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Pilgrimage

The essence of pilgrimage is an inner journey, distinct from external trekking. Trekking focuses on gear and terrain, while pilgrimage is about devotion and inner feeling. The physical path is secondary to walking with mantra and spiritual intent. Preparation is not physical training but cultivating presence through sādhānā and satsaṅg. The journey begins from one's home with meditation. Travel lightly, releasing material worries and mental planning into a state of trust. Observing devoted pilgrims reveals patience and joy, not schedules or complaints. Satsaṅg is the supreme preparation, transforming the practitioner more than any physical effort. Life itself is a pilgrimage best traveled without unnecessary burdens.

"You only need to breathe. Everything else is in the hands of God."

"I am going to my beloved... with joy and with love."

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

I want to share something very important to me. At all times, try to hold in your mind that this is not trekking; it is a pilgrimage. There is a vast difference between trekking and pilgrimage. Trekking is connected to everything external: your shoes, your physical condition, your jacket, the weather forecast, and the map. A pilgrimage, however, is connected to your inner feelings. When you speak and think about this pilgrimage to Śrī Alakpurījī’s cave, try to cultivate a more spiritual idea, less of a trekking idea. Of course, you need shoes. Of course, you need some physical condition for such a journey. But what will you do with all that if you lack the inner feeling and devotion? If you have only a trekking mindset, you may be disappointed because the path is not so hard, not so high, and you will not feel you have conquered something. You might say, "It was not enough." But if you know why you are going up—that this is the root of our school, the place where Śrī Alakpurījī was and still is—and if you walk with the feeling that every step is taken with your mantra, then we will have a real pilgrimage. Remember how often Swāmījī has spoken about how to go on pilgrimage. You go with that feeling, walking, and every step is with your mantra. And when you walk—or, I will say, even when you drive—to your pilgrimage site, because your pilgrimage starts from Delhi. It starts even better from the Web, from your own country. For now you begin not by thinking about shoes and walking up and down stairs, but with your meditation, your prāṇāyāma, and your everyday sādhānā. When you start traveling on that road, which goes up and down and in circles—I joked with Sādhvī Ānandī that it is like preparation for an astronaut, with the altitude constantly changing from 1,000 to 2,000 meters, then 500 to 2,000—you go up and down by bus, and you go in circles. The only difference is that you are doing it all under G1, gravity 1. Though sometimes, when a car takes a curve, you feel it’s at G5! You feel the gravity is one and a half or two. How you experience this pilgrimage, whether by bus or car, also depends on your attitude. Will you be someone who complains constantly—needing food, a toilet, water, air, something—or will you be a yogī? If you observe other Indians on pilgrimage, you will see a great difference between them and Europeans or Westerners. They have immense patience, while we often have little. We constantly need a schedule. When you start from Delhi, try not to think about anything. Just try to enjoy. Try to cultivate your inner feeling without fear, without "what will be," without planning "what to do now or tomorrow." Just put everything in the hands of God. In Badrināth, we met one paṇḍit. We stayed in his house; he is about 75, a young man. He told me, "Next time I will go with you to Satopan, much, much farther than the Alakpurījī cave." And he said, "You don’t need anything. You really don’t need anything. You only need to breathe. Everything else is in the hands of God." That is the idea, that is the feeling of the bhakta, and that is the feeling of pilgrimage. If you think about altitude, shoes, and all that, you are starting to go trekking. But if you go with joy... We saw one sādhu and his companion walking from Badrināth to Manā. It is a beautiful walk, but they were walking with such feeling that it had a real influence on us. They were walking, chanting kīrtan. This sannyāsī would sing the first part, and the other would repeat. But not in a mundane way—"Oṃ Namaḥ Śivāya, Śivāya"—no. It was full of joy, like a dance. Pure joy. "I am going to my beloved." Without worry, without anything, but with joy and with love. That is pilgrimage. All other thoughts spoil this. As Swāmījī said, some thoughts are like putting lemon in milk. And not tomorrow, but now. If you go, really try to take the lemon out. Don't carry lemons with you to India or to Badrināth. From now on, forget the lemon and don't take it with you. That is the most important thing. This retreat seminar in Anusthān is the best preparation for pilgrimage. It is far better preparation than going somewhere to a tree grove and walking ten kilometers every day. Because with this seminar, by being with Viśvagurujī, we are changing ourselves—or rather, Viśvagurujī is changing us. Kilograms of lemon are simply disappearing from our lives. Always remember that we have the opportunity to be merely an observer, like the two old men from the Muppet Show, or we can be in the action, in the situation, enjoying