TV Channel

Welcome, all bhaktas—practitioners of yoga in daily life, seekers of spirituality and self-realisation—to this yoga seminar, or yoga retreat. The Yoga in Daily Life retreats have been held since 1972. You can imagine how many have learned, practised, and gone on to teach further around the world. Yoga in daily life means to lead life according to the principles of yoga. The first principle of yoga, according to Maharṣi Patañjali, is: “Atha yoga anuśāsanam”—yoga begins with discipline. When we observe nature—the flow of rivers, the water, the different creatures, birds, animals or fish—we see that all have their discipline. Yes, they do have discipline. For example, as soon as the sun sets, each and every bird flies to its nest. It is said that even the animals and birds remember God at the time of dawn, as well as at sunset. We don’t understand their language; otherwise we would know. But they know our language. The animals know very well our every movement, our thoughts, and so on. Even a very wild dog, if you approach it with harmony and love, will not bite you. So, nature follows discipline. But we humans have lost that discipline of human life. We are searching too much for the outer world, for material things. One holy saint said to God: “O God, give me that much so I can feed my family what they need. I can feed them and also myself—I cannot remain hungry. And any saint or any guest who comes to my door should not go empty-handed. That’s all. As much as we collect beyond that will be a burden.” When we are young, we build many houses and apartments, and we buy a lot of souvenirs from different parts of the world. But one day you will see the souvenirs have become dust-collectors. And you will have nobody to clean these souvenirs. And to whom will you give them? Because they were very expensive. There are many confused thoughts in the human brain. Day by day we load ourselves with burdens. And day by day we have different desires, vṛttis. It is only that vṛtti which destroys humans—destroys human qualities. There is a discipline. Animals also have it. Certain animals do not eat certain things; they don’t search for certain things. But humans have lost control over their tongue, the taste. These indriyās—the senses, five senses of knowledge and five senses of action—karma indriyās and jñāna indriyās—animals also possess, in certain quantity, all these ten senses and the ten desires. But animals have them under control. There is a particular time when the birds lay their eggs. The particular things that animals give to their young—they have the time. But humans have no time; they are lost. That discipline has been lost so far that humans lack even animal feelings. Therefore it is said, “Atha yoga anuśāsanam”—the disciplined life. If you would like to be happy, then be disciplined. Sometimes, out of our ignorance, or greed, or desires, or jealousy, we do things that bring us into certain diseases—mental, emotional, physical. So yoga is the science of body, mind, and soul. Yoga says: “Limit, limit, and become slow. Don’t run so quickly.” We are running day and night, whereas in the old days we only walked. Then we found horses and oxen, and camels, and we ran with them. After someone invented a bicycle, we ran with the bike. Then we got a motor on the bike, then a car. And now we have aeroplanes and rockets. Where do we want to go? Running and running. There is no thought of stopping. Slow down, slow down. When we reach the mid-life crisis, then we think, “Oh God, I lost. I did not get this. I could have earned this diploma. I could have had this position. I could have earned more money. I could have had a better partner.” This is called a mid-life crisis. And then, every decade, we are sorry for the life we lost. And then finally we are so sorry that we did not do what we should have done, as a human should do. Mahāprabhujī said in the bhajan, “Manva Diri.” So, slow your speed. Slow your speed, and if we slow our speed, we will have a long life. What kind of speed? Running behind materialism, running behind desires. Your breathing—sometimes even when you try to help someone, they are not capable of control because they are out of breath. When you try to hold your cap, your trousers fall down. You hold your trousers, but your shirt falls. So, we are broken into many parts. Your heart—sometimes people say, “My heart is broken.” I am totally broken. Why? Because you were not slow. We did not think what the results would be. And that is why we come to the practice. In yoga and in life, we have the practice of meditation. What is the first effect of that yoga and life meditation? It is to calm down. And feel your organs: your liver, your kidneys, your pancreas, your intestines, your heart, your circulation. We don’t know how much we are damaging these organs in the body by not taking care of our way of living. We are losing memory. We are losing balance and strength in our joints. Nowadays, how many people have artificial joints of the knees, the hips? And problems with the spinal column? We see ourselves suffering. It’s like someone is suffering with full pain, and we can’t help. Similarly, it is our own body, and we have certain diseases in the body, and we are suffering; we can’t help ourselves. Nowadays, these modern diseases—first is cancer. Sugar, pressure, memory loss—many things. Still it is not too late; we can help ourselves. Then it’s called stress. So, the meditation technique of yoga and life is, first, to calm down the function of your organs. Bring that discipline: what time you should sleep, what time you should wake up, what time