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Surrender expands your limits

Yoga is a holistic science for achieving moksha, or absolute freedom from all bondage. The International Day of Yoga, celebrated globally, promotes a common protocol including prayer, asanas, pranayama, and meditation, aiming for universal welfare. Yoga's goal is not merely physical health but infinite bliss, knowledge, and power. This is pursued through four main paths. Jnana Yoga is the path of intellect to realize the Self. Raja Yoga, or Ashtanga Yoga, is the path of willpower through eight limbs leading to samadhi. Bhakti Yoga is the path of mastering emotions through sublimation, not suppression, transforming base desires into selfless love. Karma Yoga is the path of detached action, performing duties without attachment to results by maintaining inner silence. All actions, propelled by the three gunas—tamas, rajas, and sattva—must be purified. The essence is to act from a state of inner peace, seeing non-action in action, making yoga a way of life. This collective practice can transform society through renunciation and service.

"Yoga is a way of life. Yoga is a science of holistic living."

"You have the right to action alone, never to its fruits. Do all actions unattached."

Filming location: Jadan, Rajasthan, India

Om Nandu Sayuktam Nityadayant Yogina Kamdam Moksha Namche Om Karayanam Olam. Salutation to the Cosmic Light, adoration to our Alagpurījī Siddhapīṭa Paramparā. Dear brothers and sisters here in this hall and around the world who are with us through webcast, welcome to all of you. Blessings are coming from Alak Purījī Siddhapīṭa Paramparā. My dear, today you have a big surprise. There are many different kinds of surprises, but today in our ashram, a very great personality arrived. It was my wish for nearly, I think, 25 or 20 years—25 years. I met this personality in South India, in Bangalore, where there is a Swami Vivekananda University, which was established by a great person. I am not telling you still completely; wait, you have to wait long to know. This person is one of the great scientists in our age. He was a scientist and director of NASA in America, and the first person who sent the rocket to the moon was this ever dear Professor Dr. Nagendra from Bangalore. After a long time, he decided to come back to India. He understood both sciences: spiritual, cosmic science, and the science of this modern world. The science we have is still limited, but he knows that yoga or Indian wisdom, the ancient science, is endless. So he came back to India, established the university, and began to teach yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, naturopathy, acupressure, and also modern medicine—he is for that which helps us. So I welcome him, and Swami Jasarath Purījī will give the salt. Where is the salt? Please honor our professor, doctor, and Swami Yogesh Purījī with a garland, and our Mr. Sugandh Purī from Slovenia, and Ācārya Devo Bhava, Mādhav Prasād jī, Ācārya. So dear Nāgendra jī, the floor is yours. Yours, and the people are waiting around the world. We may have in Hungary thousands of people waiting for me, but due to your invitation, Modijī’s invitation, I came to India for a few days. Yesterday the seminar began. Dear Mahāmaṇḍalī Swaswāmī Vivek Purījī from Croatia is looking after them. Tomorrow, I am flying to them, so this is a live broadcast. So please give the blessings. He has some advice, and especially regarding this 21st of June, which created a very spiritual vibrance and energy in the whole world. What do you think about that? How will it continue? Thank you. Time is limitless. We are beyond time. Swamiji, Sharanandji, we have brought yoga to all of Europe, Australia, and many other countries in its pristine purity. What a joy it is, a delight it is to be with you this evening and to share your blessings with all those people who have gathered in Hungary, as you said. And you should congratulate our Swami Maheśvarañjī, who came for the grand program of June 21st, about which all of you know. It’s a great day for India that, based on the suggestion of our beloved Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modījī, who suggested that June 21st be celebrated all over the world as International Day of Yoga. And what a response! 177 countries out of 193, the members of the UNO, voted for it and became partners. A resolution was made, and June 21st was declared by the UN as the International Day of Yoga. And how to celebrate it? Our Prime Minister entrusted a group of yoga experts, sādhus, and gurus in our country to design a program. That’s what we did over the last four to five months to bring in the real essence of yoga—not merely yoga as yogic postures or yogic āsanas or as physical exercises, but yoga in its totality. So a common protocol of 35 minutes was developed, accepted by all the people after a lot of discussions, that it should contain not merely āsanas. It starts with a nice prayer and five minutes of loosening practices, then fifteen minutes of asanas, simple asanas, five minutes of prānāyāma, five minutes of meditation, and a resolve that we should take care of health ourselves, we should all work for spreading peace in the whole world, and to