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Part 1: The Nourishment of Bhajan, Mantra, and Prāṇa So, the bhajan which Holī Gurujī writes is more or less for the prāṇa. There are two bhajans written by our Satguru Dev, Holī Gurujī, and both are very good—they show how to gain the prāṇa, how to ask for it. The first bhajan is the one you will sing, and this bhajan is connected with mantra. There was a question: what is the connection between prāṇa and mantra? This is a good subject. First comes language. From language arise two kinds: one is full of wisdom; the wise person, who makes everyone happy, is full of knowledge and learning. The second is negative language—using bad words, hate and jealousy, curses, slander, destruction. Then comes poetry. Poetry is full of wisdom, but there are also different kinds of poetry, perhaps positive or negative. We call it Doha; “Do” means two, and it signifies a perfect poem that holds a question and an answer. Sometimes it is very easy—people like us can understand—and sometimes it is filled with very high, philosophical knowledge. Then, after poetry, comes bhajan. Bhaja means “repeat,” like your mantras, or pray to God, or believe in God, or have spiritual thoughts. When you ask a yogī, a swāmī, or a spiritual person, “Are you meditating?” and someone comes and asks, “Where is your father, or where is your Gurujī?” they will say, “Well, he’s doing bhajan.” Here, bhajan does not mean singing; it means repeating a mantra, praying to God silently—meditation. That is also bhajan. Therefore Gurujī said, “Bhajore Mānava Śrī Pūjya Dīpa Dayāla”—“Bhajore Mānava Śrī Pūjya Dīpa Dayāla” means repeat His name, have devotion to Him. This is not necessarily a bhajan you sing; this is Antarmukh Sādhanā. So a poem is also bhajan, prayer is bhajan, meditation is bhajan, singing a bhajan is bhajan, pūjā is bhajan—everything is bhajan. “What are you doing, Gurujī, the whole day?” “Gurudev kī bhajan.” What does “Bhagavān kā bhajan” mean? It means I am all the time feeling devotion, remembering the name and mantras of God, thinking of God, repeating God’s mantras, and meditating on God. Bhagavān kā bhajan is devotion to God. So those who do bhajan will be successful. Bhajan does not mean that you sing loudly the whole day while working in your company somewhere and singing “Chadariyā Jhinī, Jhinī…” Before eating, you offer to God and say a prayer; Brahmārpaṇam—different religions have different forms, but that is also bhajan. So Bābājī, Gurujī, Sādhu Mahārāj, what are you doing? Bhagavān kī bhajan. So you should know: you are a yoga and daily life practitioner, a perfect teacher. You will not fail anywhere because your master has put so much inside your brain, compact—that is what is called siddhi. I am giving you that useful information, so we must be happy. Poetry asks you a question, and then it will answer you, or one will ask you a question and you have to answer in a nice way. There is one poem which is very nice: “Jab maiṅ thā, vo nahīṁ thā. Ab vo hai to maiṅ nahīṁ. Prem galī ati sāṅkarī.” When I was here, he was not here. And now he is here, but I am not here. Why? Because the street of love is too narrow; two cannot walk together; two have to become one. This means ātmā and Paramātmā are one. So, “Jab maiṅ thā to vo nahīṅ, vo hai to maiṅ nahīṅ. Prem galī itnī saṅkarī, jismēṅ do na samāyeṅ.” The street of love is so narrow that two cannot walk together. That prem means devotion. Don’t forget that point: as long as I see God’s picture as separate and pray to God as separate, then we are still two. But we want to be one. So bhajan, the song… there are many different kinds of songs: folk songs and spiritual songs. The spiritual song is also bhajan. Now, language can be philosophical language, local language, restaurant language, dialect language. Sometimes dialect language is very joyful for us—you make a joke in your dialect and everybody laughs. But the wise ones who know Sanskrit, Latin, Old Greek, and Parsi can make jokes in those languages. Chinese has a lot of poetry and many beautiful songs, and one alphabet holds many meanings. Similarly, in Sanskrit, one alphabet has more meanings. For example, sometimes I tell you: there is a salt you call Himalayan salt, black salt, and that salt is called “sandhā namak.” And horse is also “sandhā.” Now when I say “sandhā,” what do I mean? You should know what I meant, and maybe you will be wrong. I am asking something different. If I am going somewhere and I say, “Bring the sandhā,” and you bring the salt—no, no, the horse, because I’m going and I need a horse to ride. Or I am eating and I say “bring sandhā,” and you bring your horse. So these are different things. In every country, in every language, there are