TV Channel

Welcome to the pūjā and abhiṣeka in the Śiva temple. For the last three days, we have had an akhaṇḍa śiva pūjā. We prepared special water for the abhiṣeka, called Caraṇāmṛta. The ratio for this water is: for every ten liters of water, add one quarter liter of milk, one tablespoon of yogurt, one tablespoon of melted butter, and one tablespoon of honey. You can also use fifteen liters. The water should look milky yet remain transparent. This is the proper preparation for a long abhiṣeka. Last time, the mixture was a little too thick. While performing the abhiṣeka, you should repeat the Mahāmṛtyuñjaya Mantra. This mantra is paramount. First, we pray by chanting this mantra from the Ṛg Veda. It is called the Mahāmṛtyuñjaya Mantra, the highest mantra; there is none higher. It is also very scientifically proven. When you chant "Oṁ Tryambakaṃ Yajāmahe…", your entire body and cells vibrate. Illness and dark energy depart. No magical or negative energy can affect you, no magic can come close, and all bad dreams disappear. You can chant it in different melodies. It goes like this: Oṁ Tryambakaṃ Yajāmahe Sugandhiṃ Puṣṭivardhanam | Urvārukamiva Bandhanān Mṛtyormukṣīya Mā’mṛtāt || Oṁ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ... When you chant this Mahāmṛtyuñjaya Mantra, all impurity in the body—what we call laziness, or tamas guṇa and rajas guṇa—disappears, and sattva guṇa appears. Sattva guṇa means health. Where sattvic energy is, health appears. Tamas Guṇa and Rajas Guṇa are harmful to our health and body. Tamas Guṇa arises from laziness. Laziness is one of humanity's greatest enemies. Tāmasic guṇa means you are lazy; you don't want to get up, meditate, go for a walk, or work. You just lie down, thinking, "I can't, I'm tired, I'm hopeless, I can't do it." This is weakness. You feel you cannot get up, clean your laundry, clean your house, or find the energy to go shopping. You don't know how to cook, you store old food, cook only once a week, and eat that old food daily. The thoughts of laziness then change the entire body in a detrimental way. It is as if dirt is piled upon your brain. There is no activity, no creativity; awareness is lost. Motivation is absent because there is no clarity. Tamas guṇa comes from laziness and unhealthy food. Healthy, sāttvic food means fruits, vegetables, honey, milk, nuts, and grains—but consumed in limited quantities. Hunger is a habit. If you eat more and more every day, your stomach expands over time. I know of a lady—and there are many, it could be men too—whose stomach expanded like a big pumpkin. They gain many kilos and cannot stop eating. This becomes a habit. One should eat only 200 to 250 grams of food and drink water, leaving space for air. But some eat one kilo of spaghetti or similar. Then the doctor says, "Get an operation." They go and the intestine is squeezed; a bandage is applied so there is no more space. A human should not reach such a state. Therefore, the principle is Alpāhāra. Alpāhāra. In yoga, spirituality, and health, it is called Alpāhāra, meaning "little food"—light and little. You know the mountains in Europe called the Alps? "Alp" is a Sanskrit word. They called the small Himalayas "Alp," meaning "little," but of great quality. You know how beautiful our Alpine mountains are. So, Alpāhāra. The second principle is Alpanidrā. Alpanidrā means little sleep. If you want to sleep more and more, it will increase daily, developing laziness. Sometimes, because you sleep too much, God, in His grace, quiets your sleep. You go to sleep, manage only a little, and then cannot sleep. You should say, "Oh, thank you, God. Now I can have nice divine thoughts, divine plans, meditate, and chant mantra." It is said: "O sleep, go to that house where there is no bhakti; let them sleep like buffaloes, with laziness." Spiritual development then appears very clearly, and your lazy quality is gone. You have sattvic energy and sattvic thoughts; then you do not need to sleep. You may say, "I can't sleep." Why do you need sleep? We need sleep to rid the body of gases, which are called the tattvas: sāttvic, rājasic, and tāmasic. When tāmasic guṇa is dominant, you sleep and snore. You may not hear it, but your blanket flies up and down with the snoring. When you have Rājasic Guṇa, that is not good