maintain our health, we should practice yoga. It ends with a prayer for the welfare of all: Sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ. Let all people be happy. Nobody suffers from any diseases, pain, or misery. Sarve bhavantu nirāmayāḥ. Sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu. Let everybody move towards that ultimate goal of human life: Mokṣa, the state of absolute freedom. Freedom from all pains, miseries, tensions, and stresses. Freedom from all diseases, freedom from all bondages: bondage of the mind, bondage of the emotions, bondage of the intellect, and finally, even the bondage of the body. That is the coveted goal of our great yogic seers, saints, and mahātmas in our country. They put this goal for themselves. They were not happy if they had all the wealth of the world. They were not happy if they were the emperors of the whole world. They wanted nothing short of infinite bliss, infinite knowledge, infinite power, infinite freedom. That’s called mokṣa. Therefore, I call our great Mahātmas the most ambitious people of the world. Today, the world over would be very happy if we became a billionaire. So, is it ever possible to have infinite bliss, infinite knowledge, infinite power? You know, that is what yoga does. How does it do it? We have to purify ourselves, as rightly said by Swāmījī. We have to purify the body, we have to purify the mind, we have to purify the emotions, the intellect, and all our limitations have to be purified one by one. It’s a long journey; maybe it might take several lives. But if you put all of our efforts, conscious effort, intelligently... Swami Vivekānanda said the whole process can be condensed into a single life or a few years of one’s existence, and that process of acceleration, the process of evolution, is called yoga. Yoga is a way of life. Yoga is a science of holistic living. Not only do we have to maintain good health, not only do we have to have a lot of efficiency in our work, but it should continuously grow towards positive health, promote positive health, and move towards perfect health on one side, and move towards the realization of the Self and move towards the ultimate reality. Swami Vivekānanda emphasized four main streams of yoga, which Swāmījī also mentioned. Jnana yoga is the path of intellect. The intellect questions, questions very deep questions, fundamental questions, and uses all these questions to go to the very source from where questioning starts. That is the original state from where all questions arise. Our power of discrimination emerges from that; that’s our self, that’s called ātmā, and it’s common to all. In its original state, it is Paramātmā, the Self of all of us. That’s the beauty, that state of perfection, that state of mokṣa, the state of infinite knowledge, power, freedom. He is our original Self from where all of us come. In the Patañjali yoga, or the rāja yoga, Swāmī Vivekānanda named it. Patañjali called it as svarūpa, svarūpa, that is our original state. From where all of us emerge, from where the whole creation has come, it’s also called Brahman, and Patañjali called it also as Kaivalya. And that is the path of willpower, the famous Aṣṭāṅga Yoga: yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi. They take us to the level of samādhi, the super consciousness, and samādhi has to be further purified to go to higher and higher levels of samādhi. He talks about eight types of samādhi in the Vibhūti Pāda and reaching that ultimate, which is Kaivalya. That is the path of Rāja Yoga, the path of will power. The path of Bhakti, the path of emotion, is the most needed thing in the modern world because, unfortunately, in our education system we don’t have any knowledge or practice to deal with our emotions. To gain mastery over the emotions is bhakti yoga. So we have to purify our emotions, our wrong emotions, negative emotions: kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya—anger, greed, jealousy, hatred, infatuation, arrogance. These are the ones which enslave us, which take us down the drains. So that has to be purified, controlled, and we must bring in the positive emotions: love, compassion, sharing, magnanimity, practice of peace, harmony, love. Everything should be practiced. The asurīsampat has to be converted into daivīsampat. Reduce the asurīsampat, and daivīsampat has to be developed. The divine virtues have to be developed, and the demonic voices have to be reduced. This is what all religions preach: go to a state which is beyond all these emotions, the state from where all emotions emerge. That again is our original state, the state of mokṣa. So bhakti yoga helps us to gain mastery over these emotions and reach that ultimate goal of human existence. But in modern psychiatry and psychology, great researchers said, "No, you should not control emotions. If you try to control emotions, it’s going to have a boomerang effect." Sigmund Freud, you know, he brought out this psychoanalysis. He said that if you try to control your emotions, it is going to get suppressed. You should never suppress emotions. So what was the solution he gave? Give free vent to the emotions. If you become angry, show it off. If you have a desire, fulfill it. Never try to control. Because the big