru Kṛpā is there, you will have those visions and inner development. When Kṛpā is gone, you are blind again and you fall into ku-saṅga, the other side. The blind lead the blind. This Śakti comes through. First you must purify the three guṇas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Therefore it is said (Aśvānjak Mohan Purī, listen carefully): “Aśvānakra Brahmānandam Paramasukhadam Kevalaṃ Jñānamūrtim Dvandvātītaṃ Gaganasadṛśaṃ Tattvamasyādilakṣyam Ekaṃ Nityaṃ Vimalācalam Sarvādhiṣakṣibhūtam Bhāvātītaṃ Trigunarahitam Satguruṃ Taṃ Namāmyaham.” Trigunarahitam: when you are beyond the three guṇas, then you are a Satguru. Satguruṃ Taṃ Namāmyaham—that is why we bow down to our Gurudeva. They are above the three guṇas, and as long as we are entangled in the three guṇas—Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, with Mala, Vikṣepa, and Āvaraṇa, and kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, and ahaṃkāra—then we are blind. We can see only a limited amount. When we open these eyes, we see this. We lack inner vision. Therefore, the Maṇipūra Chakra is the fountain of nectar. Our eyesight and energy depend on the Maṇipūra Chakra, our solar plexus, because the sun is here—Solar Plexus sun—and these eyes are the sun. So when you have trouble with your eyes, or high pressure in the eyes, or your vision is diminishing, there are two best practices: Agni Sākṣī Kriyā, which activates our Maṇipūra Chakra—Agni means fire, the sun—that purifies, and this Agni Sākṣī Kriyā will give us clear visions again. Second, Trāṭaka, from the Haṭha Yoga techniques. These are the six techniques. That is why it is called Haṭha Yoga or the Ṣaṭ Karma. Now, Ayurveda has taken from Haṭha Yoga what they call Pañcakarma. They are slightly modified, but it originates from Haṭha Yoga. So, this vision, inner vision, allows you to gain the ability to enter your chidākāśa. The inner vision window opens sometimes. You must concentrate on sādhanā. Then you see what he or she is doing. It is very easy, my dear. For instance, you and your wife are watching television. Your wife asks, “What are the children doing in the room?” You concentrate and say, “Two are sleeping, and one is licking his thumb.” She says, “Okay.” Then she asks, “What about our dog?” And she closed her eyes and saw—but the dog was already in the garden. What a miracle! This happens when āvaraṇa is gone. So Kriyā is a divine technique. All these techniques I am speaking of—this theory is what I am putting into practice. I do many things at once. It is said: you do not see a plant growing, but in the morning you are surprised; it has already blossomed. If we look at the sun, we do not see it moving. If the sun does not move, the planet is moving. But in our local language we say “sun rising, sun setting.” The sun is in the middle, but we do not perceive its movement. Yet after some hours we say, “Oh, the sun is setting.” And so it is said: “Sūraja ko calatā na dekhā, baṛhatī dekhī nai velā, Yogī ko bhasthā nai dekhā, yahī kudarata kā khela.” I did not see the sun moving, nor did I perceive its growth. And I did not see the yogī who is just meditating all the time and doing sādhanā, yet he is a yogī. Kudarat kā khela. Kudarat means nature; in Urdu it is kudret. But you can say, the miracle of the Creator. So, in this sādhanā, we should concentrate on our nourishment and control our inner temperament. Otherwise, Rajo guṇa—Rajo guṇa is a fire that will burn everything. Walk the path of control: control over words. On every word you speak, think it over. Better to think three or four times than to shoot a bullet. And before that, control your vṛttis and anger before you put anything on a piece of paper. Once you write on a piece of paper, it has gone out of your hands, and you never know where it goes. You think you will write it and then destroy the paper, but you must write. You write, and at the end of writing, you have a heart attack. It is no longer in your hands. Similarly, the words we speak are already in the air, and the thoughts we think are in the universe. If you can master this, it does not mean you should never speak. It does not mean you should never be angry. Without anger, you are a dead body. Yes. Anger is a kind of protection. The snake must show his temperament, but he should not bite. That is the difference. Thus, there are things we think of as control, and we prepare ourselves. Your trinetra trikadraśī will slowly, slowly develop. If you do not want this, no problem. Practice for your health, good concentration, and meditation will come. The Maṇipūra Chakra is connected to our eyes. The Maṇipūra Chakra is connected to our anger. The Maṇipūra Chakra is also connected to our words, because the seat of sound, of speech, is in the Maṇipūra, etc. So the Maṇipūra Chakra is responsible for many, many emotional reactions. That means the Maṇipūra Chakra is overloaded, and that is why we can have problems with this part of the chakras. If we calm down—and mostly those who have digestion problems and many other issues, I do not want to say one word because I am a victim of that, very sweet. That also comes from the Maṇipūra. So, Vāk Siddhi, and if you want to become a good singer, then you must sing from down. Yes, I said, “As deep as you are, like a lion, sing nāda,” because that is prāṇa, Maṇipūra Cakra. That is the seat of immortality. And our Kriyās, which we are doing, and the new techniques we are doing now, are very, very useful, my dear. Āsana, prāṇāyāma, and relaxation you can learn anywhere, under every tree. But these techniques are specially designed for our special seminars once a year in the summertime. So for the next seminar, after you finish this retreat, begin your preparation for next year. Avoid your ku-saṅgas. Develop your devotion and confidence. “Nita Nita Prema Merā Adhika Dīpadayālaya Rājasa, O Dīpadayālaya Rājasa. Kara kṛpā mo satsaṅga dī jo, kara kṛpā mo satsaṅga dī. Pūrī dīpa pada yālayā rājasom, prabhu dīpa pada yālayā rājasom.” Day by day, may my devotion, my love, increase more and multiply more and more. Therefore, protect me from ku-saṅgas. One diseased fish spoils the whole pond. One ku-saṅga, just for one minute, can spoil your hard spiritual work. So, vichāra, the vṛtti, the thoughts, must be guarded. Therefore, these five jñāna-indriyas must be in your hands. There are ten horses that pull this coach—the jñāna-indriyas and karma-indriyas—and these horses are wild. But your mind must be a strong rider, because the ātmā is sitting in this coach, and the driver is that mind. This is the bhajana of Gurujī. Therefore Gurujī said: “O Merciful Mahāprabhujī, bless me. Be merciful. Have compassion. Bless me with satsaṅga, and please protect me from kusaṅga. May I meet my enemy, but not kusaṅga.” Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Dev Purīṣa Mahādeva, Dharma Chambārāra, Satguru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān, Satya Sanātana. So, the Maṇipūra Cakra, which still possesses immense energy, controls many, many functions in our body. This afternoon or evening, we will continue, and now we shall practically look at how our Maṇipūra Chakra is functioning. So, all bhaktas, dear ones around the world, bless you, and see you again. I would like to offer a blessing to all the bhaktas, and we will meet again.