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Dear brothers and sisters, bhaktas, devotees, dear ones around the world, and those with us through the webcast, welcome. We bless you in the name of Ālak Purījī, the Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā, and all our dear sisters and brothers here. Welcome. After a long time, we have chosen a beautiful subject. There is a saying: everyone worships or praises the rising sun. Few are there for the setting sun. When the sun sets, some people who are depressed and unhappy think, "My life will be like this sun going down." There was a great poet and philosopher from India, specifically Bengal, Ravīndranāth Ṭhākur, a very respected person. He is poetry itself and wrote many books. One is called Gītāñjali. He is a Nobel Prize winner, and he writes beautiful verses. Artists are those who can take butter out of the water. What is not within the sun, the artist can go beyond. We are in the solar system. Artists are they who can create what is not here. Their visions, intuitions, and feelings are great. A real artist does not have ego, for with ego we lose the talent. Some are good artists, very good, but they do more commercial things to survive, which is understandable. Some do it as their hobby or interest—be they a musician, painter, singer, sculptor, potter, or jeweler. There are many things. The holy river Gaṅgā, which comes from the Himalayas and enters the Indian Ocean at Gaṅgā Sāgar, flows to Kolkata, Bengal, and then into the ocean. The river is big, strong, very wide, and has beautiful lakes. One day, Ravīndranāth Ṭhākur was standing in his garden, walking, and he looked at the sunset. He began to think, as we aged people think, "Now I'm old." One's whole life experience becomes intensive in thinking and feeling. It is time to go, but where and how? It is like the sun setting. So, Ravīndranāth Ṭhākur stood there in his imagination. The sun is going, and we feel sorrow or sadness—not for himself, but for the world. The sun is thinking, "Now my time has come, and I'm going down. My world will be swallowed by darkness. All will be in the dark. I cannot turn back now." The artist is thinking like this about the sun. That evening, because it was sunset, there was a Śiva temple. Someone was ringing the bell of the temple and doing a prayer with a ghee lamp. He turned back toward the temple upon hearing the bell and saw a beautiful, tiny flame. He thought that this flame was talking to the sun, and he wrote. What did he write? He wrote that the sun has sorrows; the sun is worrying, "My time is over. What will happen in the darkness for my creatures?" But before the sun sets, the tiny lamp gives confidence and a promise to the sun: "I cannot be like you, O sun, but I will remain for you and give a tiny light for people and for everyone, so that we are still not in darkness. We have a light. I will be burning for you." It is said that when we have a lamp, the holder is our body. The oil is our energy and the limitation of our ease. The wick inside is our self, which gives the light of wisdom, the light of confidence, the light of hope. This light says, "I will be for you here as a light." This wick says, "I will burn till the end for you, O my Lord, to give the light." When there is no more oil, still I will try to keep this light until all the cotton or other materials burn to ashes. So there is hope. That tiny hope can give us such motivation and awaken us to a new sun's dawn. The dawn is awakening; dawn is awakening in us, and a new life comes again. A Chinese philosopher said, "Never give up your hope." Think that the trunk of the tree is chopped off, but still, what remains will grow again. The trunk of the tree, which is chopped off, will grow again. So we are that mighty old tree. We may think our bones and joints are now painful, and our body is not useful anymore, or we cannot use it as we did. No, inside it will grow again. Strength will come; everything will come. So never give up hope. Hope is a walking stick from cradle to grave. We walk with the help of the stick, and this is the stick of hope. Never give up. We will achieve. Confucius also said: when the day is dark and dreary—the day is dark, hazy, foggy; we cannot see the way; it is getting late, darkness is coming, and it is hard to find the way—when the day is dark and dreary, it is hard to find the way. But do not give up your hope. It is better to light a candle than to stand in the darkness. That tiny candle of inner willpower, our hope, means we will survive and reach our destination, meaning the dawn will rise within us. When age is growing, then gray hair begins to come. Then you should know that you are on your way to achievement. Do not color your beautiful gray hair into dark or other