psychiatrist was seeing a large number of mental hysteria patients and others, and in everybody he found something which was common: suppression, suppression, suppression. He was right that we should not suppress emotions, but the solution he gave... What are the results in the free society, like in the United States? People say that, "I am a free bird." Freedom has turned into license. They have become slaves to their emotions. And therefore, here is a challenge: if you try to control, you get suppression; if you give free vent as Sigmund Freud suggested, it’s going to blow up, and you become a slave to the emotions. What is the way out? This is where Bhakti Yoga comes and tells us the real solution is sublimation. So what is the difference between suppression and sublimation? I give a simple example: a novice driver is driving the car very fast. He is overtaking all others and going at 120 miles an hour. Then he encounters a red light; he has to stop, but he has a feeling that, by the time he goes there, that red is going to turn green, so he can still go at 120. He never stops, but as he reaches the red light, red is not turning green, and the cameras are catching him. What does he do? Jams the brake. All people sitting in the car get totally upset. What a horrible driver. What about a master driver? He is also going very fast, 120 miles. When he sees the red, what does he do? Decelerate: 120, 80, 40, 20, come to a smooth halt. When the red turns green again, he’ll go up. This is the difference between suppression and sublimation. In sublimation, you are going to control your energy production. You slow down what you are doing, like a car deceleration. In suppression, you are generating the energy, but you are trying to block it. That’s oppression. Here, you are going to slow down. It’s called pratyāhāra. So, this is the whole secret of bhakti yoga. So, when we do our prayers, when we do our bhajans, when we involve ourselves in devotional sessions, this is what we do. We generate different emotions and calm down the emotions. Therefore, you train your emotional faculty to get to the mastery of emotions. As a result, you start developing your divine emotions. Kāma gets converted into prema. Kāma is the gross desire, the gross friendship. We all become friends when we have common likes and common dislikes. You like gulab jamun and he also likes gulab jamun, you become gulab jamun friends. I like masala dosa and she also likes masala dosa, we become masala dosa friends. And birthday cake, birthday cake, good friends. I like Carnatic music, you also like Carnatic music, let’s become friends. But people can become friends based on dislikes also. I don’t like him, and you also don’t like him. We become good friends. Once I was traveling to Delhi from Bangalore in a train. It was just after the emergency, and the people in our compartment were criticising Indira Gandhi. But nobody was talking. A person from the other compartment was moving, and he heard it. Immediately, he also joined. He also went on criticizing. Both of them became champs. Forty hours they went on talking and criticizing Indira Gandhi. They became great friends. So this is the gross friendship. That’s how we start normally, but there is always a set of give and take in this. I give a party because you are my good friend. I expect that you also should give me a good party. If you don’t give me a good party, slowly our friendship breaks. So yoga tells us you have to rise from this kāma to prema. Prema is real friendship. As the proverb goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. You go on giving and giving without expecting anything in return. This is the love of the mother to the child; she goes on giving. She knows she never expects that her son or daughter should help her. She goes on giving and giving, and this has to be invoked. This is the real friendship, the real premabhāva between husband and wife, parents and children, teacher and students, and the doctors and the patients. If we have this type of premābhāva, imagine how wonderful the society will be. Everybody wants to give and give and give. Now what has happened? Everybody wants to get everything, grab, grab, grab. Is it not a reason for all the scams that we see? So India demonstrated that. Everybody wanted to give, give, give. Then, will there be necessity for any courts? You know, yes, sometimes. It happened in our Vijayanagara Empire, where they had created such a social order. Everybody wanted to give and give. A farmer bought land from another farmer, and he started plowing. He heard a nice sound, so he dug it. It was a huge copper vessel. He opens it, full of gold coins. What did he do? He took this whole thing to the other farmer and said, "Hey, you have hidden this huge copper vessel with gold coins. Please take it." He says, "No, dear. I have been ploughing this land for 25 years. I never got into this thing, so you are very lucky. Please have it." He said, "No, no... I have only paid for the land, you know. I have not paid for all this hidden treasure," so he had to take it back. The other farmer says, "No, you are lucky. When you bought the land, I wrote that all this land and that which is contained in the land is yours. So please