and working through it. Really, just be like those two guys from the Muppets. You know the faces of such people. They don't have just lemon inside; they have limetta too. Very bitter. Grape? Yes. If you are worried about how to prepare for the pilgrimage while you are in Strelka or on the Web, don't worry. Satsaṅg with Viśvagurujī is the best preparation. We were five weeks at the Kumbh Melā, and all the physical strength we built up beforehand simply disappeared there. At the Kumbh Melā you are not practicing so much, you are not walking so much; you are mostly sitting. But the atmosphere of the Kumbh Melā—to be at the Kumbh Melā but with Viśvagurujī—that is what changes you and prepares you for such a journey. To be with Viśvagurujī, this is what changes you. Don't worry if you go to Strelka and immediately think, "Yes, in every break I will go walk in the forest." In that moment, you are not on the seminar; you are preparing for trekking. Be on the seminar. Be in the satsaṅg. Enjoy the satsaṅg. That is the best preparation for everything in our life. Satsaṅg is the best preparation in life. We continue with the singing of bhajans. God bless you. Oṃ Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya... Bhajo dīpadāya re, bhajo re mānavā... Daryo jagame ke pratipā, jīvo ke pratipā... Kar bahāra he paripūraṇa, jyoti he viśva... Jaya Bhavānī!... Akṣā kārta-siṇāiva-tādāra-tādāra-tādāliyā-tādārā-tādārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā-tārā... God bless you! God bless you!... God bless you. If we are constantly surrounded by many things, we cannot focus on the lecture or the present situation; we are too busy taking care of our stuff. I once saw a historical documentary about pilgrimage. In medieval Europe, there were many pilgrimages—to Jerusalem, throughout Spain—people were always traveling. But the secret to being able to make a pilgrimage was about luggage: travel light. The moment people started traveling with a lot of luggage, they could not travel as quickly or as far. That is our life. If you have so many things and are always taking care of them, you are not free. Even if you have your house in order, you are not free. "I'm going to Strelka for three weeks. Who will take care of my flowers?" We are always tending to our material stuff. Yesterday we talked about shoes. We enter a temple and worry about our shoes. On pilgrimage, we are always worrying about our things, while on a true pilgrimage, our thoughts are focused on where we are going. One very important announcement: Swāmījī will arrive shortly, but not now. He will come early in the afternoon. We will announce the exact time at the beginning of the three-hour period. Everyone should come to the Yoganidrā session during that three-hour period at the Akāśa, and we will announce when and where he will come at 3 o'clock, here in this hall. The same announcement will be made at the Kriyā group about exactly when Swāmījī will come. Now we should continue the satsaṅg happily, with a light heart. We will get the information about Swāmījī’s arrival at three o'clock in this hall or at the Kriyā place. Okay, now we know Swāmījī will not come now, but we will know in three hours when he will arrive. We will continue with the satsaṅg. If we travel without so many things—not only on this pilgrimage but through our life—you will see you have fewer and fewer problems. What we talked about yesterday was traveling light. Our life is a journey. If we try to travel through life with fewer things, we will be free and able to move much more quickly. Do you remember what Swāmījī mentioned about pizza? What is moha? When you have a cheese pizza and you take a slice, and it is near your mouth but the cheese is still connected to the pizza... that is moha. Symbolically, we are all surrounded by this stream of pizza, this cheese, and we are like flies in a spider's web. Because of that, really try not to decide, "From September, I will clean my house," but try from now. Try to reduce the many things that are not important. A few years ago, a man from my yoga class went on the Camino pilgrimage in Spain. He told me something very nice: on that path, you see many things left behind not because they are heavy to carry, but because they are not needed. People just leave stuff by the side of the road. Someone asked him, "Do you take something?" He said, "No, I don't need this," as the items carried some strange energy. It would be wonderful if our path, our life, were similar—if we could just walk and leave behind the things that are unimportant to us. If our life were like that, leaving the unimportant behind at once, we would realize what easy travel is. You know, when you must board an Indian train with a lot of luggage—a backpack and two suitcases—how will you get in? But if you have one piece of luggage, you will enter and exit very easily. That is also our life. We will travel through life very easily, not in moha, not like a fly in a spider's web. Therefore, try to be... you don't need so much stuff. You need your pillow, maybe your documents. In case you don't want to leave them in the car, and you are free... A bhajan book—it would be better to have a bhajan book here, but okay, you have yours. We are free. We will have two more bhajans, and with that, we will finish the satsaṅg. Let's sing two more bhajans, and then we'll finish.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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