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Walking the Tightrope: Between "I Am Not the Doer" and "I Am Shiva"

A spiritual discourse on navigating the ego and the importance of spiritual community.

"I am not the one who is the doer, who is working. I am just a channel, and I want to be open so that cosmic energy... works through me."

"Our whole life, we are like that. We are walking on a rope, like those people who perform on a tightrope."

A speaker addresses a satsang, using the metaphor of a tightrope walker to describe the spiritual path, balancing between the pitfalls of ego and low self-confidence. He emphasizes the mantras "Nāhaṁ kartā" (I am not the doer) and "Śivo'haṁ" (I am Shiva) as essential guides. The talk expands on the ashram as a vital spiritual family and support group, preserving Sanātana Dharma and providing connection in a fragmented modern world.

Filming location: Wellington, New Zealand

I will begin with another mantra: "Nāhaṁ kartā, prabuddhiḥ kartā, mahāṁ prabuddhiḥ kartā, hi kevalam. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ..." Hari Om, dear friends. Just a few minutes ago, Swāmījī explained a mantra, and for us also, this mantra: "Nāhaṁ kartā, prabhu kartā, mahāprabhu kartā, hi kevalam." It is a Mahā Mantra because everything we do in our life will be excellent if we start with it. Its meaning is: I am not the one who is the doer, who is working. I am just a channel, and I want to be open so that cosmic energy, this light of the supreme, the light of Mahāprabhujī, works through me. I am not a doer. Swāmījī often said that he is like a postman. He sits in his seat and gives the message from Mahāprabhujī, Devpurījī, from our paramparā, the Śrī Alakpurījī Siddha Pīṭ Paramparā. If we are in our common life and try to behave according to "Nāhaṁ Kārata," we will have a very big opportunity to be in a safe mode and protect ourselves from ego. Ego is one of our greatest enemies, but also, somehow, we must have ego here in our life to survive, to be alive in this world. However, if our ego starts to be our master, our life is completely destroyed. Our whole life, we are like that. We are walking on a rope, like those people who perform on a tightrope. Our whole life, we are in this position. A yogī is like somebody walking on this rope, on this trade. That person is not looking all the time at what people think about him—whether they say, "Oh, bravo, you are great," or they talk, "Oh, you don't know anything." One must just try to do the best one can. And also, all the time we face very great dangers. On one side is ego, and on the other side is a lack of self-confidence, where we say, "Oh, I am nothing. I am just a small being. I am a sinner. I don't... I am not versed in anything." All the time we are in these two positions. In one position, when our ego starts to grow, we must always be aware of Nāhaṁ Kāratā: I am not that person who is working. I am not great. Only God is great. And on the other hand, when we think, "Oh, I am nothing, I am just dust," we must be aware of "Śivo'haṁ Śivo'haṁ." I am Sat Cit Ānanda. I am that consciousness, I am God. If we are all the time aware of these two things, our spiritual journey will in the end be successful. Like that man who is walking on the rope, all the time he is aware, conscious that it is dangerous to fall down, but he walks. In the end, if we have self-confidence, and if he is not impressed by the people below—what they are talking about him or whether they don't like him—and if we are not full of our ego ("Look at me, I am great"), but if we are consciously walking through the path, we will come to our aim. Our aim is to become again merged with our essence, our origin, which is God. In the beginning, there were some jokes about guests. We always said in the āśram in Zagreb that in the āśram, nobody is a guest, because the āśram is the place where everybody is welcome to do something for themselves. The ashram is our real spiritual home. Because of that, I am also not feeling like a guest here in New Zealand. I am here for the first time, and it is my first time in this nice ashram, but I feel like at home because I feel that we are all together one family. They said in an old tradition in the West that, especially, people who are working in a spiritual way, who are working on our development, are one big family. The biggest sin is if you work against your family, but if you work against your spiritual family, it is even worse. Because your father and mother you get, you gain by your karma. But I learned from one Indian at Kumbh Melā, I think about six years ago, he said that guru brothers and guru sisters are an even bigger connection than our blood brothers and sisters. We are here, brothers and sisters, spiritual brothers and sisters, which means that our connections, our family connections, are even stronger than our blood connection, because our path is not so easy. On our path, as Swāmījī said—tomorrow he will explain these bhajans—"Slowly, slowly climb, and you will come to the divine home." But on your path, there are 25 enemies and many, many deep holes. If you are not aware, it is very easy to lose your path and fall down. Our enemy is our bad qualities, our behavior, our... everything. Gurujī once said we are like drunkards. Because alcohol is not only from fruit and corn; we have in our life many other alcohols. One of the alcohols is our age. If you think, "Oh, I am young," or "I am nice, I look nice, I have a good position, I have a lot of money, I am a good yoga teacher," or something like this: "I am very spiritual." All of this is alcohol, and you know what alcohol does to our mind. We become completely crazy. We walk like a drunkard, and it is very easy to slip and go deep down into a dark, dark hole. Because of that, satsaṅg and being in an ashram is so important. I don't know where, I think in Canada or... I was joking that we are here like an AA group, Anonymous Alcoholics. Why am I joking about this? Because of that story I heard from Gurujī, that there is much alcohol in our life. And the ashram is a place where we try to be together, like one family, like a support group, and help each other to stay one day longer without alcohol—without our ego, without all other bad qualities. And not only to stay without these bad qualities, but to have somebody who is with you, somebody who will give you support. When you have people with cancer, they say that the most important thing for those people is a support group. They have friends—not only friends, but people who are passing through the same situation. Not only those who are passing through the same situation, but also those who were in that situation and are now free of this disease. In spirituality, in satsaṅg, it is the same. We