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Śubhaṃ karoti kalyāṇaṃ ārogyaṃ dhana-sampadā, śatrubuddhe vināśāya dīpa jyotir namostute. Dīpa jyoti parabrahma dīpaṃ sarve mohanaṃ, dīpānāṃ sajjyate sarvaṃ sandhyā dīpaṃ sarvaśaktyam. Oṃ sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ, sarve santu niramaya, Sarve Bhadrāṇi Paśyantu, Kāścid Duḥkham Bhāveto. Salutation to the cosmic light, adoration to the Siddha Pīṭha. Dear brothers and sisters, today we are in India because His Excellency represents India. So we are under the banner of India. I met His Excellency last year in Watersmith. We had just a few minutes, and there was the President of Hungary, the Secretary General of the UN, so His Excellency was there, and I had the opportunity to meet him. Since His Excellency has been here in Hungary, he has been traveling throughout the country, especially to those spiritual centers—so-called Yoga, Āyurveda, and different ancient signs of India. As well, His Excellency has a very wide and equal vision for every country, every culture, tradition, and religion. And even His Excellency has now established a Vedic center in the embassy. I know Hungary, I know Europe, I know many other countries. There are many cultural centers, many Indian friendship centers, etc., etc. But he is the first ambassador who established a Vedic center in the embassy. And because also our honorable Prime Minister, Mr. Modi, Narendra Modi, he has the same aim to bring the ancient culture of India to harmonize and unite with the whole world, that we are one family. The family of one God, Vasudeva Kuṭumbakam. So I will not take his valuable time. I was surprised and admired how Kṛṣṇānanda got all these collections. Thanks to His Excellency that he came to visit us. He took the trouble; the road was not so good, it was foggy, etc. But for us, His whole Bhārat has come. He represents the Bhārat. So, we welcome you here, Your Excellency. And we are all waiting to hear your wisdom, and the floor is yours. Thank you. tamaso mā jyotir gamaya asato mā sadgamaya mṛtyor mā amṛtam gamaya om śānti śānti... Om. Most revered and blessed Master Swami Maheshwaranandaji Maharaj, Shri Krishnanji, all you blessed devotees, children of immortal bliss, I would like to first of all express my deep gratitude to this organization, Yoga in Daily Life, to have invited me to this very, very august gathering, blessed by the presence of Śrī Swāmījī Mahārāj. I am indeed overwhelmed by his kind words, his words of warmth, which I am sure came from the depth of his heart. I am overwhelmed by his words of love, affection, and respect. But these words were not meant for me as an individual, because as an individual, I may not count for much. But these words were meant for me, representing a civilization—the Indic civilization, which is otherwise known as the Dharma civilization, of which we are all a part, of which we are all repositories. I am thankful to Śrī Kṛṣṇānjī Mahārāj for giving me this opportunity to talk to you, to share some of my views about this wonderful way of life which we have adopted, which you have adopted, which can go far and wide to all corners of the world through your thoughts, through your practices, through your beliefs, and all that you have in good measure within yourself. Sanātana Dharma does not believe in conversion. Unlike other religions of the world, there is no proselytization. Yet, all of you I find here are part of Sanātana Dharma. How did it happen? All of you may have taken dīkṣā from Swamījī Mahārāj and believed in this way of life, which is very, very novel to all of you. Culturally, civilizationally, historically, geographically, you are very far away from India and her civilization. And yet the order, the respect, the belief, the conviction, the faith which you have shown in that distant civilization tells something. What does it tell? It tells simply that you have understood something of it which has touched your heart, your soul. And you have found something good in it. Something which you feel can give you some peace of mind. Something which can give you some knowledge. Sanātana Dharma does not believe in religion which is external. It is pure anubhava, experience. Therefore, the knowledge which we get in our dharma comes as self-knowledge. And self-knowledge comes through various ways in our life. It comes through yoga, it comes through prāṇāyāma, it comes through meditation, it comes through rituals, through mantras, through worship, through karma, through bhakti, through jñāna. All that we have heard are expressions which our gurus tell us. All this is a combined expression of our own development within ourselves. But where does that take us? Where does one get to after doing all that? There is still something that we want to do. We want to come to know what is the ultimate for us. And that ultimate is the Brahman. That ultimate is the goal of ourselves as ātmās, to find ourselves as representing that Brahman. Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi. Our meditation starts with this and ends with this. I am the Brahman. We start with this knowledge. We meditate with this knowledge, and we realize this knowledge. This whole journey of self-realization is what Sanātana Dharma is all about. Whatever you see happening in this religion, as a part of it, is basically to prepare us, to build us, to fortify us, to strengthen us on this journey of self-realization. And what is this self-realization? To understand who we are through a constant process of self-inquiry: who am I? The great sage of southern India, Bhagavān Ramana Maharṣi, had announced and espoused his philosophy of self-inquiry, "Who am I?" That, in my view, is the core of our aspiration for that journey. As you go deep and deep into discovering who you are, you finally reach the ultimate truth. And the truth is Brahman. Truth is one. Wise people say it in different languages. The most ancient Veda, the Ṛg Veda, the first line itself speaks of this. We begin with truth, and we also begin with the unity of life. And therefore, in the final analysis, the Ātmā and the Brahman are one and all. What is Īśvara, therefore? What are all these manifestations of the Gods and Goddesses, therefore? What are these rituals, mantras, and tapas, therefore? They are all manifestations of our mind. And the mind, through the process of māyā, we are all part of that, of this great envelopment. That Īśvara is something subjective, something which we can relate to, something which we can feel, we can touch. Brahman we cannot feel, we cannot touch; we can only perceive. We can only experience. And once we experience that, we have reached the goal. It may not be possible in one lifetime. It may require tapas. It may require years of sādhanā. Yet, our goal is that in this material world, having been born into this world, that is our constant striving. I am sure all of you will understand, because I feel almost the majority of people here are advanced seekers. They have progressed quite a bit in this journey already. So you will understand what I am talking about very, very easily. Remember, we are all seekers. We are all part of one journey. It is like one train with different compartments. We are all on the same train. Maybe Swamījī is sitting in the driver’s compartment at the beginning of the train, and we are at the end of the train, at the passenger compartment, but we are all in the same train. Maybe we are at different positions of the train because of our different levels of consciousness. We are only evolving from asat to sat. Asatoma sadgamaya, tamasoma jyotirgamaya, darkness to light. Mṛtyormā amṛtam gamaya, from death to immortality, because that is the state of immortality which we are aspiring for. The body perishes. The body, after some time, we all know the law of nature. We live for a certain time physically in this world, and then this body dies out. But what does not die out is the Ātmā, the soul. The difference between Dharma, Sanātana Dharma, and perhaps other established religions is that they believe that the soul either flies away to a distant horizon, goes to paradise, to Jannat, or goes somewhere which is not known and should not be known, or it dissolves; it does not exist. In Dharma, it is believed that the soul remains here. Until the time the soul has not found its merger with Brahman, with the Cosmic Consciousness, it has to be here. Therefore, it builds the aspiration of the devotee, of the seeker, to be part of that process, where you are also evolving in time, you are also evolving in your consciousness, and each one is thus evolving from a lower state to a higher state. Vedānta talks about this world as a phenomenon of the mind, of the Māyā, and therefore Vedānta also says how you transcend the mind. Yoga, prāṇāyāma, meditation, they are all means to transcend the mind. The goal is finally to transcend the mind. Unless the mind is transcended, you are far from Brahman. I am sure all of you, in your search for the eternal, will also proceed in this journey with your full heart, because it is the spiritual heart to which I am talking. And what I am talking about also comes out from my spiritual heart. It is a communion of spiritual hearts here. I only wish that we are all a part of the same humanity, the train representing all of humanity. And this way, the Dharma Civilization can expand to all four corners of the world through you. What Pujya Swamiji just mentioned about Indian virtues, Indian values, transcending themselves from their borders, going out to various parts of the world, Swamiji could come true one day when other nations, other peoples, other civilizations can understand that this stands in no contradiction with anybody. This stands in no enmity with anybody. On the contrary, it calls for love, for compassion, for universal acceptance, for embracing everyone. There is no evil nature, there is no negativity in this kind of reasoning which one gives in this kind of religion, in this kind of way of life. I therefore extend to you all my sincerest wishes. As Swamiji mentioned, we have set up a Vedic society in our own embassy, in our cultural center in Budapest. From time to time, we give some lectures on Vedānta, on various aspects of Vedānta. We also have some related aspects of teaching. We have some literature, and I would invite all or any of you to visit us sometime so that it can only help you in understanding yourself more. We can all then proceed in this task. Finally, I thank respected Swāmījī from the core of my heart. Prabhu, you have blessed us all. We are just humble creatures. However, in the process of seeking our salvation, we come across great holy people like you. And that gives us more inspiration to self-develop and to self-realize, and to progress more constructively, more beneficially, for the cause of all humanity. I shall end with an Upanishadic śloka, which I am very fond of, which only means that the ātmā is a part of Brahman. That I, the Ātmā, is a part of the Absolute. That feeling itself makes you strong, makes you powerful, makes you confident, makes you blessed. That you are part of a pūrṇatā, you are part of a wholeness. You could be a single entity physically, but you are part of the entire Brahman. Om Śānti Śānti... Om.