joyful things, and also spiritual ones: the language, the bhajans, the poems, the mantras. Mantra, then bīja mantra—seed. What is the bīja mantra, the bīja seed? I give you one seed which is very tiny, from a huge banyan tree, smaller than a fig seed. Now, this seed is the universe. “Yathā brahmāṇḍe, yathā piṇḍe.” What is in the universe is in this body, and what is in this body is in that universe. The seed is very little, but within it a huge banyan tree is hidden, compact—micro. So the mantra you get from Gurudeva, and then you receive the essence of that mantra, and you concentrate and repeat only that essence. Thus it is called Sabīja Samādhi and Nirbīja Samādhi. Sabīja means “with seed”—we are in samādhi. The knowledge of being ourself… and the family was sad. The next day they organized the funeral. They brought the crematorium, placed wood, and on the wood they laid the man. The body was cold, no pulse. Before they set it on fire, he sat up. Many were frightened, thinking he came as a ghost, but he was alive. What will our science say? Maximum half a minute before the brain is damaged, and this was hours and hours. Declared dead by the doctor. How did he come back? We must ask: where was he? What did he experience? Or was he a practitioner? He had a savit-samādhi. In Sabīja Samādhi you can hear everything, eyes are open, you see everything; you know all that is going on, yet you are in samādhi. All the organs become minimal. But when he found out they would set fire to his body—everybody loves their body—maybe he came out of samādhi. So this is Sabīja Samādhi. You can also call it Sahaj Samādhi. Sahaj means spontaneous. You practice your meditation technique and come to your Sahaj Samādhi, but it is not so easy. Many people say, “We practice, we teach ourselves samādhi.” It is not easy. The other is Nirbīja Samādhi: there you have no feeling of the senses; you are one with Brahman, but you can come back. Still, there is a little will, but no desires, no wishes. At that time you are in samādhi, and that can last for years. We don’t understand; they are still under the glaciers. Now, there is one master in South India, famous and very rich—tons of gold are there. He went into samādhi. They closed him in a small room, put a lot of ice in, and closed the door. The police came, the doctor came: let it be allowed. Gurujī said nobody should open the door. By court they got an order to check him, but they didn’t want to check. Now there are two opinions: either he is really in samādhi, or his family members and disciples have a conflict—who will inherit? Who will get everything? There is a lot of ice in that room, and he is sitting. I think he is already blue, but they don’t let him go. It could be that he is in samādhi. It’s already, I think, three or four years. He is from South India. I met his disciples this time at the Kumbha Melā; they invited me to give a lecture, so I was there. Who knows Īśvara’s māyā? The māyā of Īśvara, God’s game. Māyā, Īśvarī—prāṇa is connected to everything. So this jīvātmā, this soul, is like connected in a mālā, on one thread, and lives and life wander with this thread. It is the prāṇa that doesn’t let you go; the prāṇa will protect you and give you energy and nourishment. Mantra is very powerful. Mantra is that seed, and in the seed is the essence, and that essence is the reality. That is how prāṇa functions. So when we do prāṇāyāma, when we have good food—and you should know what kind of food to eat. Not only that we are vegetarian, but which kind? Someone likes eggplants and another gets gas. Someone likes potatoes, the other one will take on the form of the potatoes. Some like milk, and others are allergic. We have to adjust many things. Nutrition should be healthy and good. Some people grow thinner and thinner, thinking “I am very healthy”—that is not healthy either. The body needs good prāṇa and pure prāṇa. Prāṇa is everywhere, so it is called śabda. One word can make you and others happy, and one word can make an enemy. Very soon you will be finished. This is prāṇa; that is the śabdabāṇa. Bāṇa means arrow: you shoot the arrow with your words— “you stupid.” Husband says, “And you are crazy, and that’s it. I don’t want to see you.” Thanks to God. So how is everything destroying? Or you say, “Hello, dear, how are you?” — uniting. This bhajan is sung by Śivānandjī, Mahāprabhujī’s disciple. He was from Chhortikatu. So my caste, my friends, my people are those who understand my language, those who understand my word as positive and good. I don’t like others, I don’t like others… This rāga, this melody which we just had, was the favorite of Holī Gurujī, and he wrote many bhajans on this rāga, especially those that were very special and dear to him. So the