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Brahmanandam parama sukhadam kevalam jñānamūrtim gandhatītam gyānāśādṛśam tasmāsyādi lakṣyam ekam nityam vimalācalam sarvādhiṣākṣibhūtam. Oṃ Śāntiḥ, Śāntiḥ,... Deviśvara Mahādeva kī. Dīpa Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Mādhava Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān, Satya Sanātana Dharma. First, our humble adoration to our Siddha-Pītā, the Ālakpurījī Siddha-Pītā Paramparā. Many of you know, and many do not know, about Ālakpurījī. In recent years, our dear Dr. Shanti, Sādhvī Shanti from Vienna, has been traveling and researching the holy place where Ālakpurījī resides. In the Mahāśivapurāṇa, you will find some glimpses of Ālakpurījī. He still lives in the Kāraṇa Śarīra, the astral body. This summer she was there again and took a beautiful picture of the cave of Ālagpurījī and Devpurījī. She showed me some of her photos the day before yesterday. She slept in front of Ālakpurījī’s cave—this is Dr. Shanti saying, not me—and she heard footsteps walking. In the morning, when the light was good, she took a picture. For her, it was some form of a human, but I have not yet identified it. I told Shanti, and she is going to write about that path from below up to Ālakpurījī’s place. That valley in the Himalayas is called Alakāpurī. One side is called Svargārohiṇī; it is believed that there are stairs to heaven. There are the Nīlakaṇṭha mountain peak, the Nārāyaṇa hills, the Śāstradhārā thousand waterfalls, and Satopaṭa Lake where Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva bathe on that particular day, the 11th moon night. It is high altitude, so we need good conditions to walk there. You will come to know more when you read and see the pictures. Our spiritual path began from that Satyuga time with Ālag Purījī, because Devpurījī brought the message of Ālag Purījī. Devpurījī was a disciple of Ālag Purījī. Ālag Purījī came in that sūkṣma śarīra, the kāraṇa śarīra, to Devpurījī and blessed him. This is Ālāgpurījī’s blessing: immediately Devapurījī attained divine consciousness and super power. Super power means those siddhis, those perfections. He could walk on water, walk in space, manifest, appear and disappear. And the Siddhi we spoke of this morning: his words would always be truth and would be realized; it would happen as he says. That river is named the Alakanandā River after Alakapurī. Many of you are still asking, "Why suddenly has Swāmījī brought this message: Oṃ Śrī Alakpurījī Siddhāpit Paramparā Siddha?" Siddha means the perfect and miraculous. Siddha means realization. In Maharashtra, India, near Mumbai, there have been many, many great saints. You know, one of the best translations of the Bhagavad Gītā, which you can read, is called the Jñāneśvarī Gītā. Saint Jñāneśvara translated it. It is a long, beautiful story, also a little sad, because no saint had an easy life. There is a video on YouTube about the life of Saint Jñāneśvara. I will not tell the whole story, but at that time, there was another sādhu, another saint, who heard about Jñāneśvara. Jñāneśvara was about a 15- or 16-year-old boy. He had one sister and one brother. The other sādhu, a siddha, heard about Jñāneśvara and thought, "I will go and see. How can people say he is a great siddha? I will test him. I will show him what a Siddha is." This is one of the most dangerous states for a spiritual person, a yogī, or a Siddha. When a little perfection comes, then you want to show your power: "I can do this, I can do that." For worldly people, māyā is different. Man is māyā for woman, and woman is māyā for man. Money is māyā. Wealth is māyā, high position is māyā. They have a kind of intoxication. Once you enter politics, you cannot give it up. Even if you have to sell all your properties, you will fight the next election to become the mayor of the village, then head of the district, and then enter parliament, growing and growing. This is māyā. Then for the spiritual person, who is above this prapañca of the material world, come perfections. He says, "Oh, I have siddhi. I will show that I am a great master," and uses some siddhi. If you use your siddhi, you will lose your power. So a great, wise person does not use or demonstrate siddhi. Our beloved Gurujī, Holy Gurujī, was visiting Europe for the first time in 1975. Someone in Austria asked Gurujī, "Guruji, how many siddhis do you have?" Guruji said, "Well, you know, multi-billionaires do not count every evening how many coins they have in their pocket." "But which is your best siddhi?" Holy Gurujī said, "Good eating and good sleeping." Gurujī said to me, "Mahesh, do not open your siddhis. On the day you demonstrate them, your life will become restless. I give them to you, but do not use them. They will be useful for you later." So māyā works in different ways. That saint, the sādhu who had some siddhis, was very arrogant. Wherever he went, he rode on a tiger. When he reached his destination, he would say to the tiger, "Now go back. You are free. Send me another tiger. In five hours, I have to go. The tiger must be here, the next one. If a tiger comes without