take it." A quarrel broke out. It goes to the court. The judge looked at what the judge had to ask. So, he asked, "Do you have a daughter? Do you have a son? Marry them and give this to them." This is India. So that Premabhāva has to be developed. So Vivekananda said, "India will not be made if India becomes a defense superpower. India will not be made if India becomes an economic superpower. India will not be made if you have big skyscrapers touching the sky. When will India be made? When we bring India to its root." We build the values in our country. What are those values? Renunciation and service are the twin ideals of this land. Renunciation and service are the twin ideals of this land. Cherish India in this, and all the rest will take care of itself, he said. This is the prema bhāva. So this is the bhakti yoga dimension. So when we pray to God, what should happen? All our positive emotions should come. And the next step to prema is to surrender. Surrender. Many people wish you were to surrender. Why? Because we think by surrendering, I will lose my capacities. I lose my individuality. I lose all my individual creativity. We are afraid, but Swami Vivekānanda gave us a secret. No, dear, surrender is a process of expansion. By surrendering, you are going to expand your personality. All your capacities, creativity, and efficiency are all going to grow to the highest. You know how is the process of expansion? You know, to whom do you surrender? Many people say, "I don’t believe in God." It is a modern scientist, you know. Okay, it doesn’t matter. Who is your role model? Surrender to that role model of a person. There will be a professor, like Einstein, Newton, others, who are role models for you. Take them and then surrender to them. In our country, we have our, "What do you want?" "I want money." Therefore, Lakṣmī is our god. "I want knowledge." Sarasvatī is the God. Hanuman is the emperor of power. Surrender. Whatever thing you want to do, you take a role model and surrender to that. This is called Iṣṭa Devatā. When you go on doing that, you are going to surrender, and that process of surrender is tuning, tuning yourself to that entity. Just like in a radio or a TV, you tune to the BBC. All the information from the BBC comes. How does it happen? You tune this frequency to match with the frequency of the BBC. Similarly, if this mind can be tuned to that Iṣṭa Devatā, then all information is going to come to you. All the power is going to flow onto you. This is the power of prayer, bhajans, devotional sessions, and the process of surrender. This is called bhakti. Bhakti is a process of surrender. Therefore, we have to surrender to the great teachers, to the gurus, or the Iṣṭa Devatās, or even role models of the person, and in that process of surrender, we imbibe all the grand qualities of the master. That’s what bhakti is. Ultimately, you merge with the totality, the all-pervasive reality. This is the path of bhakti yoga. So, without this dimension of handling the emotions, unfortunately, this is not included in our education system. As a result, our children are really suffering so much. They’re getting depressed. They’re getting lost. We have been going to Australia. Ask him how many teenagers are in great depression: 34%. And why? Because they don’t know how to deal with our emotions: kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya. They don’t know how to handle it; they get lost. So the federal government of Australia was very concerned 15 years back. They said, "We have to solve this problem," and they brought the best of the psychiatrists from Sydney University, made him the director. They initiated a project, Beyond Blue, and said, "Don’t worry about the money. I will give you 100 million dollars straight away, and a huge building. You have any number of people, any number of equipment, everything possible on earth. You have to bring 35% down to 5% in 10 years. Can you do that?" He said, "Yes, sir, we’ll try." Now, 15 years are over. I recently met the director. I had gone on that day’s inauguration. I had met the director now 15 years ago. I met him recently in Melbourne. I asked, "How is the situation? From 35, it has increased to 38%. Why?" Modern psychiatry, modern medical system cannot solve this problem. It’s only this emotion thing, this dimension of surrender, this dimension of bhakti alone can sort out the problem. It is the yoga dimension, it is the bhakti yoga dimension that can bring the dimension. You have to bring in that prema bhāva right from childhood. This was to teach in our schools right from childhood. The children should learn to give and give and give, not to get. Everything from him, that selfishness, has to be removed. The greatest need of modern times is to learn how to manage our emotions. We have become intelligent, brilliant, and sharp, yet we do not know how to deal with our feelings. This is the path of Bhakti Yoga. Furthermore, all these principles must be brought into our day-to-day actions. This is Karma Yoga. How do we bring it into daily life? How can activities, karma, be converted into yoga? How can all actions become yoga? Sitting, standing, eating, drinking, urinating, excreting—everything can become yoga. Our understanding is that