bhajan he wrote about our guru paramparā is also on this same melody, but there is always some speciality; here the rhythm is a little different. Now we are going to sing “Oṁ Brahma Śiva Alakha Anādi,” which we sang yesterday. When we sing this bhajan, it feels like a hymn. It is very powerful, and that is not just due to the music, but really also due to—especially—the refrain of this bhajan. The last bhajan we sang, “Śrī Dīpanīrañjan Sābaduka Bhajan,” was very special because its refrain is actually a mantra, a real mantra. So every time you sing that bhajan, you repeat a mantra. The essence of a mantra is the name of God. For that reason, in India the Gāyatrī Mantra is perhaps the most respected: “Oṁ Bhūr Bhuvaḥ Svaḥ Tat Savitur Vareṇyam.” The first nine words of this mantra are all names of God. And the bhajan that Holī Gurujī created has the same quality, like a real, strong mantra. That is what we feel when we sing it; it makes it as powerful as a really strong hymn—the Alakhpurījī Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā hymn. That’s why it has such power; it is like a hymn throughout Śrī Alakhpurījī’s paramparā. These are five words, and they are all five names of God. The first is Oṁ, clear for everyone: the sound form of God, Nādarūpa Parabrahma, the origin of the whole creation. The second word is Brahma—to be clear, Brahma without a long “r” at the end—that is the formless aspect of God, the highest consciousness, Nirguṇa Brahma. The third word is Śiva; every Śivarātri Swāmījī gives long lectures about Śiva as the highest God. The fourth word is Alakha, which of course refers to the name Śrī Alakhpurījī. Lakṣaṇa means what you can perceive with any sense organ—you can hear it, see it, touch it. Alakha means you cannot perceive it, and therefore you cannot describe it at all. Everything in this physical world we can describe, but Alakha is beyond. Alakha is the quality of God, and the same with Anādi. Ādi is the beginning, but Anādi means beginningless, and beginningless means, of course, also endless—eternal. So what here, what you can see around, is eternal? What is beginningless and endless? Nothing. Part 2: The Hymn of the Guru Paramparā: A Discourse on the Bhajan of Śrī Alakhpurījī So it is actually as if we sing: God, God, God. That is the power of this mantra, I would say—this refrain. And the second line refers directly to Śrī Alakhpurījī: _Śrī Alakh Purījī kī Avichal Gāḍī_. This is the throne, the seat. We can say Swāmījī is sitting on the Gāḍī. When we hear the word Gāḍī, we think first of all of a physical seat, a physical throne. But this idea is immediately destroyed through the word _Avichal_—Avichal Gāḍī, that which does not move, which does not change. That means it is again eternal, divine. No physical throne is eternal. Therefore, it is said the Guru Tattva is the highest Tattva. So this Guru Tattva, this consciousness, this divine consciousness expressed in all these words— _Om Brahma Śiva Alakha Anādi_ —that is actually the position of the Alakh Purījī Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā. This divine consciousness, which describes all these words—Om, Śiva, and so on—is in fact the seed of our Guru Paramparā, Alakhpurījī’s Paramparā. It may be interesting to know why Holī Gurujī actually wrote this bhajan. It was an inspiration of Swāmījī. Swāmījī had asked Holī Gurujī to write a bhajan about Śrī Alakhpurījī, and the result was this one, which we just sang. Then I went to Holī Gurujī and spoke with him and said, “This is actually very nice, what you wrote. It is about our Guru Paramparā. But didn’t Swāmījī ask for a bhajana about Śrī Alakhpurījī?” When I said this, Holī Gurujī remembered that Swāmījī had actually said something more. He said, “Yes, it’s true. Swāmījī actually said, ‘On the melody of Jyotā Siddhotā, I should write.’” And the fact was that Holī Gurujī didn’t even know Jyotā Siddhotā. So then I wrote for Holī Gurujī the text of Jyotā Siddhotā, and I sang it for him a few times. Holī Gurujī was not just a guru; he was also a perfect musician and a perfect poet. Within no time, he picked that up and created a second bhajan—or actually a prayer—which is now really on the melody of “Jyotā Siddhotā.” I always say, be careful with that prayer. I personally keep it for very special occasions, because when you know the meaning, you know why. It says, “O Alakhpurījī, please come.” Can you imagine He would come here now? Are we actually ready enough? So let us go back to this bhajan. It is a bhajan about the Alakhpurījī Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā and about our gurus. The refrain is about Śrī Alakhpurījī. The first verse is then about Śrī Devpurījī. His disciple was Śiva Deva Purījī. _Unke śiṣya_ means