invitation, I do not want it." When he sat on the tiger, he held a big cobra in his hand to beat the tiger. His ego was very big. So he went to see Saint Jñāneśvara. "I will see that boy." Jñāneśvara was a young boy playing like a child. He and his brother were sitting on the boundary wall of his house. Half the boundary was destroyed; only a piece of wall remained. He was playing, riding it like a horse. The sādhu asked, "Where is Jñāneśvara?" Someone outside the house pointed to the playing boy. The sādhu prepared nicely, telling the tiger, "Bark well," and held a cobra in one hand, a snake in the other, and went towards him. Is it true? I am not making a joke; you can read this. My dear, jealousy is another siddhi. Jealousy does not require a lot of practice. If you use this siddhi jealously, you are destroyed. So always say, "Mahāprabhujī, please do not give me the siddhi of jealousy." Arrogance, anger—simple. I even knew the name of that saint, but today I have forgotten. He came with a big tiger. Jñāneśvara saw a sādhu coming and told his brother, "Let's go and welcome him." The brother said, "He is coming on a tiger." Jñāneśvara said, "That is not special. He is riding a living being. The tiger is alive. We ride a wall, not a living being." And he said to the wall, "Let's go to welcome Swāmījī." And the wall moved. It is true; it is not a joke. That saint lost all his pride. He did not dare to ask Jñāneśvara, "What siddhi do you have?" He went to greet him as a small child. So siddhi, perfection, goes to those saints. That siddhi is the ornament of the saints. These ornaments are not to be sewn and sold. There is beauty within, not outside. There are many, many stories. In old India, you would hardly find any village without some sādhu, some saint. That is why India is a dharmabhūmi, the holy land. In that dust, there is something, as in all twenty-four incarnations. Once in Czechoslovakia, in a place called Ostrava, a man asked Gurujī, "Why, Gurujī, do all incarnations incarnate in India? Does India give some commission?" Gurujī said, "No, no, no. But you know, in white marble mines, only white marble comes out. In coal mines, coal comes. In Ostrava you have many coal mines." Guruji said, "I know that. But the marble mines of India, even in Rajasthan—it is mostly in Rajasthan—so even the stone of Rajasthan is worshipped around the world. When you make a beautiful statue from marble, you put it on the altar. Similarly, this divine science is there." But in this Kali Yuga, material temptation is too big, too strong. Nowadays, there are more things to destroy or spoil us, and fewer things to make us perfect. It is very hard in this māyā temptation of the Kali Yuga to attain vairāgya. Without Vairāgya, you cannot become a saint. Even if you attain Vairāgya and take initiation, be careful. It can happen as a parīkṣā, as a test, that one day you will say, "I am sorry that I became a sannyāsī." That thought is lost; you lost it all. You know that God Rāma’s wife Sītā was kidnapped by the King of Laṅkā, Rāvaṇa. She spent time only in the park; she did not go with him. You know the story. Then there was a battlefield, and so on—I am not repeating it. That is a nimitta avatāra. God Rāma is a nimitta avatāra. Narasiṁha avatāra is a nimitta avatāra. Varāha avatāra is a nimitta avatāra. They come for one thing and then go back. But the saint, the sādhu, is a nitya avatāra. They are avatāras for every day, not only for one work. If the sky were a big fire and so many pieces of fire coal were falling to earth, the entire world would burn. If the saint were not here, the whole saṃsāra, the whole world, would burn. That fire of desires, anger, jealousy, greed, revenge—so many siddhis fighting in this space, though they are not visible in this world—would destroy and burn everything. But Guru Vākya, the teaching, the words of the great saints, calms the whole fire. So sādhanā in this Kali Yuga is very hard. There are a thousand ways to destruction, very clearly visible. But maybe only one way, and that is also not visible. So Vairāgya, Jñāna, Bhakti, Tyāga, dayā, and kṣamā—these are the ornaments of the saints. You live in your family, have children, everything, but you can be a saint too. Sītā had to go through the fire; otherwise, Rāma would not accept her. If she spent time with Rāvaṇa, she would burn in the fire. If not, she would come untouched by fire. She walked through the fire; not one millimeter of fire spot touched her body. It is said Sītā went only once through the fire, but practitioners of yoga or sādhus, the saints, have to walk throughout their whole life in the fire. Then your sādhanā can be peaceful, free, and an achievement. The best sādhanā, the best practice, is devotion. Kali Yuga Kevala Nāma Ādhāra, Sumira Sumira Nara Hoi Bhava Pāra. In the Rāmāyaṇa, it is said, "Kali Yuga Kevala Nāma Ādhāra." There is only one hope in this Kali Yuga to cross the ocean of ignorance, and that is the name of God. Repeat, repeat, repeat the name of God. These are the words of the great Tulsīdāsa in the Holy Rāmāyaṇa. Nowadays, it is very hard to find a spiritual