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O Viśvamādevakī, Dīpanārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Mādhava Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān, Sanātana Dharma kī, Dīpanirañjana Sabadhukam, Prabhudīpanirañjana Sabadhukam, isī mantrase hove manaman, isī mantrase śrīdīpanirañjana sabadhukam. Prabhu-dīpa nirañjana sabha dukha, isī mantra se hove mana mana yāna. Isī mantra se hove śrī-dīpa nirañjana sabha dukha, prabhu-dīpa nirañjana sabha. Isī mantra se hove mañjana, isī mantra se hove. Śrī Dīpa Nirañjana Sabaduka, Prabhudeepa Nirañjana Sabaduka. The sādhanā of Dīpa Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, like every sādhanā, needs dedication. Sanātana Dharma is known as a living dharma. What does "living dharma" mean? Living means alive. What is a non-living dharma? It has a final closing; after that, it exists no more. That kind of knowledge we call Vāsī knowledge—old, from yesterday. It is like food from yesterday being served today. But Sanātana is living. Sanātana Dharma does not indicate only those dharmas which exist now, because the root of all is Sanātana. As far as we develop—civilized societies, education, all kinds of academic titles, any kind of professional documents, diplomas, certificates, etc.—day by day, it gets stricter. This is the guru principle. "Guru" does not mean only what we call a spiritual master. We all know "gu" means darkness and "ru" means light: the darkness of ignorance and the light of knowledge. When a child comes to the age of one and a half years, two years, three years, then grandparents or parents tell the child to put this on that side, look, put it again here—certain things. Then nursery school, primary school, high school, college, university. Every teacher who teaches us something is our guru. That is why we call him "master"—English master, Hindi guru. A professor, a dean; every faculty has its head for every different profession. There was some doctor or professor, a surgeon, who wrote very clear, very detailed instructions on how to perform a certain operation, etc. That professor passed away, but his or her knowledge remained in the books. It means it is not lost. But if you only study this book and know it by heart, and say, "I don't need any diploma; I know the tools, I know the techniques, and I know how to do it; I can do brain surgery," which country will allow it? Which hospital will hire you for the operation theater? No, you have to go through a living professor or doctor, learning and training. Even the electric worker—they are our guru. Your driving teacher is your driving guru. Music teacher, yoga teacher, ātmā jñāna teacher. This is Sanātana Dharma, and that is called a living religion. Religion must not be fanatical. Religion must not be only that we stand in prayer, prayer, prayer, with agarbattis (incense). Where we put the incense, some are very angry mosquitoes. Mosquitoes think, "What are these humans doing?" This is a symbol: when something good and pure comes into our hands, it becomes for us divine, holy. That is what we are doing. But without that also, we can pray. God will not say, "Why didn't you bring the agarbattī?" Anyhow, God here is now only a picture, so He can't smell. But He smells our bhāva. Bhāva means our devotion, our love. It is our love that makes the picture come to life. If you don't have love, even your living parents are a burden for you. So, day by day, more technology is developing. This means training more and more gurus. That is called the eternal Sanātana Dharma. Can you imagine? Fifty years with no more educational institutions, no one teaching anyone anything, no newspapers, nothing. How would the world look, please? After 50 years, how would the world look? Everyone has a laptop in hand, but nobody is teaching. Nothing will function. We would be like a deer in the forest, jumping into someone's cucumber field, taking and eating. So education, the training, and day by day more developing—that is called vidyā, knowledge. And that exists between disciple and guru. Disciples have to learn very concentratedly. When the professor is teaching, he doesn't concentrate on only one child, but on all his students equally. However, the capacity of each student is different. If a professor concentrates only on one student, then it is like in Mahābhārata time with Droṇācārya, who with great love was teaching his son. When Ekalavya came, he rejected him. That was against Sanātana Dharma. So, Guru Paramparā is called living religion, Sanātana Dharma. Sanātana Vidyāteṭa Rāma, may long live this Sanātana Dharma. It is the Sanātana Dharma