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Om sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ, sarve santu nirāmayāḥ, sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu, mā kaścid duḥkha bhāgbhavet, om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ. Salutation to the cosmic light, Lord of our hearts, omniscient and omnipresent, in the divine light of the Supreme. Good evening, dear sisters and brothers. I am happy to be here again in our Yoga and Dead Life Center. Our dear sisters, Prem Śakti, Jyoti, Prem Jyoti, and Sevā Devī, are taking care of the center. The founders are our dear Bhajānānanda, Asunta, and Kiran. Other devotees are also maintaining the center and teaching yoga. Happy to see you all. Welcome. It is a beautiful, nice day, and it is raining again. Our vegetation needs water. In the last fourteen days, I began another journey around the world, and unfortunately, in Atlanta, I got caught. Sometimes the body is up and down, but the ātmā, the soul, the spirit, is all the time on the higher level. Welcome to you. Our subject is always yoga. Many of you know about yoga, many do not—perhaps only postures. You know that the United Nations has announced the International Day of Yoga on the 21st of June, and this time they gave the subject: "Yoga for Body and Beyond." This title, "and beyond," makes it easier for a yoga teacher to choose any subject. We have to understand our body first, according to yoga. The body is not everything, but everything is nothing without the body. Āyurveda, one of the most ancient medical systems from the Satyuga, says the first happiness is a healthy body, or the first wealth is good health. Nothing can be compared. With money, we cannot buy health; we have to gain it, to achieve it. When the body is healthy, our mind is less restless and becomes balanced. When the mind is balanced or controlled, then our senses and emotions are balanced. When the emotions are balanced, we can concentrate better, and concentration develops. Then we know what awareness is. Awareness leads to our soul and our intellect. Intellect is a ton of theory, which is nothing compared to a gram of practice. Intellect is theory; awareness and concentration are practice. So again, we come back to our body. When the intellect becomes very positive, very pure, crystal clear, then our consciousness is crystal clear. Consciousness is everything within our body or within our own phenomenon. Consciousness exists at many different levels: unconscious, subconscious, conscious, higher conscious, super conscious, and God consciousness. That is how quality and purity develop. All this again comes back to the body. When something happens to the body, the whole game is finished. We do not know where our consciousness is, where our awareness is, where our concentration is—everything. Then a different body takes over. It does not let go; it does not get lost. But then, in a different world, as soon as a soul leaves the body, you can imagine with closed eyes a flame going into space at very high speed, like the small flame on the altar. Our soul does not look left or right; it goes straight, trying to go towards the light of the sun. It dissolves in the sun, but it is not easy to reach the sun. There are so many obstacles. But still, we are here in the body. Yoga for the body is first for yoga. Patañjali, who wrote the yoga philosophy a few hundred years before Christ, said yoga begins with discipline. When our life becomes disciplined, this is yoga, this is happiness, this is joy, and this is a happy life. So, do we have that discipline to follow? Sometimes it is very difficult. You may have a discipline to go to sleep every day at 9:30, but sometimes something happens and you must go here and there. Your discipline is gone; you cannot sleep. So, flexibility is always good. Tolerance is not for mistakes, but tolerance exists as a mechanism. We need this space. Our life is very practical, and we are all the masters of our life. Just a little change in our life, and we will be happy, healthy, and everything. Physical postures are good; they develop energy, muscles, activities, ligaments, glands, organs, etc. It is very important. So, today and tomorrow, we will take a subject: prāṇa is the source of life. Do you know what prāṇa is? Who does not know? I will take five minutes more. Who does not know about prāṇa? I see some people raising their hands. Do not sigh; we are at home. Because yoga is for body and beyond, I have a very nice free subject, which, of course, connects to the body. Generally, we speak of three bodies: the physical body, mental body, and subtle body. In yoga, there are five different kinds of bodies, called kośas: Annamaya kośa (the body of nourishment), Prāṇamaya kośa (the body of energy), Manomaya kośa (the mental body), Vijñānamaya kośa (the intellectual body), and Ānandamaya kośa (the causal body). In these five bodies, one layer after another, is the soul—what we call the seed. Whatever happens to our physical body happens first in our astral bodies: the mental bodies, causal bodies. Slowly, it develops and comes to the physical body. So, all diseases we have, except some flu or similar, come from our unnecessary fear. For example, thinking, "My grandfather had cancer, and now I am getting old; maybe this is my family." It must not be. Fear takes away our willpower and energy. Fear brings anxiety, constantly troubling our body, but we are not aware. When we become aware, we will see when such a disease is appearing. Before that, we can give a self-suggestion, an instruction to ourselves, to remove those diseases with prāṇa. So today we will speak about prāṇa. Prāṇa is the source of life. Without prāṇa, we cannot live. As long as this plant gets oxygen, nutrition, and light, it needs everything; there is life, and that is prāṇa. When there is no more prāṇa supplying this plant, it will die. We also need prāṇa, and we get this prāṇa from different sources. There are two kinds of prāṇa: one from the material world, and the second from the cosmic world. That is called the cosmic mother supplying energy to her child. It does not matter which creature it is, from the very small ant to the elephant. It is that Divine Mother who supplies this energy; that is life. It is very hard to understand or make the distinction between the soul and prāṇa. When someone dies, we say the prāṇa is gone or the soul is gone. If the soul is gone, prāṇa is gone; if the prāṇa is gone, the soul is gone. Prāṇa and the soul have a very close relationship. You are yourself, what you say, who you are: ātmā. Your body is. You are not your body, you are not your thoughts, you are not your mind. But you are living in this body, and we know where it is living. If you want to know where our soul is living, we can make an experiment to find out. Should we try? Theory is nothing without practice. Let us try. You will be very happy to know where your soul is. First, you can tell where your soul is. After the experiment, you will say, "Yes, that answers it." I will not tell you where the soul is. It could be on your head, elbows, knees, stomach—I do not know. I will not tell you, but it is within this body somewhere. Should we make an experiment? Yes, that is a good idea. Look, I will ask to whom this postcard belongs. You have different kinds of answers: verbally, indicating, or touching. When I ask you, "Where are you?" you will say, "Here I am." Now I want the third answer: not vocal, not indicating, but touching the body. "Here I am. Here is my soul. Here am I." So now, please raise your index finger. Close your eyes; do not open them, because if you open, you will be imitating. For example, I am asking you, to whom does this postcard belong? Keep your eyes closed, and with your index finger, touch your body where you say, "It is me, here I am, here is myself." Touch there, but do not open your eyes. Stay there. Now open your eyes and look where your hand is, but do not remove the finger. Look at your neighbors; where are their hands? Thank you. So, the answer is there? Yes. Automatically, we said, "It is here," meaning our real self, our soul, is in the heart. The heart is constantly beating and is very loyal to us. Whether we are swimming, diving, running, skiing, driving, sleeping, dancing, or climbing, it does not matter; our heart is constantly beating. That is why our heart is very dear. The heart is very loyal to us, but we do not pay attention. Did you ever say to your heart, "Please relax today"? Or say, "For one weekend, you can take a holiday"? The heart will say, "No, I am not going anywhere. I am comfortable; I do my duties." So the heart is always present with our prāṇa and our whole body. When we speak about Kuṇḍalinī yoga and chakras, we talk about nerves. Tomorrow, maybe we will talk on that subject. In our body, there are 72,000 nerves. It is a network of very fine, gentle nerves. They are so fine that if you touch them, they will break. Among these, four nāḍīs are most important, balancing all 72,000. Two are connected with both nostrils: the sympathetic and parasympathetic. The second is connected to the central nerves, called suṣumnā. The third is the most powerful, balancing the whole body, like an earthing cable for a building. That is called vajranāḍī. You sit in Vajrāsana sometimes when doing the Marjārī posture. Vajra Nāḍī controls brain hemorrhage as well as heart attack. That nāḍī is so powerful, always taking care of our immunity. It begins between the big toe and second toe and comes upward. These four nāḍīs are very important, and we should keep