his disciple was. Now he doesn’t say just Śrī Devpurījī; he says Śiva Devpurījī—Śiva, the highest god—and _Kailāśa Patiḥ Śaṅkara Ādi_. So he is the Lord of Mount Kailāśa. He is the Ādi Śaṅkara. Śaṅkara is another name for God Śiva; Ādi Śaṅkara, and Ādi—we already had Ādi and Anādi. Ādi means the beginning, the first, the original. He is the original Śiva. The second verse is about Mahāprabhujī: _Unke śiṣya Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ_. So his disciple, Devpurījī’s disciple, was Mahāprabhujī. _Brahmāgyān Divyā Unkī Prasādī_—he gave as a prasād the divine Brahmāgyān, that is, the knowledge of God, the God-realization. _Paramapada Pāyā Re Satta Guru Ke Praśāt_—the highest state of consciousness, enlightenment, I received from Mahāprabhujī just as a praśāt. This bhajan is made by Holī Gurujī, so this feeling again comes into the bhajan. Now the third verse is about Holī Gurujī. But this is written by Holī Gurujī, so of course that is a problem for him: how should he write about himself? He solves the problem in a very humble way—he describes himself just as a channel of this divine energy. _Śrī Madhavānandanī Mahādhanapāya_—I have received from Mahāprabhujī, from my Guru, the Mahādhan, the great wealth, the great treasure. I got it as a prasāda, as a Guru Kṛpā. So I received this mercy, _kṛpā bharasārī_. So now I myself give this mercy, this kṛpā, further to my disciples. It is actually the attitude of, with one hand receiving, with the other hand giving. He expresses exactly what we always sing in the mantra: _Nāhaṁ Kartā_—I am not actually the actor; it does not come from me. What I receive from my master, from the paramparā, I just give on. In this sense, a guru paramparā is actually just like a chain. Now he writes about Swāmījī. We know that he likes to write about Swāmījī, as in the bhajan “_Juga Juga Jīvo Maheśvarānanda_.” And for Swāmījī, he gives two verses now. _Mahā Śiva Yoga Śrī Maheśvarānanda_—again he emphasizes the Śiva. This is what he also did when he wrote the bhajan about Swāmījī on the occasion of his birthday. As an introduction to that long bhajan, which we will sing in August, “Jai Jai Śrī Maheśvarānandajī Mahārāj,” he wrote a dohā, a mantra: _Siddha Gyānī Siddhi Yogī Rāj, Bharat Bhūmi Prabhu Ānand, Śrī Maheśvarānandajī Mahārāj._ What he has to say about Swāmījī as a Śiva, he puts here in a nutshell. It refers to the events we know from Līlā Amṛt: the two times the coming of a great guru, as a great incarnation, was actually announced—once by Śrī Devpurījī, right at the beginning of the book, and later by Mahāprabhujī as well. Śiva Loka—Lord Śiva sent Gyāṇīsiddh Yogīrāj, a yogīrāj, a master of yoga you can say, a perfect one and a wise one. He incarnated in India, _Bharat_, meaning India, as Śrī Maheśvarānandajī Mahārāj, and that is our Swamijī, our Viśvagurujī. So here he again emphasizes that Swāmījī is actually an incarnation of Lord Śiva, which his name already says: Mahā Īśvara. _Mahā Śiva Yogī Śrī Maheśvarānanda, Suśobhit karī Gurujī kī Gāḍī_. Here comes the word Gāḍī again, which we had in the refrain—meaning the throne, the position, the reputation, you can say. Holī Gurujī wrote about himself in a very humble way: that just what with one hand he received, with the other hand he passed further, is Guru Kṛpā. But about our Swāmījī, he writes differently—he does not just continue that; he changed something. So the reputation, the power, the shining increased so much through him. We may ask: what did Swāmījī do that was so special that he could write that? The answer comes in the next verse: _Sāre viśva meṃ prakāśa bhayā_—and the divine light now, the light of Alakhpurījī, Śiva and so on, is now in the whole world. It is a fact that Swāmījī, for more than forty years now, has been traveling all around the world, teaching and spreading the teaching of Swāmījī and Mahāprabhujī. And therefore Swāmījī received the respectful title Viśvagurujī. But again, we must be clear: _Viśva_ is not just this earth, our planet. Viśva means the universe—the master of the whole universe. The Master influences other lokas as well. _Sabha kumilī satya Śiva kī yādī_—so the memory, the teaching of the true Śiva, came now through Swāmījī to everyone. This teaching became known all around the world, and that is a new quality. And now he comes to us, the devotees: _Bhakta Jan Mela Karatī Pūjā_. The devotees of this Guru Paramparā all together now do the pūjā, they praise, they pray, they worship. _Unkī Jyoti Brahma Jyoti meṃ milādī_—this reminds us a little of _Jyotā Siddhotā Jagāvo_, doesn’t it? He says the light of the devotees is in this way merging into the divine light. Whoever connects with this Guru Paramparā, with this divine teaching, in the end it flows to