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Good evening. Welcome. It was a long journey. Over many lives, and finally, we have arrived. How nice it is. It is a blessing to come to a holy place and spend some time, and to see how the whole place becomes holy. Mother Earth is itself holy. But where do spiritual people come? They come where a spiritual person is living. Then this vibration, the prāṇa, remains there. For some places, it remains only for a time; for others, it remains forever. It is said that in Satya Yuga, there was once the churning of the ocean in search of the nectar, and the nectar came. But many were fighting to get it. There was always a fight between the devic śaktis and the asuric śaktis. The Devas were also greedy. The god Indra was also greedy, full of ego, as were the Asuras. But where the nectar was dripping or falling, that place became a holy place. And since Satya Yuga, through Dvāpar Yuga, Tretā Yuga, and Kali Yuga—these four yugas—we still go to those places to get the benefit, the benefit of that particular constellation, to get the benefit of that nectar. So certain places become forever holy. Some places are holy, but if someone performs opposite activities there, they can become unholy. Our ashram is more than 20 years old. Here, 99% of the people who come have a spiritual longing, a spiritual wish, spiritual thoughts. Some like it here, some don’t. That’s okay, but they have spiritual thoughts. Otherwise, they would not come. They may continue their search, and definitely one day they will find. That is good. So people have come here every year, thousands of them. Over 20 years, how many people have come? We have always held seminars: 100, 250, 1,000, 1,500 people. So this area has become a holy spot in Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic. This place became a holy place in the whole of the Czech Republic. There is a living spirituality here, because we are all still living. And it will be, and it will be, and it will be. So to be here for some days is a blessing. You are welcome. Concentrate on that for which you came. This gathering is mostly for the yoga teachers, teachers of Yoga in Daily Life. Most of you are yoga teachers, and many are on the way. Many are just practitioners, because we couldn’t occupy the whole space only for yoga teachers. This time of the year is school holidays, and people only have the chance to come here when I am here. Therefore, we have different groups. We have children also. Last week there were many children. I am not making a joke, but my shoulder still has sore muscles from giving them chocolate or whatever. Interestingly, I wanted to give them only nuts one day. When they noticed I was giving only nuts, half of them turned back and went to their mother. So we shall make something from the nuts and dry fruits and put it in chocolate. We should tell the Tilak restaurant to make chocolate with their dry fruits. That is healthy for our children, all mixed nuts. Do you agree? Thank you. Now, there will be teacher training. We had lectures last year. If you ask the teachers questions, they have forgotten. So you are here updating, not upgrading. Many have difficulty performing certain postures, āsanas. So this week will be more concentrated on the postures, the advanced postures. To make a yoga teacher certificate, we will have 25% verbal, 25% written, and 50% practical. That will be very good. Our programs are very nice, which you will get in writing afterward. Generally, the schedule is as follows: Prayer is at a quarter to six in the morning. Then, at six o’clock, a quarter past six, or ten past six, it is on this meadow. Bring your yoga āsana. A yoga mat is called a yoga āsana. Your āsana. You know, whenever Vivek Purī comes, you give him an āsana. When I come here, you give me a blanket. When Premanandjī comes, you give me a yoga mat. What is the difference? Languages. So, yoga āsana, our blanket, our mat, whatever we call it—yoga āsana. Your bed is your āsana. Anyhow, you will come here after prayer, or you can make the prayer here. Then, eleven rounds of the new Khatu Praṇām. Immediately after the eleven rounds, you have twenty-five minutes of meditation. Then comes āsanas again, depending on your teacher. It begins from level five, six, seven, and eight. So everyone has to practice from the 5th level of Yoga in Daily Life. Whoever cannot, will do it. The teacher will bring you to that place. Breakfast is, I think, at 8 o’clock. At a quarter to nine, again in this field, we do mantra while walking around this tree. You have to walk around this tree 108 times. That will become two kilometers with mantra. Then again, āsanas until 10:30. Then you have twenty minutes to go to the bathroom or something. Then you come to the program. Five times again the Khaṭu Praṇām. Then will be the lecture. The subject is Prāṇa. Prāṇa is something very beautiful. We had a very nice discussion about prāṇas last week, and this week will also be about prāṇa. At twelve, you have