different colors like red or blue. Even if you color your hair, you cannot hide reality. We call this in our Indian language nakharā. Nakharā means it is not kharā (real); it is only a mask, and the mask is not real. The wiser you are, the whiter your hair will be. So whenever I look in the mirror, I say, "Oh, thank you, God. I am on achievement now." It was a hard life, a big struggle, many things. But now it is ripe. Now it is ripe, and it is a beautiful mango to be enjoyed. Before, the horses were very wild; it was not easy to keep them under control. But now the horses have become your slaves. Before we were the slaves of our senses, but now the senses are our slaves. So you are the winner. We are the winner. We have achieved. Now we shall give that kind of support to our body, so that this body will be thankful to us. Before, we were thankful to the body. When you go to a football game, my God, how they run and kick the football! And now, at the age of 80 or 90, sitting and looking at the football and saying, "Oh, he is making so many mistakes. It is stupid." The champion, they said, oh, that is so. This is the game in life. We say the elderly people, the aged people, are like a holy place. To go and visit an elderly person who may be disabled at this time is like a pilgrim place. Their words and their blessings are 100% fruitful. When you have any problem, we used to say: go and speak with the oldest person in the village, or grandmother, grandfather, and our neighbors. When we are young, we have many different stupid things in our mind, to do this and that. We have problems and wonder what we should do. These elderly grand people have experienced the same thing. They could not swim; they were also struggling in the water. But then they learned, and they came to the mainland, so they can tell us these problems, how to solve them. "Don't worry; don't be sad. This will go away, and beautiful days will come again." When we are young, we say, "No, I will take revenge. I will go with a knife or a pistol; I will shoot him or her." This is not the way. What will you have from that? So the wise person is one who has many years—except someone who has mental problems and mental illnesses. But generally, the elderly person from the family is a blessing for all of us, not only for our family, but for all. Now we have become slow. Our every step is very wise. Every walk is for the last mileage of the achievement. And so time comes: knees and hip joints and ankle joints and back bones tell us, "My friend, I was for you all the time, ready. From deep sleep, you jump, wake up, and run. I was ready all the time," the joint says. "But now I have one request: that you shall give me some credit. Take care of me now. Feed me properly. Do not use me, how do you call it, just like a football." Yes, we enjoyed a lot of good food, no? Hard things, and rice, and carrot biting, and apple biting. But now they say, "Our teeth, friend, my dear tongue and gums, you enjoyed it a lot. You used us. We had to chew, and you enjoyed it. Please, can you give us a little rest so that I can also enjoy all days? Brush, clean us properly and take care." Ears tell us: "You were listening to many good and bad things, and blackmailing, and this and that. Even what the neighbor is talking, you were keeping your ear there. You have heard things that you should not hear. Now it is time. Let me rest and hear my inner voice." So when someone tells you something, then you say, "What did you say?" Then the inner one says, "Nothing is new. It is all the same." And the eyes: though we have glasses to read, we are still looking, reading one alphabet. I said, "My dear, you saw so many things, but you did not see what you should see. You have seen God, yourself, and the positive world. But now I cannot help you. I have to go within to see that you are our divine self." And so, the whole body: our intestine said, "You know, you are very cruel. I was for you like a garbage bag all the time, without thinking of organic food or healthy food, sāttvic food, quality in the food, but only your taste. I was eating this and this." The intestine said, "You had a nice warm meal. You had a nice warm soup, this and that, oh, very good. I was feeling nice warm food, and then suddenly you take cold ice cream. My, all my digestive fire, you put it off." So we have to, the intestine says, work a little more to digest and finish this job. Therefore, you can eat ice cream, but at least after three hours after eating, you should eat ice cream. And after eating, or during the end of the eating, you should not eat yogurt. Yogurt has a cold effect. Yogurt kills our digestive fire, our solar plexus. So, those who use too much yogurt after other eatings are destroying the strength of the digestive