yoga means doing some āsana, prāṇāyāma, mudrā, bandha, kriyā, or meditation. Śrī Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān says in the Bhagavad Gītā—as Swāmījī explained, across its 18 chapters, each a yoga—that every action we do should become a yoga. He gives that beautiful verse: seeing, hearing, tasting, eating, standing, sitting, urinating, even the winking of the eyes should all become a yoga. That is the yoga way of life. How is this ever possible? Kṛṣṇa unravels that mystery in the teachings on Karma Yoga: how to convert every action into yoga. This is the most needed thing for the executive world, which has no time. If you say, "Practice one hour of yoga every day," the reply is, "I don't have time. I am too busy. If I had one hour, I would earn another $10,000." No time. So, Karma Yoga. How to do that? The secret is unraveled. First, you must understand how you perform action. We all act propelled by our three guṇas: tamas, rajas, and sattva. If we are very tāmasic, we are lazy and lethargic. A person doesn't want to work—kāmcchor—meaning he will not do the work unless someone is always behind him. If the supervisor is not there, no work. This is tamas. We know the power of tamas in the morning when you want to get up early. Swāmījī says, "Come tomorrow morning at 4 o'clock for meditation." You set the alarm for 3:30, but when it rings, you press it and wake up at 6 o'clock. The power of tamas is so strong. Laziness, lethargy, drowsiness, and sleepiness are all tāmasic. Any action propelled by tamas is full of inefficiency. To do a small work, you must put in so much effort. Anubandhaṁ kṣayaṁ hiṁsām anapekṣya sā pavṛṣam: it is like using a bulldozer to kill an ant. That is the type of energy spent in tāmasiktā. When you come to rajas, you are very efficient, brilliant, sharp, and full of dynamism. Swāmījī says that if you give such a person work, he doesn't need supervision; he will do everything until it is finished. But what is behind that? Yattu kāmepsunā karma sāhankāreṇa vā punaḥ: there is always behind it the desire, "I want." To earn the maximum, to become a millionaire, a billionaire, to have all the luxuries of life—no compromise. That is the motive, or to show one's ego: "I am such a powerful man; everybody should respect me." If somebody doesn't respect me, I become very angry. Two things drive action: desire and ego. What is wrong with that? You may have ego; you may have the ambition to become a billionaire. What is wrong? Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān is very scientific. He says if you act in the rajasic way, any action fatigues you, and a lot of tensions and stresses develop. That is the reason for all modern ailments: asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, epilepsy, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, cancer, HIV—this host of modern non-communicable diseases (NCDs). There is one single cause: rajas is predominant. Then the third is sattva. In sattva, you have all the dynamism, efficiency, and energy, just like in rajas, but you are not selfish. You want to give more and more to others. You go on giving and giving. You earn more and more to give more and more to people. The embodiment is those people who give their entire life for society, for the good of others, having no axe to grind for themselves. That is sattvic action: dāna—giving, sharing. Sharing is the key essence. Dayā—showing compassion and love—and that needs control over your senses, dama. Once, human beings, demons (rākṣasas), and the great gods (devatās) all went to a great teacher, Viṣṇu Bhagavān, and said, "Please give us some good advice." Viṣṇu Bhagavān looked and said, "da, da, da." Everybody understood. What is the "da" that the rākṣasas understood? The demons said, "We are very cruel. We are terrorists. We cut others, beat others, terrorize others. We have been doing so. The great god has given us the advice: show compassion." They understood dayā: love and compassion. What about the gods and goddesses? "You are always rolling in five-star, superstar culture, with all types of damsels, food, drinking, and whatnot. You have to control your senses." The word used is dama in Saṃskṛta. Dama means control over the external senses. Śaṅkarācārya defines: "bahirindriya nigrahaḥ dharmaḥ, antarindriya nigrahaḥ śamaḥ." He says control of the external organs is called dharma. So, the gods were given dharma as the solution. Then what about human beings? "You human beings have become very selfish. You don't want to help others." You go to a big apartment complex in Bombay searching for a Mr. Banerjee on the fourth floor. You knock and ask, "Is there a Mr. Banerjee here?" The person opens the door and becomes angry: "Hey, why are you disturbing me? I don't care who Banerjee is. I don't know." Banerjee is next door. We have become so selfish. This has to be removed. How? Dāna—giving, giving. So the entire business community has been given this: to give and give. Whatever they earn, they go on giving. Look at our Marwadi groups and others; they are so wonderful. They go on giving and giving. We understand that the more you give, the happier you will be. Jīvane yāvad adhanam sat pradhānam tadodikam: whatever we receive from society, we