them clean with prāṇāyāma and postures. Then prāṇa will stimulate equally. Every gland, nerve, muscle, ligament, and cell needs to be supplied. This comes from our nourishment and nutrition—what we nowadays call organic. Four or five decades ago, nobody talked about organic. New Zealand is very organic and nice. Now there is a situation where honeybees die, and no scientist can make honey like a honeybee brings. No scientist can make one drop of blood like our body does. We know all the lineages of our ancestors. No scientist can make it; that is the divine work of the Supreme, or God. Our body is balanced in such a beautiful way; we must understand and support it as much as we can. Love your body. First, good food, healthy food, light food, and also what you drink. If you put petrol in a diesel engine, it will destroy the engine. This engine, the heart, is made for nice, clean water or milk. If you put alcohol inside, many organs suffer. Our body does not accept it, but our habit is like that. We come back to energy. Prāṇa is the source of life. What kind of energy? We behave, think, and work according to it. So, one source of prāṇa is from all kinds of nourishment, solid and liquid. The second is from company and society. If you live with people using drugs, sooner or later you will also. If you sit with someone drinking alcohol, you will also try. Jaisā kare saṅg, vaisā lage raṅg: the company you keep, that color you will take. Jaisā khāye annā, vaisā rahe man: what kind of food you eat, that will be your way of thinking. Jaisā pīye pānī, vaisī bole bānī: what kind of liquid you drink, like that you will speak. Our body needs pure quality, pure energy. Then, finally, the highest and best is cosmic energy. That is what the cosmic mother gives. What mother gives, no one else can give. The Upaniṣad says God is first mother. The father is equally there, but still, the mother energy is mother energy. That mother energy is not like a physical mother. I love my mother, but I love that cosmic mother. That cosmic mother is a light that comes from above, with intuition and blessings. Prāṇa is like our soul; we live from it. When it leaves the body, no matter how many injections you take or what pure food you eat, nothing will function. That is divine. Whether you believe or not does not change the reality. There is a cosmic mother, but she does not have a physical form like we do. Energy is called śakti, and śakti is feminine; that is why we call it mother. But in spirituality, in divine consciousness at the highest level, there are no differences about genders. There is only one; it does not matter if it is male or female in this physical body. God consciousness is one. She can have it, and he can have it. This pure energy begins to come to our body again, and we take love consciously. Then our future becomes very bright. Our health develops, our happiness, our self-confidence. There is nothing to do, no very hard work for that. You have it. Now use it or lose it. That is your choice. How to use this? Some techniques and becoming aware about it—that is all. That is the fine part of yoga, to lead us into the very higher qualities of our living, so our human life is successful, we are healthy, and we can understand and love all creatures. We must practice physical postures. We will do prāṇāyāma and meditation tomorrow so you will understand more, as it is connected to prāṇa. Postures are also without competition or challenges. If someone says, "I will win," we say, "Okay, first you go, you will win, and then I will come to congratulate you." We have no competitions. When you are going through a lift and another person is there, you say, "Sir, please, first you," or "Ladies first." That is our culture. We have no competition to win a gold medal. It does not matter; I can have an iron medal. An iron medal will not be stolen; gold can be stolen. So always: no competition and no challenges. You are the best one. I do not want to challenge you; you are great. I adore you; you are humble. Peace enters our heart and others'. As soon as we make competition and challenges, it creates enemies, anger, and greed. That should not be. So, no yoga posture should be done that is very hard. Do not harm your ligaments, nerve systems, bones, or muscles. Do not overdo; do as comfortably as you can. Finally, it is like this: no matter how much we do or how well we eat, one day we will die. Limitation is there. But we pray to God: "Please, Lord, take us as happy and comfortable as we are to you, so we do not suffer. We are not afraid of the days, but we are afraid of how we will die." When cosmic energy enters us, all fear is gone; we are happy. Tomorrow we will do this. Now, if you have any questions, we have 15 minutes. Hari Om. Dīptār Bhagavān. Oṁ Śāntiḥ. Śāntiḥ. Śāntiḥ.