process in the body. But when we are young, then still they say, "Okay, we are strong." The heart is beautiful, our sweet heart. The heart is one of the best and most loyal servants for us. Our heart works for us 24 hours with the same rhythm. The heart never stops helping us and working for us. And now the heart asks us, "Did you ever tell me to relax, please?" But the heart says, "But do not tell me to relax. I am a loyal servant to the last breath, but support me. Give me proper energy and a proper way of living life, so that I can keep you long in this world." When we say, "Heart, okay, you stop, do not make noise, sleep," then you sleep forever, the eternal sleep. The kidney said, "You know how much toxins and how much I had to clean up your whole blood and everything. But still, you did not take care of me. Now what should I do?" So, each and every organ of the body is asking for our care. There is a story. One man died. He died and they took him to God. He first talked with the people who took him away, the messengers of death. "Why did you not tell me that you would take me? It is not true. They were making so much noise." Then they sent him to the justice of karma and cosmic law. They took him there, and the judge said, "No." He said, "Why? You must have told me. Even on the earth, when there is anything, we get a notice from the court. And if we do not go, then again a notice comes, then comes a warrant. And if we get a warrant and still you do not come, then the police will come and catch you and bring you there." He said, "So much we have on this mortal world, and what a darkness in the world of God. You did not tell me anything. Just brought me here. I want to talk to God." Well, the justice, the supreme of the dead, God. And he begins to blame God. They said, "He is God, be happy. Now you saw God, you are only in liberation." He said, "I do not want my liberation. I do not want God. I want my answer." So God said, "What is your problem?" So he told everything. God said, "No, no. We send you messages, we send you letters, we send you everything. Certified." He said, "God, I thought you do not lie. You, as a God, lie. I did not get any message." God said, "Yes, my son, I did." "How? I did not get it." He said, "Yes. The first information I gave you is that your ankle joints and knees become weaker and weaker. This was the first notice. And the second, your back problems and neck problems. This was the second. Then the heart problems and liver problems were the third. Then, eyes, you became blind. You did not listen and see, and ears. Then we sent the warrant: that you could not move anymore; you were in the bed. But you still did not believe, and so the messengers came and brought you. Do you believe now?" He said, "Yes, Lord, I accept." "So then you have to go to the hill." He said, "God, then there is no justice in your kingdom. Everything is wrong. How can you, God, say this to me?" All are looking how he talks to God. God said, "What do you mean?" "Yes, it is written in the holy books and everywhere: if you see God once, then you are liberated. And I am talking with you for two hours. Am I right or not?" God said, "Yes, you are right. Go there." So you do not get—the American said, always in business, "You do not get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate." Sometimes even we have to negotiate with God. Even you do not get there at all. In my case, God knows it will come, so this book... You see this young boy sitting here teaching yoga to wild horses, and you cannot compare with this one. So I knew that to him something would happen, and he would run to me and come to me. And therefore, I did my insurance security for all days, and so I designed it. You can find everything for the aged people in this Yoga in Daily Life book. You can sit on a chair and do your yoga exercises very nicely. This is my golden jubilee; on July 13, 1965, I first came to my master, where he began to teach me yoga. I practiced with my father when I was small, and I came to my master at a very early age. So Gurujī used to say, we do this. And someone came, then Gurujī said, "Show him this āsana, teach him this." I was a small boy, so in reality, that yoga in daily life I learned and began teaching. Now, this year is a golden jubilee: 1965, and now it is 2015. This book is one of the so-called ancient and best books. I can tell you, it is for before the birth, till we come to the astral world, and if not, and to the heaven or whatever you call it, if we will not be entering in. I will be the justice there to tell God, "Open the door." If God does not open the door, we have the screws. We will open the screws of your door, Lord. Then he will say, "No, no, but I will give you a good life again. Enjoy one life more, and then