you should eat, and what time you should work. Don’t compare with me. What I am saying is opposite to myself. But my life is different. I am moving like a boomerang around the world, yet my organs, my everything, is in balance. Because I am giving, I am giving. So when you give, you get some kind of energy back. Otherwise, come and follow me for two or three years, and you will die earlier. The jet lag is all the time in my pocket. Anyhow, the second level is that you get balance of your body, and relax. Then you can better concentrate. Otherwise, we are workaholics. And a workaholic is as bad as an alcoholic. People say, “I have no time.” Gurujī used to say, “You have time, but you have no feeling to give the time.” If you are a smoker, it doesn’t matter how busy you are, you will have time to smoke. If they do not allow you to smoke in the office, you will find a balcony, or you will go somewhere. If you are an alcoholic, it doesn’t matter what, you will find the time to drink. And if you drink coffee, you always have time to drink your coffee. Then why can’t we take time, even ten minutes, for our inner self? And that is what we have in yoga and in life. In that meditation, we call it balance—coordinating the body and breath. Kāya-sthairya, the motionlessness of the body. To pay attention to your breath. It is beautiful, this technique which we are doing. It will harmonise, relax, and give prāṇa, the energy, to the body. And this is what we are going to teach and learn in this seminar, and which we have been teaching many times, and which many of you are practising every day. But the body will never lie. Your body can see—I can see if you practise every day or not. And I can see your vṛttis, if you have been practising or not. You have time for nonsense things, but not for five minutes for your own body. Because you have so many desires—vṛttis, vṛttis, vṛttis. And when your vṛtti is restless, it is that very wild horse which you cannot control. Similarly, you cannot concentrate, relax, and sit peacefully with your work, your family life, your own self, your health, and pay attention to your neighbours and relations to this world. And that is the second step of that meditation technique. But there is stress, full of this stress. And that is called self-inquiry meditation. Everything is within us. Do not blame anyone. If you blame someone, you will get more bad karma. If you think badly, you are loading more karmas on yourself. So therefore, Gandhijī said once, “Renounce and enjoy.” Enjoy, renounce, and enjoy. Give up. For example, you have a lot of money. And many friends would like to borrow money from you. And many humanitarian projects and NGOs come to you and ask for money. And you try to avoid them and hide from the taxes. And day and night you are restless, and you fear. That’s not a life. You see, you are a slave to money. You are a slave; you are taking care of the money. Now the money is not in your hands. You cannot eat this money. You are only taking care of that money. Who will enjoy it? Somebody else. And that’s why your children will not study. They will not work. Maybe the father has enough money. “If not now, then after a few years, everything will be mine.” So day and night, now you have security. You have a dog. And you have a gun. You can’t sleep. You have sleeping pills. Is that life? Renounce and enjoy. Give up everything. Yes, one thing you will hear, maybe: “Stupid man. He gave everything. He must be a little not normal.” You can say, “Yes, I am not normal, but I am the supreme. Highest. The great.” But you said, “No, I will not renounce. They will come, my dear.” We say it in India, “Muṭṭhī bandhe āye the”—when you were born, your fists were closed. “Khālī hāth jāyegā”—empty hands you will go. Muṭṭhī bandhe āye the, when you were born, your fists were closed. Maybe the mother knows, but the father doesn’t know. Generally, the father should not be in the place where the wife is giving birth. It is the work of the women, the doctors. But nowadays, stupid man, he stands beside. Yes! And now he has more stress than his wife. And that’s why she’s nervous, and she’s shy. She can’t do it. It was not like this before. Of course, when there is no one to help, then he helps the wife, you know. Otherwise, it should not be. The wife is giving birth, and the father is sweating. That’s it. What a modern world! Therefore, you should not be there. The doctor and nurse will do everything. And then you will get in your hands your beautiful child—mother of daughter or son, it doesn’t matter. And sometimes the doctor will say, “No, you can’t see yet. Tomorrow we will show you.” Yes, why not? But the world has changed upside down. Sometimes the wife will say, “Okay, you give the birth, I’m going.” It will not happen. So, when the child is born, the fist is closed, and none of the doctors open the palm like this. Yes or no? Do you know this? Mothers, you know this? What kind of mother are you? Because you were unconscious. And the father had no more visions, so ask the doctor or the nurse. And some mothers, they know. They open the palm. Fingers straight and nicely like this, yes. So the fist was closed. So, “Bandhimuthī āyā thā”—when you were born, your fist was closed. Because there is something. “Bandhimuthī rakhī,” the closed fist has a value of millions, and “khulī muthī rakhī,” and open it, just like dust. I tell you that I have the biggest diamond in my fist, you know. Sometimes we say one, two, three. What is in my hand? Which hand has something? Tell me. Tell me, which is right or left? My left or the right? Left. Or, right? It is here. Okay. So, when it is inside, it is your karma. “Bandhe muthī āyatā,” we were born with a closed fist, and “khulī muthī jāī gā.” When you die, you will not have a fist like this; it’s open. The beginning and the end—see anyone who died. Everything is lost; your hand is opened. Do you know this? Even if you try to close the fist of someone who has died, it is very hard. When the tiger is on the throat of the deer and holding it, the deer is stretching in spasms. But when it dies, it is the tiger. Then the tiger keeps up and waits, relaxing. So is death. One day death will come, and it’s not easy. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not easy. It depends on the karma. So, what I want to say is, it doesn’t matter what you have. One day you don’t have; it’s gone forever. There’s one song I’ve forgotten. Once I heard, “Oh, my darling. Oh my darling, lost and gone forever.” Is there a song? Do you remember somebody? Girls, you have sung many times, you were singing, “Lost and gone, everything is lost and gone, empty hands.” Then why are we so much concentrating, running behind materialism? The knowledge will appear, and you know what we need. We don’t need so much. Why do you run after fashion? Sometimes it’s orange colour, and they are ladies mostly. The fashion and passion is for women. So, orange shirt, orange nails, orange hair, orange lipstick, orange half trousers, no, no,... cloth, mini, mini,... orange mini skirt, what they call mini skirt, yes, rock and roll, and orange socks, and orange shoes, and I am walking beside, at the airport. It’s not a joke, it’s reality. Orange handbag, you know, and I’m walking, and then suddenly she sees, and I look also. I say, “It’s beautiful.” So, okay, why not? Why not? Next year, the black. Now, so expensive cloth you bought, and fashion is... coming black, and now you have all black, and next fashion comes and it’s green. And suddenly fashion, hair fashion, and now it’s coming here, till here, cut it. Then here also, why? It means you have too much money, or you are running behind the fashion. You think that people will think you are stupid, that you do not have this fashion. That’s not necessary. That’s not necessary. Have a proper dress, a clean dress, that’s enough. If it is torn, buy a new one, but nowadays you are cutting jeans. There is a hole on the buttocks, on the thighs, the upper part of the thighs, on the knees, and the calf. What a poor person. This was once a cowboy who was very poor and had, like, a steel trouser. And the Indians, the American Indians, the red Indians, you know, they had trousers, but the buttocks were completely open. Do you know? I’m not making a joke. I’m not making a story. A real Red Indian who’s living in that reservation, their buttocks are completely open. They can just sit on the toilet and go again. Nothing to lift up or nothing to close, and they jump on the horse. So these people are now imitating fashion. And every day, I said, they can do everything. But, oh man, please, don’t cut the whole back on the back buttocks. It can. People are like this. So I hope that such a man will not make a woman ashamed. So I’m telling you, why do we run behind such fashions of eating, clothing, and colours, and things like this? One day this body will also dissolve into the earth or in the fire. Therefore, you should not—I am saying that you should not be poor—but you should not run behind to become a billionaire or millionaire. No competition. If they are riding horses, quickly let them ride. After your horse relaxes, walk. So stress, the stress creates immense physical, emotional, mental, and intellectual disease. The physical diseases are like, now, many cancers, etc. Emotionally, you never have enough. Many times you change your wife or husband, but still you are not happy. And mentally, you desire, you have so many mental diseases, and intellectually. Money, money... Profession, profession... this kills a human. That human dies without any achievement of what God gave life to do. So, if you earn money, okay, do it, but give it further. Don’t collect too much dust, dust-collector souvenirs. So meditation, anti-stress meditation, and then to know, “Who am I?” I am not the body, I am not the organs, I am not bones and nerves, I am not bones and flesh and blood. I am human. For what am I born? Ko’ham? Katam idaṁ jātaṁ? Ko vā? Kartavyasya vidyate. From where did I come? For what did I come? What do I do? What should I have done? And where will I go? What is the cause of all this? Ādi Guru Bhagavān Śaṅkarācārya said: “And so, at the end of it all, when your heart is completely tired, you are old. No one is interested in you. All your friends will go away. Your children are somewhere else. And it takes you five minutes to go to your kitchen and take a glass of water. At that time, you will know what the sense of my life was.” Therefore, Guru Nānak Sāhib said: “Oh my friends, you nearly lost your whole life. At least now, meditate, remember God. Something will help you. Without the mantra, everything is nothing. Without mantra, like a blind man without eyes, without partner, a tree without fruits, the soil without rain, a cow without milk, a paṇḍit without the Vedas, knowledge of the Vedas. Similarly, O friends, O devotees, O bhaktas, give up jealousy and just meditate. Hold on to your path. Don’t run here and there. You have your mantra, and you have your path, Alakhpurījī, Siddha Pīṭh.” So, we will continue tomorrow. Wish you all the best, and blessings of Guru Dev. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, kī jai! Devpurīśama Dev, kī jai! Satya Sanātana Dharma, kī jai!