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Welcome. How nice it is to be together again. And as usual, we have a beautiful hall. So feel free to open or close the windows. Welcome. Blessings to all. We celebrated Guru Pūrṇimā yesterday — though we started some days earlier — and it was a very great day, with many of our bhaktas here. Blessings from the Alakh Purījī Siddha Pīṭh Paramparā. Whenever we meet, we learn something new and we move forward. It is like eating food every day. If you skip one day or even one meal, you feel something is missing. Some people become angry. Someone put it very nicely: Do we eat for living, or do we live for eating? Today, those who live for eating start to become angry. That anger reveals how far a person has come on the spiritual path. Read the twelfth chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā again and again. The yogīs, the bhakti yogīs, do not care about hunger and thirst, name and fame, friend or enemy. They are everywhere equal, in a state of bhāva. “O Arjuna, that one is dear to me,” God said, “that one is dear to me.” Our subject in this seminar, however, is prāṇa, and we will explore prāṇa thoroughly. Consider the difference between tribes and city people, between the civilized and those who live in the forest. They can survive for days without eating or drinking. Yet they do not lie down under the trees like a dead body. They are active, ready to run at any moment — even after ten days without proper food or water. What about us? This is just an example; do not be angry. Earlier today, it was announced that we would not have lunch, and a few messages circulated among the people. One person said, “Next time we will not come here anymore.” What does that mean? It is your loss. Others will come. The rooms are overfilled, and people are waiting on the waiting list. But I am not speaking to any particular person, nor to this group, nor to those who were upset over half a piece of bread. How much prāṇa strength do you have, living in this city? And how much strength do they have? Hardly ever do they eat a complete meal. How much do you eat per day? How much do you drink? And in one month, how much do you consume? It is said that a human eats eighty to ninety tons of food in a lifetime. Ninety tons! And you yourself are not even a hundred kilos. How do you manage? That is a miracle. Those forest tribes, compared to us, may consume thirty tons, or twenty-five, maybe twenty tons. But they eat to live, and whatever they eat turns into energy. Their food is more natural, organic, and it is fully assimilated. This already paints a very clear picture of how much prāṇa we have. And it is not only humans. In civilized areas, even their dogs are exactly the same — very weak, very tired, very ill. The dogs and cats display all the same symptoms. Look at your cows, your buffaloes, your horses, and then look at the deer in the forest. They have hardly anything to eat in winter, or in summer in certain countries — no green leaves, sometimes no food at all for ten days. Yet see how the deer can run through half a meter or a meter of snow. They have the strength, they have the prāṇa. The wild cat survives and runs. We have lost the natural way of living, and that is why we are ill. And if we are not ill, we become ill just to take some tablets. If you have no illness and you meet a doctor, be sure you will not leave without a prescription. It may not be for diabetes, blood pressure, or the heart, but they will say, “Take some of this vitamin.” And when you take these artificial vitamins in tablet form, be sure your inner system will reject them. Slowly, your inner organs, systems, and functions will reduce their own activity and no longer absorb what you take from outside in capsules, tablets, or liquid vitamins. In our natural eating, if you eat just a handful of rice, a few leaves, or some green vegetable, and drink water from springs or deep groundwater, all the minerals and everything you need are already there. But as soon as you start taking something extra, you are introducing illness into your body. Then we cannot survive without supplements — iron is missing, vitamin B is missing. Mahāprabhujī Karatā, Mahāprabhujī Karatā… There is one prāṇa that is blocked or closed in a bottle — maybe the oxygen in a bottle — but that is different from the oxygen‑free prāṇa. It is something else. So, we are talking about and researching prāṇa and prāṇāyāma in this seminar. We do not call it a retreat, because “retreat” implies we were already treated, but then we forgot and are retreating again. You are healthy enough — from whom are you retreating? From your ill body? But why are you ill? Because we lost the natural way of living. Is it better to eat only one apple than to eat junk food? Do not just think of filling your stomach with anything. On an aeroplane, most of what you get is junk food. You do not know how many days old the food is. They just put it in the microwave and serve it back as if it were freshly hot. And if someone does not eat and says, “No, I will not eat,” it goes back. So you do not know how many times the food passes through the microwave. Airlines do have strict controls, but for how long can they control? What exactly will they control? In this world, nothing is really controlled. We cannot even control our breath. Those prāṇas, those