you come." So it means the soul is guided after death also. Our spirituality, our spiritual master, our prayers are more effective and useful after death. You have to walk. You have to carry your luggage and everything. You have to go by taxi or car, everything. You have to give your luggage and this, but this is a short way. The long way is when you are then sitting in the aeroplane. Then the aeroplane says, "Now you relax, I will take over." And that aeroplane will carry us to our destination. And where is our destination? Exactly, millimeter we land there. And so is the spiritual airplane. Is that our spiritual life, our braveness, our belief, our good deeds, good thoughts, our mantras, and the help of the masters? After this life, or the death of the body, then you will see how comfortable you are enjoying. This is the highest point of our life. Then we are going into the infinity of joy. So this is a little way where we pack our luggage and everything, knock the doors, call the taxi, put the luggage in, get out, go to the airport, and check in. So, we check in means we have given our karmas to Dharmarāja. He will check, and we go inside, sit, and take off. So, this is when we came into the mother's body. There is yoga in daily life. There is one beautiful book called Yoga for Children and Yoga for Pregnant Mothers. There begin the beautiful instructions, prayers, and mantras. So, my, or our, Yoga in Daily Life system has many teachers, and many of them are teaching for pregnant women. There is chanted Oṁ or other mantras, or beautiful music with a beautiful vibration, beautiful sound, nice resonance that can be sitar, guitar, violin, or flute. Such music should be played—not rock and roll. Oh God, this baby, where am I going? God, I thought above the sky there is thunder sound. I was scared all the time. I was in the lightning. Now I came into my mother's body, I found a little peace, and there is enough lightning inside, and this restlessness never ends. Peace, peace. So the yoga in daily life teachers, when they are teaching, then they put on nice instrumental music, or vocal, but spiritual song, which is a nice bhajan, a nice prayer. Aum śānti. Peace. You will see a divine child is born. I can tell you, that child which is in the mother's body as an embryo is the most luckiest one, the most fortunate one, and the holiest one, that as soon as descending from the astral world, coming to the physical world, you already got ceremonies, you already got spiritualities. What can you imagine? How will that child be? And that is how we have here in the teachings of yoga. Then there are exercises for small children, very important. One thing is that you will see that every Indian has a beautiful head. When they shave hair, you will see how nice and beautiful it is. Nowadays, it is missing, because when a small child is born, and the mother, while the child is drinking milk or afterwards, she is shaving the hair, massaging like this, slowly like that, and like that it turns. The head gets such a shape that your brain develops well, better. The ex-president of America, George Bush, had a lecture in Atlanta at a university. In his lecture, he said to all my dear Native Americans, the Americans here: "You should properly learn, otherwise, very soon the Indians will take over, the Indian students." So, it is said in America and in England, if an Indian student is there in the college or university and examination comes, everybody will say, "Oh, if he is Indian, definitely he will pass with the best numbers." And you can see, sorry, in the records everywhere, in the schools, colleges, universities here, check the list, what the numbers are; Indians are high. And that is because of nourishment, and that mother talks to the child when the child is in the womb. The mother speaks after also, according to her belief; it is nice. It is not that you are a beautiful child with only a nice body, but you are a divine soul. The mother is so joyful that she got the light of God in her body again. One is herself, and one is now the embryo. "You are ātmā, you are divine, and oh my child, you made me great because you are now here." And they are on the left, mother, and she really gives a certain shape to the mother, so the head becomes beautiful. And memory is developing then better. So there are ancient, very natural things that people are doing. Now we have forgotten. And then if you tell somebody, now this young mother, you should do this, then she does not know how to do it, and she speaks like this, "Oh, God." So do not press with force. It is just like this, slowly. And the child feels very good. That is it. And then they put the child to sleep, then they are doing it slightly like this, going into the yoga nidrā. And nowadays these girls, new