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Greetings from Viśvagurudīpur, Swāmī Maheśvarānandāśram, Jhadan, Pālī district, Rajasthan, India. Tonight, Swamiji asked me to continue yesterday's lecture, the practical part of Yoga. Yesterday, he started with Swami Avatārpuvījī demonstrating Kaṭhuparaṇam and talking about it, which is one of the significant features of the system of Yoga in Daily Life. He discussed the first four postures. I will continue. Starting from Kāmyavatthapūjī, sitting in Vajrāsana, we will quickly go through the first four postures. From Vajrāsana, raise the hands up, bring the palms together, separate the hands, and bend forward, placing the hands, forearms, elbows, and forehead on the floor. Lift the hips up, move forward, and bring the chin and chest to the floor. Keep the hips up in the air, and then lower the hips down to the floor. Lift the head and upper body, looking up to the ceiling, with the hips off the floor. Push the buttocks back, pulling the heels toward the floor. Keep the head between the shoulders, gazing at the navel, then look at the space between the hands, and step the right foot forward between the hands. Again, look up to the ceiling, raising the arms up with palms together, and bring the hands back to the floor. Step the left foot forward, folding the body in half. Then inhale, lifting the head, lifting the upper body and arms up, again bringing the palms together. Exhale, folding the body again in half. Step the right foot back, placing the hands onto the floor, lift the head up and look up to the ceiling. Lift the upper body and hands, bring the hands with palms together, and then place the hands back to the floor. Step the left foot back; this is the mountain pose. Lower the hips and knees to the floor, lifting the upper body and head up to look up to the ceiling—the cobra pose. Then lift your hips up, bring the chin and chest to the floor, pushing back all the way to Śaśāṅgāsana, with the forehead on the floor. Inhale, lifting and raising the upper body, hands, and arms with palms together. Exhale, bringing the hands down onto the thighs. This is the Kaṭhuparaṇam. I will go through it posture by posture and talk a little about the benefits. Again: raising the arms up with palms together, look up to the ceiling to open the front of the body. Then exhale, bending forward, lifting the hips, moving forward to place the chin and chest on the floor, and lower the hips to the floor. Lift the head, lift the upper body, tuck the toes under, and lift the hips up. Push back into the mountain pose, Sūmeru āsana, and try to keep the feet together. Pull the heels down to the floor, keep the knees straight, the back straight, pushing the buttocks back and up to the ceiling, head between the shoulders, chin on the chest, pushing back. This posture really stretches the back of the legs, the hamstrings. It is very good for the back, strengthens the shoulders and the upper body, and it's an inverted pose, so it brings the blood supply to the head, which is good for the organs of the head and for all brain functions. Now look at the space between the hands and step your left foot forward between the hands. Lift the head up and sink forward with the hips. That posture really works with the hip flexors; it opens the hips and is good for the joints and movements of the hips. Now, lifting the head, opening the chest, raise the arms up with palms together. This is a balancing pose; try to stay still. Open the chest, extend the spine up, reaching up with the hands and sinking forward with the hips. Bring the hands back to the floor and step the right foot forward, folding the body, half-relaxing the upper back, with the arms hanging loosely in a kind of inversion. This stretches the back of the legs. Relax, breathing slowly in and out. With the next inhalation, raise the arms and upper body, and exhale into a forward bend. Stay on the floor, stepping the right foot back as far as you can, with the right knee on the floor. Lift the head, inhale, raising the upper body and arms. Bring the hands back to the floor. Step the left foot back, exhale, pushing the buttocks back, hips forward, and lower the knees and hips to the floor. Inhale into cobra pose, Bhujaṅgāsana. Bring the chin and chest to the floor, lift the hips off the floor, pushing all the way back. Exhale, sitting on the heels into Śaśāṅgāsana. With the next inhalation, raise the head, upper body, and arms. You can sit cross-legged if you want. So this is the Kathā Praṇām, one of the very significant parts of the āsana practice in Yoga in Daily Life. Swamijī recommends practicing every day, at least 5 rounds; 11 would be best. Anytime anybody feels tired, practice Kathā Praṇām. It is really good for the body, the mind, consciousness, and soul. It brings everything into balance. Swamiji also asked me to talk about Yoga in Daily Life generally. Yoga in Daily Life is a system of yoga which was designed by Swami Maheshwaranandaji. He went to Europe in '72, lived there a few years, experienced the lifestyle of modern people, and experienced the physical and psychological problems that we face every day. He designed this system of yoga for us. Practicing yoga is the way we can fix ourselves on all these levels. For example, let's make it practical. If you have back pain, a back problem, that's a physical problem. We all experience pain. That already limits us in movement and behavior, and not just on the physical level, but mentally also. We are very careful how we move, what we do, what we lift. We think twice, or maybe three times, before we act. So mentally, we are really focused on the problem, on the pain, and we would like to avoid further pain. So it affects the physical and mental level. Socially also we are affected because this pain limits us. We are very careful, maybe a bit irritated, sometimes less patient with your colleagues, friends, family members, and perhaps sometimes a bit anti-social, avoiding company. We don't go to parties with colleagues; we just want to stay home or go home quickly because we have pain. So that's the social level. And the spiritual level? We hardly can think about the spiritual level because that's something beyond all these, something we search for when we seek lasting