through which this body is created. It is Sanātana Dharma that all chakras are there. And it is Sanātana Dharma which makes the borders. Every chakra must be there, and not that one chakra jumps to another place. It is not possible. So Guru Paramparā is Ādi, and Ādi from beginning till the end it will be. That is why many dharmas came, many systems came and disappeared, but Sanātana did not. And it is the only one which can give us knowledge—all kinds of knowledge, all professions. Similarly, the vidyā, what we call knowledge, comes from the Master. One way is okay: "I'm learning, and I will use it." But the second is that love. When Droṇācārya refused the one student because he was from the tribes from the mountains, and because he had a school only for princes and kings, Ekalavya came and asked Droṇācārya, "Gurudev, can I also learn?" He said, "What is your name? What is your family background, etc.?" So he said, "I am a tribe. I am from the forest." The tribes are the origin of that land: the American Indians, Mexicans from the Inca culture, Maya culture, then the Maoris, Australian Aborigines, and Africans. These are the tribes. From the beginning, their generation is from there. And we, mostly now—it's not bad if I say, don't mind, please—we are like gypsies, or what we call nomads. We are moving here and there. Many of you don't know from where your grandfather was. Many of you don't know the tenth generation past, from where it all came. We have no roots. Our roots are rotten. We don't know which culture we have in our blood, how mixed it is. That is also very good. We call it pulau, a nice mix of rice and beans and dāl and spices. So Droṇācārya said, "I'm sorry, I can't teach you because you are not from the royal family. This is only for royal colleagues." He said, "Thank you, Gurudev," and then he went away. After 50 meters, he came back and asked Droṇācārya, "Gurudev, who is this student whom you are teaching now, out of the school hours?" He said, "This is my son." "Is he a royal prince?" Droṇācārya was sweating. He said, "No, he is not, but he is my son." "Gurudev, is this a gurukul?" "Yes." "Thank you," and he left. But when he said that one word, "Gurudev," he accepted him as a Gurudeva. He went back to his village in the mountains and made a beautiful statue from clay, a statue of Droṇācārya. Every day he used to pray to him, with morning discipline, Brahmamuhūrta. He was practicing his archery, his bow and arrow. When he felt he failed, he put down the bow and arrow, fell down on his knee, and said to Droṇācārya, "Gurudev, sorry, forgive me. I will try again through your blessing." Likewise, he learned archery, becoming one of the best in the world. Second: Droṇācārya had promised Arjuna—you know in the Bhagavad Gītā—"Arjuna, you are my disciple. You will be one of the best in archery." And so that is why in the Bhagavad Gītā it says, "Abhyāsa, Abhyāsa, Kuntī, Abhyāsa. O son of Kuntī, Arjuna, in Kuntī, Arjuna. Practice, practice, practice." Practice makes a master. So even at night, two o'clock in the night, Arjuna used to get up and practice. He was practicing his archery. That is called lagan. Lagan means being decided to do this only. Well, Arjuna became great. There was a test: they hung from the ceiling a picture of a fish, like a circle, you know? You see the picture, Yin and Yang, and exactly below was a water pot. They put a water pot with very clean, pure water. The bottom was black-colored, so you could see your face like in a mirror. Now, that picture, which was round, was put in such a technique that it was moving like a cycle, clockwise. It was said the winner would be the one who could shoot the arrow, looking in the water, at the eye of the fish, because it was a picture of a fish, and it was moving. "Don't look up. The picture is reflecting down." You can try today. So many failed, but Arjuna did it. Second thought: there is a bird sitting on top of a tree. "Shoot at that bird. Do you see the bird?" So many said, "Yes, yes, yes." They asked Arjuna. Arjuna said, "I don't see the bird. I see only the eye of the bird." In which direction would it move? So he was accurate. Now Arjuna was thinking, "I am the champion, world champion." For the next test, they went to the forest. A few kilometers far, they had a dog with them. They went in the direction where Ekalavya was practicing, and the dog smelled him. The dog was barking and running, "Who is there?" Ekalavya was practicing, and the dog was noisy. So Ekalavya collected all his arrows and so quickly shot the arrows into the mouth of the dog. Within no time, the whole mouth was full, but not a small