natural ways of living — we try, but we know how weak we are. We are psychic, not physically fit; it is a psychology. You fly on an aeroplane and order vegetarian food, but unfortunately they did not change your meal. The drink you wanted was also not there. And you protest, “But I ordered it! How is it possible?” and so on. For just five or six hours, you will not die. Yet see how much tension arises. “I will never fly with this airline again,” people say, because they see the reaction and shouting at those poor hostesses. “Sorry, sir. Sorry, ma’am.” It is not their fault, yet they still try their best to bring something for you. Junk food is not good, and if you — including myself — are clever enough, we will take some fresh fruits instead. That is the best. Two or three apples will help you adjust to jet lag, along with drinking more water. But instead of good water, people are asked to drink alcohol. And drinking alcohol on an aeroplane means you are poisoning yourself. There is no prāṇa there — do you think alcohol has prāṇa? I have not tried it, but you people know: is there alcohol prāṇa? Yes, the prāṇa that makes you unbalanced, so it means there is no prāṇa. The brain starts sounding an alarm, like when a diabetic’s sugar drops. I experienced that; I said, “Oh God, bring sugar quickly!” So, alcohol is not good. There is no prāṇa in it — it is not that prāṇa. It is dead energy — dead, dead, dead. It moves in the opposite direction. It is for killing bacteria, but we are very big bacteria, aren’t we? So it will not kill us immediately, but it will kill slowly, slowly. Therefore, reflect on prāṇa. Many, many people think a lot about their health, and they do not eat junk food or food cooked several hours earlier. You have twenty‑four hours for your good health, well‑being, and happiness. Can you not spend half an hour cooking fresh food and then eating it? But no — you cook on Sunday or Saturday for the whole week, put it in the fridge, then microwave or warm it up. This is not good. When I first came to Austria, we made a spinach dish and some was left over. I suggested warming it again, and an Austrian said, “No, no, don’t make this mistake. Never, never, never.” At that time people nourished themselves with very good, healthy food and did not consume so much meat. But now they are forcing people to eat meat. There are some countries where parents are not allowed by government law to feed their children vegetarian food. They have no proper medical oversight, and they have certain meat industries. Someone who supports the meat industry has a girlfriend or boyfriend who is a minister, and that industry person says, “Please bring this law.” If the minister refuses, the girlfriend will not come anymore, so they say, “Yes, I’m working on it.” The letter is already there. So many things are forced by a few; it is a play for money. In Austria, in Europe, they changed all the light bulbs, and what is inside them? Poisons. They changed the blood pressure meters, the fever thermometers. Now when you have a fever, they use a digital one — it contains poison; it is not good. All the good things our ancestors brought, the healthy things, are no longer here. There is no blood‑pressure device with mercury anymore; it is not available at all. They destroyed it. And poison is there, because they said mercury is a poison — but what is now in the bulbs? Many things. This kind of research is not healthy. It is a system in the world now: neither do they let you die, nor do they let you live. We have become a business for them: buy medicines, buy medicines. All money flows there, and “give us votes, give us votes” — election after election. We are all chasing bank votes. So, with prāṇa, you must decide for yourself what you will eat and what you will not eat. If you do not eat for one or two days, you will definitely not die. If you do not eat for two days — except for diabetics, when you go into a coma you will stay a long time without dying, but even if you were to die after two days without food, I personally will come to your funeral, I promise you. But if you do not eat, after two days you will become fresh and healthy. Your own body will consume everything that is not necessary. Day by day, your immunity will become stronger. The principle of fasting is to regenerate your body, develop immunity, and build up strength. If you are fasting and eating little, you will look — oh, you look like a ten‑year‑old! I fasted for two days; of course I took something for my sugar, but people said, “Oh Swamiji, you look so fresh, two years younger.” I said, “Because it was only two days.” So each day you become one year younger. What a miracle! This is the miracle of prāṇa. Then prāṇa enters your body. If there is junk food and all those rubbish things, prāṇa cannot even enter, and there is no immunity. So prāṇa is our life. And here, where we are, is prāṇa. Even the bird said, “Yes, yes, Swāmījī.” Oh yes, say something. Yes, she said what? Listen to Swamiji. What he said is correct. Yes, say something more. So we will have prāṇāyāma. During prāṇāyāma and āsanas, I would say to you: try to reduce your diet. Eat 25%, drink 25% liquid, and leave 25% for the air. That’s it. But we eat 100%, even 120%, and then water — there is no space. So what will the body do? It will make space sideways; it does not go up. So it