lunch. From twelve till one is lunchtime. But it does not mean you sit in front of the kitchen for one hour. We are waiting to vacate the place for others. Until two, you have free time. You can wash your laundry, or you can practice āsanas again. For example, Vajrāsana, Vīrāsana—these āsanas are good to practice after eating. At two o’clock, they call it Yoga Nidrā. For Yoga Nidra, we will do it all collectively. It is called the sixth level of āsanas from the Yoga in Daily Life book. That will be our yoga nidrā. Then will come prāṇāyāma for 40 minutes. That is what your teacher will tell you, which one. And then again, āsanas until 5:30. So from 2 to 5:30, it is called body work, work on your body. After that is dinner, if it is given—that I cannot promise. From ten to seven, you should be here for the prayer. Exactly at 7 o’clock, even if I am here or not, the prayer begins. After that is the satsaṅg, with the subject of prāṇa, and of course some questions. This is the program. I would suggest you reduce your diet by half. It will do good to you. That is very, very good. I am not telling you this because we don’t have food; we have plenty. But in one week, you will see how you feel. When you come home, you will know, "I was practicing yoga." The next morning at home, your body will force you, in any case, to do āsana, and so you will again come into this stream of energy to regenerate your body. For the last many years, our practitioners of yoga have concentrated more on bhakti yoga in their lives. In bhakti yoga, it is always called prasāda. No one should refuse the prasāda. You should not throw down even one little grain of the prasāda. So whatever is given, we must eat. It is a prasāda. If we get little, we can’t say, "Can I have more?" Then it is no longer prasāda; then it is the food of a beggar. So prasāda is a quality. Prasāda is a blessing. If someone gives you blessings, you can say it is the prasāda. So prasāda has a lot of positive prāṇa. We had a nice time with prasāda, dīkṣā, potatoes, and this and that. We will concentrate on our health, so there will be discussions about food, about using the material for our clothes and shoes and beds, pillows and bedsheets, etc. And also for our inner cleaning. Some people are not guilty, but they do not have a pleasant body smell. Mostly, the smell develops in the body either from meat, beer, and grains. That means no breads. Avoid the grains. Then you will have a good smell from your mouth. Maybe we don’t smell ourselves, but whoever is sitting with you feels unpleasant. So here we will have food which will have little bread, little grains. You will have plenty of vegetables. It is called the yogic soup. That is called, what do they call the soup in South India? Rasam. Rasam. So, in one and a half liters of liquid, you will get so much vegetable inside—about 50 grams per head, more than enough. We will add a little more chili inside, so you will feel good. So, fresh vegetables. We will try to avoid, as much as we can, the grains. That means no bread, yes, no rice. Just vegetables. You will feel a purification. If your friends feel that your breath has no good air, now is the time for Saṅkt Prakṣālana. At least three times a year, every yoga teacher should not, but must, perform the Saṅkt Prakṣālana. If you have some disease, then consult with your yoga teacher or with a doctor. From time to time, we will organize a walk so that we can replace our āsana time. It is a beautiful program. Now, everyone has to attend class. To which class do you belong? Actually, there is no anuṣṭhāna, but still some say, "No, I want to have anuṣṭhāna, otherwise it’s all physical work, body work." For you, this time, practicing āsanas is more important than the anuṣṭhāna. You have the afternoon, two hours. You can do your kriyā, or you can do your mantras, but not going out of the ashram. Not going and standing somewhere. In your free time, of course, you can go and walk. Eating is a very good limit. But someone said even heaven had a hole. We have here, it is called Tilak Pīchā. It is not very far from our ashram door, so I can’t control. But thanks to Mahāprabhujī, they are doing all organic. Sometimes we will organize pizza for everyone. They have to prepare for two days, and then we can get into the block. So it will be nice, but try to make your diet half, a little less great. Next time we will do a Haṭha Yoga seminar, every day Kuñjal, Neti, Dhauti, Saṅkt Prakṣālana. We have a very nice creek flowing down, so we can do Kuñcal Kriyā there. So welcome. This will be tomorrow’s program, seriously. If you see that somebody is standing somewhere and talking and didn’t come to the program, that person will be sent home. This is the condition. Ask yourself for what you came. Someone came to find a husband or find a wife. They said, "Swāmījī, this is the only chance where we can find a vegetarian partner." So I understand. It depends on destiny. Thank you, and I wish you a very nice seminar. Enjoy your time here. Any questions? Please