injury was found in the dog's mouth. The dog couldn't close his mouth. He could make noise; he was doing like this, but not falling down. The dog went back to Droṇācārya, and the Pāṇḍavas were surprised. Arjuna said, "Gurudev, you promised me I would be the best one. But who is this? So there are many like this? How many are there? I'm only in the darkness. I can't do what that artist has done." Droṇācārya said, "I don't know. Let's go." So they went into the forest, and they saw a young man with only one cloth, and he was practicing. There were animals flying in the air. Droṇācārya said, "Hey, boy, who are you?" He said, "Gurudev, I am your disciple. How happy to see you!" "Who taught you this?" "You, Gurudev." Arjuna said, "What?" Gurudev said, "No, I didn't teach you." "You remember, Gurudev? I came to the gurukul, and you sent me back. But your kṛpā was with me. I made a statue. Every day I pray. Whenever I make a mistake, I ask for pardon. So it is you who inspire, who teach me." Droṇācārya said, "Yes, you passed your examination. But now you have to give Guru Dakṣiṇā. Otherwise, your practice will not be completed." He said, "Yes, I'm ready. What do you want?" So Droṇācārya said, "I want to have your right thumb." Immediately, he had a knife, he chipped off his thumb, and with a banana leaf, he offered his thumb. It means now he could not be the first in shooting the arrow because Droṇācārya had promised that Arjuna would be the best one. But Ekalavya was always the best. This story remained for many, many students as a teaching: honesty, faithfulness, and obedience. There are so many things we can learn when we have that lagan. Do not think that Gurudev is somewhere else and you can do what you want. There was one story told—not a story, but some event told to me in front of people in Kathu. In Kathu, where we have this Śiv Bhāg Āśram in the village, there was a small room of Mahāprabhujī, and then some bhaktas made two rooms. So Mahāprabhujī left from time to time. When Gurujī used to go to Kathu, Gurujī used to stay in that room. One bhakta, his name is Rāmakaraṇa, was there. He was sleeping in the room with Gurujī when Gurujī was sleeping. At eleven o'clock, Gurujī said, "Rāmakaraṇa?" He said, "What, Gurujī? You are not sleeping?" "No, no... no. My suitcase is under my bed. I can't sleep because there is a līlā amṛt in the book, or in the suitcase. I can't sleep, over. So please put it out." "Okay, go to sleep." After two hours, Gurujī said, "There is, between my shirts, a small picture of Gurujī, Mahāprabhujī, and I can't sleep. Sleep. Please take this and put it up." And then Gurujī went to sleep. He told this story because I told him to speak something on opening days. He said, "I don't know anything. What can I tell? But I can only tell you, maybe you all don't understand, but for me it was a great lesson. Some people may think it is stupid, but for Gurujī it was not like that." That is called bhakti. That is the bhakti between guru and disciple, or bhakta and bhagavān. It says that love can melt the rock, and intellect can explode the rock. So this is the difference between love and intellect. Mahāprabhujī is love. Yes, so that love, that devotion, that will bring us there—not any techniques. You may do something to get some miracle, some magic, black magic or white magic, but then you have to suffer for that. But it is that love that brings us there. So what Mahāprabhujī says is, "Bhajan, bhajan." So bhakti, devotion, and faith in Gurudev can make us perfect. We think we know. Yes, you know much better than me. But what I know, you don't know, and I know what is better for you. So it is: Gurudev knows. Argument? No. Give, give. Droṇācārya said, "Give your thumb." He didn't ask for what and why. He just chipped it off and said, "Here you are, Gurudev." That's it. So, argument is not good. And at the end, who is right? The master. No arguments. I had just now a telephone call, and this and that, to Jñāneśvaram, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvaram, Jñāneśvaram, you know. And he argues a lot. I told him, "Don't talk, do this." He said, "But it is not; the dictionary says different." I said, "This is a dictionary of computers, not someone who has studied under a master." So, of course, he does his best to show himself as the best. That's great. To show oneself best, it's not a good rest. So maybe somebody else was—not Jñāneśvarjī—but it's good for him. Deeper, so webcast will be evening, my dear, 7:30. Hari Om. Devī Svara Mahādeva. Dīpa Nayan Bhagavān, Mādhava Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān, Sanātana Dharma kī, Om Śānti.