expands sideways, and some of it adds two centimeters more, and then you can almost roll yourself along. So let us develop prāṇa. Though Kṛṣṇānanda said you will have enough eating and so on, I suggest you consciously avoid at least 25% less. You will meditate better, you will relax, and you will regenerate the energy of prāṇa. In reality, four days ago we decided that next time we would only have breakfast and dinner. It is very hot, and the kitchen people were so sad. They were just sitting here, and you know, 55% of the people did not wait for the meal. I kept announcing, “Please go and eat and come back.” True? Yes. So then we decided, do you all agree that we don’t have lunch? And everyone said, “Yes, yes.” Then someone asked, was there no lunch today? And they started murmuring, “Babababa.” So it goes. Do we live for eating, or do we eat for living? Here, your meditation will be good. According to yoga principles, do not avoid your lunch. Have breakfast, have lunch, but no dinner. You will die? Kṛṣṇānanda, I need five bodyguards, but if we skip dinner, you will wake up at four o’clock in the morning, not five, and you will look a certain way. The best technique, if you want to get up earlier and practice āsanas and meditation — and during meditation you are not chatting with your neighbors, “Yes, what do you say?” while everyone else is sleeping in tamas guṇa — is to quit your dinner. The Americans are not the only ones researching this: quit your dinner, and you will become very healthy. Without any extra effort, your kilos will come back into balance. But our life and routine is like this: after doing so much work, we peacefully eat with the family in the evening and then just lie down. If we eat and then walk two kilometers afterward, that is okay. So anyway, we shall reduce something and take in more prāṇa. We will talk about prāṇa — not only Prāṇa, Apāna, Samāna, Udāna, Vyāna and the rest, but Prāṇa which develops our spirituality. Spirituality is the Prāṇa, and that is called Prāṇ Nāth, the Lord of our prāṇas. So Prāṇa is life. Tomorrow morning everyone should come to the hall, the big hall. Get up at five o’clock, go to the bathroom, make yourself fresh, and perform Agni Sākriyā. Then come out and greet the sunrise. Now sunrise is about seven minutes after five, so you can get up five minutes earlier. You have fifteen minutes to get fresh — at least wash your hands and mouth. Then, with prāṇa, walk through this park and arrive between five and five‑thirty. Have a nice prayer. After the prayer, the Master has changed the program. We will serve you something, not coffee and tea. Some were thinking, “Oh, coffee comes.” We could serve you coffee or tea from ten to six in the morning for five minutes, but nobody wants to drink it that early. So the program is changed. After prayer, there will be āsanas — straight and proper āsanas — for all who came for prayer. One hour of proper āsanas, not only Sarabhītāsana, okay? That’s it. After that, half an hour or twenty‑five minutes of prāṇāyāma. After prāṇāyāma, a little meditation — reflect. Then, come to your room and get ready for breakfast. After breakfast, the program continues: meditation, prāṇāyāma, or lectures. Early morning prāṇāyāma or meditation can make you lazy. Alternatively, if you are fasting and have no dinner at all, you can meditate in your room and get up an hour earlier. That’s it. So we are changing the program to bring more vitality into the body. Prāṇa, prāṇa, okay? Do you know what prāṇa means? Prāṇa is something great. That is why every Indian says “Praṇām.” You know praṇām? Yes. It is my salutation to your divine energy. Praṇām, Prāṇāyām — very little difference. I wish you a very nice stay, and I have many good techniques for you. But do not fight over the food, and please, be on time. Everything on time. That’s it. Then we will all be happy. And how happy we will be! Someone said, “Let’s go to heaven. I will bring you there without any problem.” I said, “Yes, and when should we go out again?” “No, permanent stay.” So I said, no. I want to be in freedom — freedom into the whole universe, the Brahmaloka, Brahman. Heaven is a closed space, because if there is a hell, then there is definitely a heaven, which is also limited — otherwise there is a hell. And after that, what is there? Something more. Therefore, it is said, beyond. Beyond everything. This year, the theme for Yoga Day was: Yoga for body and beyond. That was good. This theme was given by Prime Minister Modi, and look, it was great. One day the organizers asked me, “Is this a good name, Swamiji?” I said, “Yes.” It means we are not limited. We are not limited only to the body, or only to my culture, my religion, or my country. We are beyond — in oneness, beyond everything. So, this seminar of ours, whether for a few days, one week, or ten days, is divine. Enjoy it. No jealousy, no hate, no conflict, no blaming. Sometimes a mosquito comes — why not? You are very generous; you get a double meal. So at least let the mosquito once suck something from you — international blood. That mosquito has great luck; it must have done some good karma sometime. So he or she enjoys the international platter: one day Croatian, the next day Slovenian, then Austrian, then Indian. My God, they have a choice! What a menu! A buffet! So, my dear ones, enjoy, and I wish you all the best!