stand up. Yes. Any more questions? So we had... The subject is on the prāṇas, and we will speak in the next five days about prāṇa: the difference in prāṇa and oxygen, prāṇa in the body, the prāṇa mind, then consciousness, the soul, and ātmā. So, what is the relation of this to oxygen? Oxygen is also a form of prāṇa. But in yoga, the prāṇa is given in more detail, and that we will hear. There are ten prāṇas: the five prāṇa and five upa-prāṇa. Upa-prāṇa is what we call sub-prāṇa. And sub-prāṇa is more important than prāṇa. So when we inhale prāṇa, it is immediately divided into ten. We inhale through the nose. We inhale through the mouth. And we inhale through the whole body, the skin. The skin is breathing, and where we have hair—these are the holes where the prāṇa goes in. So we inhale and we exhale with the whole body. Generally, we take breath only through the nose or mouth. Many of you know that there is a training. The training is the prāṇa diet: sunlight and air, no liquid or solid food, only air. That is a kind of training. There, you take the nourishment through the whole body, through the whole skin. I did not practice this; I only heard. I knew some disciples who learned this, and for a few months, there was one lady who lived without anything, eating or drinking. But then she began to eat because it was so boring; she couldn’t be invited. And when they invited her, she was just sitting at the table. People are sorry for that. Sometimes people feel offended. So she began to eat again. Eating is good. Alpāhāra—it’s called alpāhāra. The yogic diet is alpāhāra, little food. You know, the ṛṣis all the time were calling the small Himalaya "Alpin." So this is Alpa. So Alpa comes from Alpa. Alpāhāra. From the Himalayas come the Aravali mountains. Then comes the Hindukush, which begins from Afghanistan and goes through Turkey. That’s called Hindukush, and then comes the Alps. So when the ṛṣis were walking from the Himalaya till here, when they came here, they had a little bite, Alpaha, so Alpin. So Alp is Alpaha. So, alpāhāra. There is one bhajan which I have forgotten, that a yogī is eating only air, with very little alpāhāra. I heard; I don’t know. In the Himalayas, that’s called mūlakanda. Mūla means the roots. Kanda means these are edible roots. That has so much nutrition. They eat only a few centimeters long, something like sweet potatoes. From every quantity of the sweet potatoes, they can survive two months. They put it in their dhūnī, and it gets baked in the dhūnī. So they used to eat this, and no more hunger. No more quantity of gases in the stomach. Also, going to the toilet is very little. They drink water. And they have strength, but they did not introduce us, otherwise people will dig up everything in the Himalayas. So, yogīs nourish themselves with kaṇḍamūla and some berries. They sit near their dhūnī and meditate. Dhūnī has certain meanings, but the practical meaning is that where there is a fire, no wildlife comes near. Even a snake doesn’t come. That is the main purpose why yogīs have the fire. Tiger, lion, wolves, bears—they don’t come near the fire. So, it’s another life. If we live there, in two days we will get pneumonia. Even our house pets, the white dogs and house dogs, in their health, it’s day and night different. Our house pets are exactly as ill and lazy as we are. The dog looks like the master, or the master looks like the dog. So that training is called ekānta vāsa. Ekānta means somewhere far away, alone. Nobody there. Vāsa means living there. From time to time the yogīs meet. They have a bandarā, but not in that quantity of food. Sometimes each has their own dhūnī, which they bring with them because they have to burn some kind of herbs on the small dhūnī. They call it a chillum. Yes, that helps them to hunt away the mosquitoes. So everything has its meaning. Similarly, we should, at least if not all the time—the whole year, every year, in the seminar—we should have alpāhāra. If the āhāra is less, we will need less sleeping. Not that you can’t sleep. No, you can sleep. But your body doesn’t need more. You have a lot of prāṇa. And when we have a wrong diet, then we have tamas guṇa. And that needs a long time to get out. So prāṇa and apāna. Prāṇa has to work hard to get rid of those toxins by the help of apāna prāṇa. So if you can’t get up early in the morning, it’s very easy: don’t eat in the evening. You will not be tired. You will wake up so fresh because you have a lot of prāṇa. And prāṇa is health. If we don’t have good prāṇa, we are lazy, we are angry, we are moody. You get up in the morning, the face is hanging, slowly, slowly you are brushing, and again the prāṇa comes. And if you quit your dinner... Milk is also not good. If you drink milk in the evening, then it’s better to eat one or two chapatis. So you are not a baby now, but it’s an Indian habit: at least one cup of milk, and then they can sleep. So milk also creates tamas guṇas. Milk creates gases. So this week, we will take care of our diet and enjoy. Om Śānti Śānti.