leader. Many churches are empty. In Europe too, there are not so many priests to conduct morning and evening pūjā. Some people from India and Sri Lanka are inspired and become priests, but it does not function well. The same is true in India. Many temples, ashrams, and caves are empty; no one is there. So it can happen that a time will come when you have to search for a sādhu or a priest, a good saint. That time will be like a bushfire, with no shelter. So if you try, it is still not too late. The easiest way—I will tell you the rest next year. First, come to one point: think positive. It is not easy to think positive, and do not change your positive thoughts. When you fall in love with someone, you think all positive and beautiful. After some time, you separate, and all suppressed negative thoughts come out, and you destroy them. So keep your thoughts positive. If you cannot think positive, at least do not think negative. It will reflect on you. You know, the human stomach is very sensitive; we cannot digest. If someone tells you in confidence, "Please do not tell anybody," and you tell, after five days the whole village knows. You ask, "My dear friend, I told you, 'Do not tell anybody.'" He says, "I swear by the name of God, I did not tell anybody, but I told everybody." That is it. We cannot digest; it is very difficult to trust anyone. You cannot even trust your own body, your thoughts. Therefore, hold on to the positive. Turn negative into positive. I always say, always be light in darkness. As long as you have a light in your hand, darkness cannot come near you. That light is the light of positive thinking. If someone does not like me, why should I think negatively about others? Why should they love me? Why should they think of me positively? Why should they like me? If they do not like me, why should I think negatively? So, you went back in your spiritual development. Holy Gurujī always used to say, "Be like a tree." When the tree blossoms, it gives fragrance. When the tree bears mangoes, apples, pears, or cherries, it surrenders. Humbly, it stretches its hands down and says, "My children, take, take." The branches do not go high up, saying, "Do not come and take my fruits." So our fruits are our good qualities, and we should give them with all humbleness. There is a beautiful bhajan Guruji used to sing: "Oh, my brother saints, sādhus, water collects where there is a deep place. Rain falls on the peak of the mountain, and very quickly the water flows in a hurry to where the deep places are, so everyone can drink. So pick up the ego. No wisdom remains there." So first is positive thinking. Then, dayā: mercy. If you make a mistake and someone shouts at you, it will destroy you more. So Gandhījī said, "We hate the sin, not the sinner." It is said, if you think you are perfect and better than others, then the one who should throw the first stone is the one who has no sin. I do not know how many of you are. Many would just drop the stone. Everyone’s hands have some kind of spots; maybe they are not visible. When you go to the hospital, you have to use disinfectant liquid to remove disturbed bacteria on our hands. Before going to the operation theater or a hospital place, they do this. When you come to satsaṅg, also do like this: "Gurudev, my friend, Hari Om. All karmic bacteria go away." This hand is you, and this hand is me. We are one. Where? In the heart. Namaste. I surrender to you; I bow down to you. So if you want to give a Christmas present to yourself, the best present, make a saṅkalpa in front of this beautiful tree: "I will think positive." And if someone has negative thinking, I will help to make a correction and turn it to positive. Daya, mercy, compassion. Dayā dharmakā mūla hai. Only mercy can save the situation, and that is the dharma. Pāpa mūla bhīmaṁ, but the root of sin is pride. Therefore, in spirituality, in yoga, in wisdom and knowledge, there is no competition and no challenges. The wiser you are, the humbler you are. The more stupid you are, you walk like this. You lost all the leaves, free, and now a branch goes up. Even the birds do not dare to sit on it, only black crows. So, dayā: mercy. Vairāgya: stay above detachment. Jñāna: knowledge. These will make us saints. They will make us yogīs. Then we will be worthy enough to call ourselves yogīs and yoga practitioners. Many of you have been practicing with me for decades. This morning, a man came to me: "Gurudev, my bones do not allow me to practice anymore. My muscles do not allow me to bend. What should I do?" I said, "Jñāna, Bhakti, Vairāgya, Tyāga, and Uparati." How long will you practice āsanas? Asana is good; as long as it goes, it is good. But now you are upgraded; you have a higher position. If you cannot manage āsana and prāṇāyāma, then practice yama and niyama: dayā, karuṇā, bhakti, premā, jñāna, forgiveness, understanding. Very good. Try to correct all mistakes again. Immediately, when you dress in the morning, if you put one button in the wrong place from the bottom up and think you will fix it later because you are in a hurry, everyone will look at your button. To correct that one