girls, they have no knowledge. They are putting the child like this, oh God! Make problem this, problem that. So we need education. But you see the nurse who is helping with the birth and taking care and cleaning after, they have not learned this. This is yoga. Now, my dear, you know that on the 21st of June, there is a calling, International Day of Yoga, announced, and everywhere it will be. So you should do it here also. You announce you do one day earlier, yeah, because you are going there in the morning, and then you should make a photo and send it to the Prime Minister's office, as well as to the embassies. I think there has never been any festival or anything celebrated in the world like the yoga on the 21st of June. You know how many hundred, two hundred thousand people will gather here, everywhere in China and many, many. One hundred seventy-seven countries within no time gave their voice that yes, we agree that the United Nations declares the 21st of June the International Day of Yoga. Because yoga is a science for the body, mind, and soul. Yoga is not a sport and is not a challenge. No competition and no challenge. It is a life, and that is why yoga in daily life. This is, I am working many, many years, now the vision is coming clear. So this book, Yoga in Daily Life, which you have, the first and second chapter in this book, that is very good for all of you, young and who is 80 years young, and the youngest one in 95 years, and like this. So I was thinking one day, and I was thinking, now I am strong enough, what will I do for my old age? So here I was, really, by thinking, "I want to change the whole world," you know. This boy here, what is he saying? Then one day I was thinking, when I saw one old man, the story is a beautiful story. In Austria, I had a retreat somewhere, and one elderly person was in the same retreat place, about 90 years old, in a wheelchair. So from an old home, they brought him, and now it was a little cool, so they put his chair in the sun. Every day I am coming and going and saying, "Hello, good morning. Hello, good morning. How are you?" So one day I said, "Gurujī, good morning, how are you doing?" And, with a very slow voice, he said, "Not so good." So when someone says, "No, I am not so good," you cannot walk away. You say, good morning, how are you? And you just go away, that is not right. So I stood there and I touched his shoulder. I said, "Yes, how are you? What can I do for you?" or something. He said, "Young man, bring the chair and sit beside me. I will tell you." Of course, I brought a chair. I was sitting beside him. And he said, "I was a director of a very big company. 600 people were working under me. I had three houses, a Mercedes, and a BMW. And one beautiful car from my office, from the company, drivers, and everything. And I hardly had any time because so many people were my friends, inviting me to this party or that birthday. My God, I was like a king, and I have one daughter only. Now I am in my old home. I do not know where my cars are. I do not know where my house is. What I collected, the souvenirs around the world, I do not know. And my best friends, who were such good friends to me when I was in that position, none of them come to my birthday or anything. And my daughter, she is living in Germany. Her birthday is on Christmas day, and she said, 'Hey, how are you? Are you okay? Please take care of yourself. You know, I will come and see you. How are you? Everything is okay? Okay, father, bye-bye.' What is the sense of life? So I am sad. Can you understand me, young man?" I said, yes, grandfather, I understand you. So the world is like this, like a lemon. We squish everything, and then, after, it does not take time to throw it in the garbage. What is now in modern life? When people are young, companies take them. When they are elderly, they say, "We do not need you." And even many people do not dare to go to the doctor when they are ill. What is this world? And so I was thinking, what can I do for myself so that I can survive a little bit and be happy, because I am still movable, no? So I was sitting in this—you should see it in this book. One day I was thinking very deeply. I was in Khattu Ashram. You see this picture here? People say, "No, Swāmījī, why do you give this?" I say, no, this is a very important photo for me. This photo, where for some minutes I was thinking about my life very deep, very deep. You have this book, yeah? And those who do not have it, you should have this book. Now, do you understand this photo? So it is with this way of thinking, I said, what you will get from this life. And so now you have here these very simple postures. And from this, we have, and we shall make a nice video from every chapter, and slowly and very easily, you can