happiness, something more than this physical life. So these four aspects are affected just from that little back pain or other injury we sustained. Through practicing yoga, we can overcome this pain. We can really stretch the muscles, get rid of tensions, and strengthen the muscles to build up body strength, so next time we don't sustain injury that easily. Fixing it on the physical level will automatically change the mental, social, and spiritual level as well. So this is how the holistic aspect of yoga comes into the picture. This is what it means. Yoga in Daily Life is a system designed by Swamiji, a system which has eight levels of āsanas, postures. Eight levels, starting from really basic, simple, easy postures. It's good for everybody. Anybody can start anytime without any limitations of age, gender, or religion. It doesn't matter. Anyone can start and practice, step by step, moving along this system: level 1, level 2, level 3, level 4, up to level 8. And at the same time, one practices breathing exercises, relaxation, and meditation. Through the eight levels, everybody can find for themselves something that's interesting, something that's really useful at that stage where we are. Whether it is physical or mental, we will find something that's very positive and uplifting, not just physically but mentally. And we will experience the health benefits of yoga, as I just explained. Another really important thing is the meditation and the aspects of awareness through practicing yoga. In Yoga in Daily Life, the teachers will always emphasize the awareness aspect right from the beginning, through postures, breathing, and meditation. It's all about awareness that improves step by step as we progress along the system. Especially in the practice of meditation, we have a system called self-inquiry meditation, which is again another outstanding aspect of Yoga in Daily Life. It's a system of meditation which was also designed step by step. It starts with the āsanas and very basic, simple techniques, which are first just physical and mental relaxation. The aim in the beginning is to achieve complete or perfect relaxation, physical and mental relaxation. Then we can continue further with concentration techniques, giving a duty for the mind. For the mental aspect, we work with the awareness, focusing the mind on a technique, on an object, an idea, anything physical or abstract. After this, we have visualization techniques, imagination, and self-inquiry, which is very similar to self-analysis. Modern psychology has this self-analysis, psychoanalysis, a technique which is quite similar. But in yoga, we are the patient and the doctor at the same time. We are asking questions from ourselves, and we answer the questions. Through the practice of awareness, we really discover our own limitations. Just by knowing the limitations, the problems we have, is the first step of eliminating the problems or overcoming the problems, whether it is fear, complexes, anything that hinders our consciousness and lies in the subconscious level of our mind. We just step by step discover, and just by knowing, we can let go of the problems. This is the process of self-discovery. We really get to know who we are. Without limitations or fears or complexes, we don't have to listen to these things that hinder us. We all have fears; everybody has. The beauty of this self-enquiry meditation is that, while every meditation takes a long time to get rid of problems, just to know the problems—for example, fear—if it is a fear, we know that we do not have to take it as an advisor. We have fears, but the fear is not my advisor. So I live my life and I have my fears, but I'm not guiding my life according to these fears. So that's bravery. We are yogīs and brave people. We don't take advice from fear. And then, through the practice, we can slowly, slowly let go of this fear. So, you're going there. It's a holistic system; it has the meditation aspect, asanas, and it's all about awareness, as I said. The awareness improves, and life itself will become easier. So we're not going to be a problem anymore for the outside world, or the outside world is not going to be a problem anymore for us. And later on, we are not going to be a problem for ourselves either. So there will be no problem from outside or from inside, and that's already a kind of happiness. No problems, we are relaxed, and we can live our life in a way that we become more efficient, we become more useful for the society we live in—the social aspect again—and we are going to be a useful member of this planet. We will have inner peace and contentment, and it will radiate out, first to the very near surroundings where we live, where family members will definitely recognize this change or this improvement in us, and then neighbors, friends, colleagues. Then they will also be inspired, hopefully and possibly they will, inspired by this yoga, this change that happened in us. And with this change we can change, not directly, but indirectly, our society and the whole world. Swamījī always says that peace begins with us, with our own heart. So, through the yoga practice, this contentment, satisfaction, and inner joy, we can change the whole society, the whole planet. And with the practice, we really make a world peace. Swamiji focuses on peace conferences. He really strongly works on peace in the world. He brings the message of peace to all countries, all nations, and all societies, wherever he goes. Through the conferences, he really emphasizes this message. He has organized conferences numerous times already over the past few years in different countries, and this will continue. We really do hope, and we know, that through these conferences we make changes, so the message of Yoga in Daily Life is really peace: inner peace and world peace. Thank you very much. I would like to invite everybody to just sit still, sit comfortably, close your eyes, and slowly breathe in and out through the nose. Do this breathing, relaxing the whole body. If you are familiar with chanting Aum, please join in and chant Aum with me, with everybody here in Jhadan, in the Bhakti Sāgara, and with everybody around the globe. Whoever watches this webcasting, now chant all together for inner peace and world peace deeply.