give more and more to society. This is sattvic action. Sattvic action makes a person great. What characterizes a great person versus a normal person? A great person goes on giving and giving and giving. His entire life is given. That is the key factor of a great personality. So you must understand how we are doing our work, what propels our action: whether it is tāmasic predominance, rajasic predominance, or sattvic predominance. Once you understand, you must convert that: shatter the tamas, control the rajas, and allow the sattva to grow. This is Karma Yoga. Beyond that, there are higher dimensions of Karma Yoga. There are people who have dedicated themselves to the country. They work full-time for the country or their institutions. They are sharp, brilliant, dynamic, and efficient. But they have a stroke, a heart attack, diabetes, back pain. Why? This puzzled me for years. Why should such selfless people, who have devoted their entire life, suffer? It seems God is very unjust to them. This is where Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān says, "All the three guṇas are still bondages." Tamas is like being locked in an iron cage. Rajas is like being locked in a shining silver cage. Sattva is like being locked in a golden cage. Locking is common. So, all the guṇas are still bondages. You may be a great personality, devoted to everything, but you are still bound. What is that element of slavery? It is called attachment—saṅga. So, attached to tamas, attached to rajas, attached to sattva itself can cause a problem. If you draw a curve, as attachment increases, your suffering also increases. The more the attachment, the more the misery. The more misery, the more tension, stress, and diseases. So what is the whole essence of Karma Yoga? Detached action. Karmaṇy evādhikāras te, mā phaleṣu kadācana: you have the right to action alone, never to its fruits. Do all actions unattached. This is very easily said than done. How can I act without attachment? If you tell a student to act without attachment, he may think, "If I don't have the drive to get first rank or 95% marks, I will become lazy." So how to do it? Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān gives a trick, a secret. You must have a higher purpose. Now you are acting for name, fame, money, or the good of society. Now you must tune yourself to a higher level of consciousness: silence, calmness, peace. Because peace is silence, and silence is bliss. That is what takes us to the highest realm of reality. Citta vṛtti nirodhaḥ, Patañjali said. It is a state of immense silence, all-pervasive, infinite, pure consciousness. You have to go there. You have to tune yourself. What is the trick he gives? Yogasthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya: "Established in yoga, perform actions, having abandoned attachment." Tune yourself to that all-pervasive reality and do all actions. Is it ever possible? In another śloka, he says, "One who can see non-action in action." This is the most difficult śloka in the Bhagavad Gītā: Karmaṇi akarma yaḥ paśyet akarmaṇi ca karma yaḥ, sa buddhimān manuṣyeṣu sa yuktaḥ kṛṣṇa karmakṛt. How can you see akarma (non-action) in karma (action)? Kṛṣṇa is telling us we must see non-action while doing action. How can you see non-action in action? This is the secret of Karma Yoga. Once I was traveling from Kanyakumari to Nagarkoil, about 20 kilometers. A new train had been introduced. The railway minister launched it. A large number of villagers had not seen a train at that time (around 1977). Everybody was enthusiastic. It was a free run from Kanyakumari to Nagarkoil and back. Everybody was very happy and excited. We also went. As the train started moving, some villagers looking outside said, "Look here, look here! What a fantastic thing is happening! All the trees have started running! The trees are running so fast!" We also saw and recorded that the trees were running. What is our understanding? The trees are not running; they are stationary. We are moving. This is seeing akarma in karma. When the thoughts are moving, there is an inner silence. This is a very special way of doing action: a dual mode of operation. You have to recognize two layers of the mind. When you are hearing this, something deep within is bugging you. You are looking at your watch, thinking, "When is this going to finish? I have to go. Someone is waiting. My father is in the hospital." Something deep within is bugging you. We all have this experience. This is the subtler layer of the mind, and the outer layer is the gross layer. Kṛṣṇa says the inner layer of the mind must be completely purified. It should be set into silence, set into all-pervasive attunement to reality. Yogasthaḥ. Kuru karmāṇi. Attuned to that Self. What is the nature of the Self? All-pervasiveness, pūrṇatva. Attuned to that silence, peace, calmness, harmony, and bliss inside, and then do all activities. Any activity you do will then become Karma Yoga. This is the secret. This has to be translated into action. Many people have been asking, regarding our revered Prime Minister Narendra Modījī on June 21st, what āsanas he does, what practices he does. I said, more than practice for one hour, he has understood the secret of Karma Yoga. Throughout