do the exercises. So, we are the youngest ones here now, you know. We sit comfortably in the chair, and we can slowly raise the hand up and touch our thumbs and fingers. Look how big we are and how many branches we have. This is our flower of happiness. Yes. And we close and slowly come back. How nice, our whole trunk of the muscles, they are all moved, all stretched. Only one again, once more, deep inhale. Yes, our sunflowers, huh? Yes, they are looking at the sun, they are moving. Go, hello, happy boy, happy girl. And coming down. Then we go up here, our branches. Our spirituality, our achievement, is coming to the peak of the beautiful life, to take off. Yes, God, I am with you. And we are happy, one and two. We will not break. The storm comes, we move this way. When a storm comes, we also go this way. The flexible branches will remain, and those which are hard, that do not lean or bend, they will break. Very good life. Oh, and now we let our watch fall down, and we are here sitting on the chair. So we go down to catch our watch, yes, and we come up. We do not need anybody. This side also falls on the floor, so slowly we bend and we catch it up and say, "Oh, nice, nice, okay, now." We interlock the fingers, and we are the boss of the boss sitting in the chair. Work is done, and we said, "Oh, good, today was past day," and we come back. Very good. And we slowly slide our hands down and massage our calf muscles a little bit, and we come up and hands down. So we can do a whole two weeks only sitting on the chair and do the beautiful exercises, or we can sit on the ground. So we have the same benefit, like the other one sitting on the floor and the one sitting in the chair. So for the legs, for the toes, when you see television or something, keep on doing this exercise. It is very good. This maintains our circulation for the whole body. Try to repeat some mantra, some prayers, and positive thoughts. You are always happy when your dog comes; you are so happy. And cats come so happy, and a mosquito comes, and you say, "What are you doing here?" So you can make, we can make our life. So your yoga teacher will bring you that kind of joy and happiness. So when we can laugh from joy and happiness, we will forget everything. Whatever it is, one day everything will remain here, and we will take off. We take our valuable luggage, valuable luggage which we have collected lifelong, and that is our karma. So we take our karma on our back, and off we go, because we need it. The rest we do not need. We have to declare on the border of the universe; our karma will be declared, good and bad. So God will say, "This bad karma you do not need. Throw it down, throw it down." So all the time it is falling down, like snow is falling. All the bad karmas of that country or the rain, and we are very pure to God, and so God will love us. God is beautiful. O God beautiful, O God beautiful,... O God, O God beautiful, O God, In the forest and the meadow, In the forest and the meadow, In the rivers and the ocean, O God beautiful, O God beautiful,... O God beautiful... In the desert and the clouds, In the danger and the clouds, On the earth and the heaven, Oh God, beautiful. Oh God, beautiful.... Everywhere, beautiful. Try to see the beauty of God everywhere. So this is how our yoga in daily life is making the people, from the time the mother receives the child, that she comes to know that she is getting pregnant, the light has arrived. And yoga in daily life will make you happy, relaxed. Your child will be great, divine, capable, and everything. Begin to practice. So we have many, many beautiful exercises and beautiful shows. I wish you all the best and good luck with this beautiful Yoga in Daily Life book. It is now for you the holy book. This is the holy book of yoga: Yoga in Daily Life. That gives you theory and practice. That gives you the words of the gods and the work of the gods, and in the practical, God says, "I gave you everything. If you utilize it or not, it is up to you." You know, I used to say this: there was one old home, and now it is already about eight years gone. So there was an elderly lady; she was 103 years old, and in the old home, she was teaching yoga. She told that she had one master. She had here in New York, now I think about 150 years, 150 years before. And that master taught her this yoga, and she is teaching further, and she is doing it every day. And she said that my master used to say one thing: "Now you have yoga, use it or lose it." And so you have now yoga in your life, use it. And on Christmas Day, or for your best friends, if you want to give some good present, do not give cakes or ice creams. You can give this valuable book, which they can enjoy and live a healthy, happy, and long life. I wish you, and God bless you.