button, you have to open fifteen buttons. So if you realize at the beginning, you can make a correction. So any misunderstanding, any problem, immediately, with positive thinking, clean it. But now there are people we know as troublemakers. There are event makers, picnic makers, and trouble makers. They cannot talk positively. They talk negatively and create troubles; then they can sleep. One troublemaker could not find anyone or anything to make trouble. Making trouble is nourishment for him; he cannot sleep. It was 2:30 at night, and he still could not sleep. He was thinking about all company directors, employees, and neighbors. He had made trouble with everyone. He could not find anyone. So he thought, "How to create trouble again?" He took the telephone and dialed a number. A man was sleeping. "Hello." He said, "Be careful. Now there will be an attack in your house. You made a big mistake today. Sorry to tell you, my friend. Run away. It is a secret call." Finished. That man said, "Who was it?" At that time, numbers did not show. Now numbers show; it is a problem. He packed things and ran out of the house, sitting under a tree and waiting. That man was sleeping deeply. This is called "they cannot digest." They are troublemakers. But like you, there are many saints, positive people. If you made a mistake and talked negatively or created troubles, I have one real story from a city called Maribor, on the border of Austria and Slovenia. A farmer’s family lived there, and they had a son about seven or eight years old. He went to a neighbor’s garden where they had corn, maize. He broke off about fifteen ears and slowly ran away. He came home and said, "Grandmother, grandmother, look what I brought." She said, "Good, my child, good. Who gave it to you?" "Grandmother, I stole it." "From where did you steal?" "From their house garden." She said, "Good, my proud child. But go back to their house and give them all, and say, 'Sorry, I was stealing.' Go, give it back." "They will beat me." "Say, anyhow, they will beat you, and I will beat you. So go and give it back; nobody will beat you." He went and said, "I am sorry. I was stealing this maize from your garden, but I do not want it; I want to give it back." There was another grandmother from that house. She said, "No problem, my child, no problem. Why did you make the trouble to jump over the fence? Sit down." She gave him something to eat and gave him three or four more corn in a nice basket—at that time, there were no plastic bags. She said, "My child, whenever you want to eat these things, come to me and tell me, 'I would like to give this to my grandmother.' I will give it to you. Go home, take it, bring it home." He came and said to his grandmother, "Grandmother, grandmother, I am so happy. She gave me a cake to eat, and she gave me two, three more, and she gave me some good cheese. She was so nice, and she told me, 'Whenever you want to have this, come to me.'" Grandmother said, "You see, do not steal. If you need, go and ask. If they have, they will give you." So the wise one can forgive; the weak one cannot. The wise one can make light and harmony, but the stupid ones make darkness and distractions. They are lost, and they pull you also into darkness. So let us develop in our sādhanā by the end of this year. Make a friend of the Christmas tree, a saṅkalpa: positive thinking, devotion, be kind to others, stay above material temptations—tyāga. Learn dhyāna, knowledge anywhere. You will see, by next Christmas time you will be completely different. We have to purify ourselves; that is yoga. Otherwise, postures are good for health for a while, but after that, they will not be good. That is why yogīs do not advise sports. They say sport is a torturing of the body. Almost all sports champions, in old age, have body aches and many joint problems. That is why yoga has no competition and no challenge. Yoga is when you walk out of this door and someone also comes, you step back and say, "Sir, first yourself, you come. Yes, please, come first." Well, that man may not want to, but still will say, "Thank you." If you go to a football championship between Slovenia and Croatia, would a Croatian tell a Slovenian, "First, you kick the ball into the goal"? The Slovenian trainer would say, "This man has gone crazy. Take him out of the field." So this is different. Let us turn our life into beautiful, positive. Sama, forgive. Great ones can forgive, and small ones will make noise. But this does not mean you will not practice āsanas and prāṇāyāma today. Tomorrow morning, I will ask who practices every day. A master’s lecture time is always different. This is only one lesson; I have a thick book. Many lessons are there, but all these lessons bring relation to God. I am very happy to see you and wish you all the best. Many have come and are going home. I wish you a good journey; drive carefully. I hope to see you before Christmas. We are next weekend in Strelke, but you must not come because you have already come. So, I wish you a happy, merry Christmas and a healthy, happy, prosperous New Year. Mahāprabhujī bless you. Thank you. Hari Om.