are here, we are singing bhajans. Bhajans are not only some words, not just what we don't understand or repeating only the same phrase. In every bhajan, so much knowledge is hidden. We hear so many nice lectures from Swāmījī. And also, all of us here have our own experience. If you have any problem, if you just open yourself and say, "I have such and such problem," you will see that you are not alone. So many people have the same problems—maybe still in these problems, maybe they were in the past. But you will see: I am not alone. Our problem is that we think that only I have such a problem. From a little problem, we make—we say in Croatia, and I think also in English—from a fly, we make an elephant. We think that our problem is so big. But if we try to speak with other people, if we just open ourselves and be with the family, we will realize that our problem is not so big, that other people also have such a problem, and they will be our support group. They will help us. Being in an ashram, being with a spiritual family, is not only that we come here, listen to a good lecture, after that we will eat something and go home. We here are making something that in Western culture is slowly, slowly being lost, and that is the family. I also see in my country, in Croatia, that families are slowly becoming history. When I was young, I was with my grandma, my grandparents, and a lot of people around me. But now when I see a new generation, I see that grandma and grandpa are somewhere. Maybe they are trying to be younger through some operation, because now it is very famous that grandma, mother, and daughter look the same. They have the same hair color. They have the same dress. It is very popular that a grandchild tries to find a partner for grandma. Yes, what is somehow not so common in the past. I always remember the elephant. They said in the... I don't know the English name for a group of animals—a herd, yes. In a herd of elephants, the old lady elephant is the main one. She is Māṭājī. In Croatia and Italy we say "Nona," or in America I think that is the "big mama." Something like this. That lady is the power of the family. She has knowledge, but she also has a very, very big trunk. Not trunk, but this tusk. And people who sell these bones, ivory, they will shoot first that old elephant lady. When they shoot that old elephant lady, the whole herd loses the knowledge: Where is the water? Where is the culture and tradition? Also now, our society, which is selling products, selling many things, many operations, is also like the killer who killed the old elephant lady. All knowledge of our society, all this knowledge of how to be with our grandchildren, how to raise children, is slowly being lost. We are now without this. Because of that, society slowly goes down. The ashram is now new—not new, it is something very, very, very old, ages and ages. But I think now it has this second, very important role: how to preserve our culture. When we speak of sanātana and dharma, it is our old tradition. Mostly, we are from Western countries, and mostly from Europe. Yes, you are from New Zealand, but the old tradition was from Europe. That tradition, if you look far before Christianity, is sanātana dharma. It is that old tradition. Maybe it is another name, but if we have a horned god, which has been in Europe for thousands and thousands of years, it is the same picture as Paśupati, Mahādev. All tradition is the same. Why? Because Sanātana Dharma is that knowledge which is old—maybe not 10, 20, 30 thousand years, but from the beginning of humanity. That knowledge, that connection with the family, connection with the earth, connection with the universe, is sanātana dharma. Religions come and go, come and vanish. You will see through history, there are a thousand religions that start. They are very strong; maybe the whole world has that tradition and that religion. But after 500 years, 1000 years, 200 years, it just vanishes and a new religion comes. But basically, what is behind all this is sanātana dharma. And the āśram is the place, and yoga and the sadguru are that person, that place, who preserves our old tradition. That old tradition is something that will give sense to our life, that gives security, that gives strength. It is very hard to say, but we will, through that tradition, through our satsaṅg—not only satsaṅg, but being with it—we will still stay human. Because it is very easy to lose humanity in ourselves. When we lose Dayā, which means charity or mercy, we will lose humanity in ourselves. That old tradition and our family are something that will give us security, give education, and we will stay human, and we will slowly, slowly evolve to cosmic consciousness. Because of that, in the ashram, nobody is a guest; in the ashram, there is only family. I am happy that I am here with my family in New Zealand. If you come to Europe, to Croatia, you will not be a guest. You will also be part of the family. If we all together go to another country, to Hungary, we will also be a family in Hungary. That is one very great thing that Swāmījī is also doing—not only giving satsaṅg knowledge, but giving us a family, a really big family. In Vancouver, it was for me also excellent to see the picnic, and on the picnic, the grass with our peace tree. Trees were planted by so many people from so many countries, and we are really, in that time, a family here. Also, I feel like family. The amazing thing is that we are so many different people here, so many different traditions, many different educations, but we are a family. That is the great thing in Yoga in Daily Life: we don't have only yoga class, āsanas, prāṇāyāma, meditation, and go home. We have a satsaṅg. Perhaps one big difference, and something that is most important for yoga and for our spiritual development, is satsaṅg. And satsaṅg we have—you have also every week satsaṅg—but everywhere and at every time when we are together, two or three or more or less people, we have a satsaṅg because we have a connection with truth and with our real family. Thank you. I will not speak anymore. Sorry for my bad English, but I hope that you understand. If you don't understand—if I didn't know the words for this ivory, I will show you—and that is also something that is nice in the family. In the family, there is no judging. It is not necessary, I feel like this. It is not necessary that I speak perfect English. It is not necessary that you speak Croatian. Somehow, in the family where we are open and where the heart is open, we will understand each other. Thank you, and I hear that there will be something nice, because family meetings always finish with good eating, yes? Carry on.

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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