the day, it has become a yoga for him. He maintains that calm, quietitude, and bliss inside and does all activities. During the election, how many hours was he working? He was going to four or five places, doing things, but still he was fresh. Everybody was surprised at his energy. This is the secret Swāmījī had been giving. That is the secret Kṛṣṇa gives: inside, full of joy, bliss, silence, and do all activities. Kṛṣṇa says all things are going on outside, but inside is there. This is what we do in a drama. When you are acting, you know who you are, but you are acting differently. In one drama of the Rāmāyaṇa, the final fight between Rāma and Rāvaṇa began, and both actors lost their consciousness. They started really fighting, hitting each other, almost coming to the stage of killing each other. The director had to come and pull them out. Why? The person acting as Rāma or Rāvaṇa lost their inner awareness that "I am not Rāma, my name is Kṛṣṇa," or "I am not Rāvaṇa, my name is Hari." They lost their awareness. This is what has happened to us. In life, we have forgotten our real Self. We have been engrossed by our ajñāna, avidyā. We think only of this. That inner reality—that we are that infinite consciousness, pure awareness, infinite knowledge, bliss—we have forgotten. As a result, we get lost and start fighting. So the whole secret of Karma Yoga is to act as in a drama. This entire world is nothing but a drama, a wonderful drama in which we are all actors. We should remember our original Self and do all activities. This is Karma Yoga. So yoga is not merely doing āsanas, prāṇāyāma, meditation, or prayers and then forgetting about it. It should become part and parcel of our life. This Karma Yoga is what the great seers, masters, and ṛṣis have been doing. Yogasthaḥ kuru karmāṇi. How? You have to purify yourself. It is not easy; it is easily said than done. Maintain your inner silence and do all things—very easily said. But you have to purify yourself. Therefore, all practices are necessary: regularly doing some āsanas, prāṇāyāma, meditation, mudrās, bandhas, kriyās—whatever suits you. Haṭha Yoga, Rāja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga—anything you can start. Start doing those practices. That’s why Swāmījī insists we should have prayer, morning practices, dhyāna—everything we should do. Life in yoga. Yoga should become our life pattern, and this is what we are heading for. So the 21st of June is a great day for India because it is celebrated throughout the world. In India, every village has a large number of people participating. The biggest program on Rajpath was such a marvel to see, such a divinity in manifestation—37,000 people. When you looked at it, it was like a huge ocean of people. What a grand vision that came up. It went into the Guinness World Book of Records. Somebody said, "Where is the necessity for going into the Guinness World Book of Records? Why should they do that?" I said, "This is what our youngsters want. If you say, 'Let's go into the Guinness World Book of Records,' okay, I'm also interested." That's the youth tendency. Okay, do it for them. But more importantly, during the last three months, we have been able to work together as a harmonious whole, day and night. If you had come to the AYUSH Ministry, you would have seen, starting from the secretary, from the minister, everybody working down to the undersecretary and the people. Because they had one goal: our International Day of Yoga should become very, very perfect. Because of meticulous planning—37,000 people, every name recorded, where each person would sit, the seating arrangement, when they had to come, where to sit, how long to do—everything meticulously planned. Even a small error would mean not getting the Guinness World Record. That is what we were involved in. Therefore, I said, if nothing else, we learned how to work together as one synergetic whole. The whole team worked. Our Prime Minister remarked to the Defence Ministry and the Home Ministry, "Look at the AYUSH Ministry, a small ministry which has been brought only recently. They have done such a wonderful job. What a fantastic thing they have done." So this is what we had to do. With these things, let us all work together as a wonderful whole all over the world and see that the yoga way of life comes in again. We will chart the whole world to make it a single family. That is the vision of our Prime Minister. This is the vision of our ancient tradition. Instead of spending so much money on wars, defense, and others, if all people start working with that premabhāva, what a fantastic society we could create. That’s the objective of yoga. That’s what our great yoga masters, saints, and spiritual teachers have been preaching all over the world: to bring this about. This is a great opportunity created in the modern world. It’s a great day, June 21st. The whole world came together with such enthusiasm—240 countries. No other program, no other day has had such an impact. Thanks to our Prime Minister Narendra Modījī; he is a role model. It’s a great day for India, and India is going to reach the highest goals. Thank you very much.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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