either. It creates inner aggressivity, anger, hate, jealousy, conflict, and greed. So, rājasic guṇa is not good. When you overcome tamas guṇa, you may fall into rajas guṇa. It is said: you jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. You tried to escape the frying pan but fell into the fire. It is a kalā, an art, to turn our awareness towards sattvic guṇa. Then our body becomes balanced. These three guṇas are very important. So, Alpāhāra, Alpanidrā, and Alpavāk—speak less, but speak words that make everyone say, "Wow, yes." When you talk too much nonsense, it is called having a dog's brain. Swan, cooker, and sucker. "Cooker" is the dog, and "sucker" is the pig. Their brains are different and therefore have different vibrations. But when we pray and meditate, our brain relaxes. The tension is gone. Then, memories return. To develop memory, meditation is best because in meditation we delete many nonsense thoughts. You know you have many thoughts, but then you realize they are unnecessary. You know, when a bhakta comes to Gurudeva, you may have a whole list of questions to ask Gurujī. When you sit near Gurujī with your list, ready to read and ask, automatically you think, "No, this is not important." So, you delete 99.5% of the questions yourself. Why? Because it became clear to you. You arrived, and your jīvātmā found relaxation and peace. In the shelter of Gurudeva or any wise being, all questions are answered. All questions are answered. You think, "Oh, this is nonsense." Then, when you leave and are sitting on the train, you think again, "But I should have asked. Oh God! How stupid I was. The master hypnotized me." So you blame the master again. But it was not the master per se; it was his presence, his energy that gave you such divine clarity, so you knew those questions were unnecessary. So, the mantra—the Mahāmṛtyuñjaya Mantra—is called a Mahāmantra; there is no other Mahāmantra. Japakara, japakara, yehi nāma mahāmantra japakara—repeat and repeat this one. Hari Om Tat Sat, Hari Om Tat Sat... Japakara Hari Om Tat Sat. Hari hi Om. Om is Hari. "Tat" means "that," and "Sat" means "the truth." "That is the truth": Hari Om Tat Sat. Japakara—repeat and repeat. The Mahāmṛtyuñjaya Mantra is this: Oṁ. All repeat: Oṁ. It is expanding, vibrating, purifying, relaxing. It is not absolutely necessary to say the full "Oṁ Tryambakaṃ Yajāmahe" or sing it; that is also good, but chanting "Auṁ" is profound. When we chant "Auṁ," all three worlds expand. Auṁ. Just close your eyes and feel the expansion in your thoughts and the beauty in your thoughts. All negative, restless thoughts disappear. The jīvātmā feels free, liberated. The brain relaxes. Then memories, new thoughts, new light, and new memory come. Everything is a play of our brain. Within that brain is our consciousness; it is a play of consciousness. And between, one of the best qualities is awareness. Awareness is the master. You give quality to your brain. This is the nourishment of the brain, and that nourishment is the quality. That is what they call the Gandharva Veda. The Gandharvas are the singers in heaven, and the dancers are the Apsarās. They are dancers and singers who remain forever young. So if you chant mantras or some good rāgas, it keeps you young, happy, relaxed, and free. All your aggression is gone. So we supply the best quality to our bread. Mahāprabhujīp Karatā Mahāprabhujīp Karatā He Kevalam. All these three guṇas—sattva guṇa, rajas guṇa, tamas guṇa—all. And again, peace. Everything, your entire chidākāśa, is peace. The word "peace" is something very dear. Who found this word called "peace"? It must be someone who had great thoughts. And now, no one can change the peace that is in our hands. That needle which may have been inserted as a peace needle, you cannot take it out. When there is restlessness, war, and all such things in the world, what happens? Everyone searches for peace. That ṛṣi who said "peace," when he said it, it did not cost any money. You don't need money or hard work. It is just given to us freely: forgiveness, kindness. And someone said, "Happy." You don't need money to be happy. You don't need anything, because happiness is in your brain, in your heart, within your own phenomenon. Happiness will never get lost. Only we lose the awareness of happiness, and that is why we are sad and cry that we are not happy. So we should be happy. You are beautiful, as if in a cave or in a space where the echo, the sound, comes back and folds you, covering you with the beautiful resonance of bliss. So, in this machine of the body, God gave all instruments, all abilities, all good things. But sometimes someone put bad things in, and now we cannot repair it. Who was the stupid one who put in the thoughts of fighting, doubt, jealousy, quarrel, and cruelty? Krūratā. So humans have those abilities, and humans have that richness of God. Harahai Namaḥ Śivāya. Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya. Very quickly, Harahai Namaḥ Śivāya. When you go to your Chidākāśa, or close your eyes, you expand your consciousness and focus your awareness. You see the cosmic dance of Śiva, but you don't see Him—that's a miracle. You feel it; you see but you don't see. There is no light, yet there is endless light. It's beautiful. Now, feel in the heart that vibration, that your ātmā is dancing, noticing. This mantra is powerful. Namaḥ Śivāya, Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya, Oṁ... Śivāya. There were two who drank poison. One was Śiva. At the time of the churning of the ocean in Satyuga, poison emerged from the ocean. All the Devas, Rākṣasas, and Asuras did not know what to do with it. If they threw this poison on the earth, the entire earth would be destroyed. You know, there was a churning of the ocean three years ago in the Gulf of Mexico. A pipe began to leak. So much oil came out. There was a carpet of oil, of poison. Many animals died. So that is a churning of the ocean. They are searching, but they have not found the [source of the] petrol. Petrol is āsurī śakti. Now they don't know what will happen. They lost the nectar. They didn't search anymore. But one day we will search for the nectar. So, the Devas and Asuras, together with Brahmā and Viṣṇu, told Śiva, "What to do, O Swayambhū, O Bholenāth, what can we do?" Bholenāth, without thinking, said, "OK, I will drink." He thought it was ashwagandhā or milk, but it was poison. He blocked it all in His throat and purified it with His prāṇāyāmas, but it was not easy. So Śiva became blue, and that is why Śiva's name is Nīlakaṇṭha Mahādeva. And that is also why He is known through Namaḥ Śivāya. This [abhiṣeka water] is a milky ocean, a milky color, for the Abhiṣeka. Yesterday, Śivājī had high cholesterol. My God! And He was frozen. The second one who drank poison was Mīrābāī. Many have drunk poison and died, but these two did not. The Rāṇā gave Mīrā poison to drink. You know this story well. In a very nice golden bowl, her father-in-law sent the poison, saying, "Tell Mīrā it is the holy water from her Gurudeva's holy feet." She said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva!" and drank it. They all thought, "Now she will fall down, now she will very soon be finished." She put on beautiful bangles and said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and drank. They all were thinking, "Now she will fall down," but she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and drank. They all were thinking, "Now she will very soon be finished." She put on beautiful bangles and said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and said, "Oh, from..." "My Gurudeva," and she drank, and she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and she drank, and she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and she said, "Oh, from my Gurudeva," and she said, "Oh." From my Gurudeva, and she drank, and she drank. She put bells on her ankle joints, made nice music with her hands, and began to dance her Gurudeva's caraṇāmṛta. Mīrābāī was singing her beautiful mantra. "Nachchire Paggagunga Rubandha Meera..." Yes, Mīrā put bells on her feet, and she is dancing. Everybody said she was stupid. Everybody said she was stupid. Her mother-in-law said she was completely crazy. But nothing happened to her. They were the ones who became crazy, but Mīrā did not. That is the effect of mantras. So, I wish you a very nice Śiva Rātri. Bless you. Tomorrow, this constellation is coming. Śiva Rātri. "Rātri" means dark, and "Śiva" means the light, Śiva Jyoti. So, "Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya. Asato mā sad gamaya."