us and through us. Now in the last verse, we know that always the one who writes the bhajan puts his name like a stamp. But when we look, there is no Holī Gurujī’s name. Instead, he writes: _Ganeś Purī ānanda se gāve_. Ganeś Purī is singing this bhajan full of joy. I asked Holī Gurujī why he didn’t write his own name there. It was, of course, very clear, because it is against the tradition. The tradition is that our duty is to praise the Guru, not to praise ourselves or maybe our disciples. But here Holī Gurujī writes about himself and about his disciple, Swāmījī. So from this point of view, he couldn’t give his original name. And then I argued with Holī Gurujī and said, “But you also wrote the bhajan ‘_Juga Juga Jīvo Maheśvarānanda_’ about Swāmījī, which we love so much, and there you wrote your name.” Then Holī Gurujī explained, “No, that is not praising Swāmījī; it is giving blessing for Swāmījī—that he may live long and long, and his teaching may continue.” And that was a blessing to us. Swāmījī is still here, and still, without getting tired, going on and on, teaching and teaching. This was Holī Gurujī’s blessing to Swāmījī and to us. So Ganeś Purī, who is Holī Gurujī, sings this bhajan full of joy. Those who listen to this bhajan—and of course also understand and truly follow it—are the fortunate ones. They have very good karma. This whole bhajan was a blessing actually to Swāmījī, to us, to the whole Guru Paramparā. We are very blessed that Holī Gurujī wrote this bhajan, which now can become like the hymn of Śrī Alakh Purījī Siddha Pīṭh Paramparā. And so we are glad that Gurujī wrote this bhajan, which can become a hymn of our entire Guru Paramparā. _Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān kī jai! Śrī Maheśvarānandajī Guru Dev kī jai!_ Thank you, Gajānanjī. Very nice that everyone got more clear knowledge about Guru Paramparā. And this goes very far, to the ages. From the Satyuga time, in the Himalayas itself, there is evidence of our Guru Paramparā, and that is Alakhpurījī. There is a very nice book written by one great poet that describes Alakhpurījī. As the very clear evidence was given by Gurujī, because Gurujī knew Mahāprabhujī, and Mahāprabhujī told many things to Gurujī. And of course all the bhajans of Mahāprabhujī are dedicated in the name of Devpurījī. Devpurījī brought the message, the prasāda blessing, of Śrī Alakhpurījī. So we are connected to that time of Desert Yoga. But still, those ṛṣis and yogīs are there. God is there; God never dies. God is God. All are there. And we also will not die. We are also immortal ātmā. We are immortal ātmā. The difference between you and me is this: I know, and you don’t know. So Gurujī knew, as Mahāprabhujī knew. Devpurījī knew, and so Alakhpurījī is there. And it is not that I declare—who am I to declare? So we don’t have to give some evidence that I met some yogī there, and it was like this and like that, and he came to his dream and like this, he’s living in the Himalayas. Not like this. Even Alakhpurījī is known as a king, and that whole area is called the kingdom of Alakhpurījī. Definitely, there were many ṛṣis and yogīs who were his disciples. But we still don’t know it. But this gādī, this holy seat—why empty so long? Many have no Guru Pūjā. They have their guru. They have a side picture of their guru. But they are doing many other kinds of sādhanās, some tantric, some Śakti, Devī Pūjā, many different things. So in the Kumbha Melā also, you will see very rarely those high-title sādhus. They don’t even talk about their guru. But our paramparā is alive. In our whole camp at Kumbha Melā, we have a Śiva liṅgam in the name of our Guru, our lineage, and Śiva. So the time has come that you all came back. Where have you been? Maybe lost in the kingdom of Alakhpurījī. Who knows how many ṛṣis you are? Now you are awakening again. You are thinking, “Oh, I was there, I am like that, I am like this.” Sometimes you will see here, you remember—Swāmījī gave the hint. So we have come again. As I told you last year, you remember, on the Guru Pūrṇimā time. Let us all work to bring the Satya Yuga and end the Kali Yuga, to bring the Satya Yuga. You have all come for Satya Yuga. What could be more Satya Yuga than this? We are sitting here in Satya Yuga, but how? You are all spiritual bhaktas, all guru bhaktas, all have pure hearts, all are doing sādhanā. We are here doing no hiṁsā; all we are doing is ahiṁsā, peaceful time, nobody fights, nobody is jealous. So what can be more Satya Yuga than this? But we are spreading more and more—so the end of Kali Yuga and the beginning of Satya Yuga. We have to carry this. We will come back, and we will continue. Thank you, all the best, and now we will have prayer. Thank you. Dīp Nām Bhagavān.