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There is a story Gurujī used to tell. Many disciples come to masters. There was one man who wanted to be self-realized and attain siddhis and miraculous powers. He chose a master. The master gave him a mantra and instructions for practice. The disciple asked, "Can I stay in the ashram?" The master said, "Okay. Anyhow, I am alone. Your duty is to take care of the garden and some vegetables for us. We have one cow for milk, and you go to the market to bring some grains or chapati flour. That is all. And when people come, give them food." The disciple said, "Oh Gurudev, yes, I will do it." After a few years, the disciple said, "I am only like a servant, doing this and that. I have learned nothing. It's been five, six years, and the master didn't give me any practice or any siddhis or nothing." After thinking for a month, he decided, "This master is not. I made a mistake. But anyhow, he gave me shelter. I will search for some other master." One day he went away, about a thousand kilometers to another place. He saw a master sitting near a fire, wearing only a little cloth, by a small rock under a cave. He thought, "This master must be perfect." The master was meditating. After six hours, the master opened his eyes and said, "Oh, my son, bless you." The disciple said, "Master, can you accept me as a disciple?" The master said, "Yes, what do you want? I am nothing here. I have no pots, nothing, no eatings. First, you go to the city and bring some eating, and then come." The disciple thought, "This is the best. It has no māyā." Māyā means money, house, and this and that. So he stayed, always going to the forest to bring wood for the fire, going to some village to bring milk, and going to other villages to bring food. We don't say begging; it's a picture. Two, three, four years passed. The master didn't give mantras. The disciple said, "Mantra?" The master said, "No, the mantras don't function anyhow. You have one mantra, do it." The disciple asked, "But how do you know that I have a mantra?" The master replied, "It is sure that you have a mantra; otherwise you would not have come to me." After a few more years, he left that master too. Like this, he changed masters. Now, he had nearly a white beard and hip joint problems. He had tested so many masters. He said, "All masters are nothing. They are only making some stories and finished. Now I will go to every master and humiliate them. Why are you doing stupid things? You have no siddhis, you have no powers." First, he decided to go to the first master, then one after the other, to fight with them. He went to the first master again and said, "Master, it was nothing, and this." The master asked, "What is nothing?" The disciple said, "You have nothing. You have no siddhis." The master said, "Yes, what should I do with siddhi? But you didn't give me anything." The disciple insisted, "No, I want self-realization." The master said, "You are still too young for self-realization." The end of life—if you want to have self-realization, okay, you have knowledge, you have some experiences, but self-realization, one hundred percent, is the last second of your life. Because the karma, the karma is rolling like the reel of a camera. On the camera, every second, even every quarter second, the picture is there, going. So is the karma. It is good karma or bad karma. The picture on the film has no things that will do a good picture from me and not so good from who is near me, Nagīnbhai. Not only will the picture come with me and him, but this microphone will also be. And not only this, that is something hanging in my beard, it will come also. So that is the truth. That is that picture, and this is karma. Karma doesn't give someone this, and the other one is this. Maybe in the last second, you have one negative thought, you are out. You are out. So, the last minutes—that perfect self-realization is there. Yeah, theory is there first, then feelings are there, then purification in the thoughts are there. Yes, you give, and you become very positive. Everything with ahiṃsā, with humbleness, with kindness, etc., is in them, but suddenly, it can change. Then your self-realization is gone. There is a story in the story, so let me tell you a story in the story. But there are four stories already behind me now, and I have to repeat it again, all of it. And that is called the memory. How to develop the memory? The life. So the story of the story: when can it change and when can it not? So one story: that one master, a very good master—not like me, neither other one; I am not like that perfect, I try my best—announced five million dollars for six months of training in self-realization. There are many people for whom the money is nothing. So they came and limited the space, and so the place. This was about twenty-five or twenty-seven, that's all. When they came, the master gave them training. First training is on the grass, bamboo mat, sleeping on the floor. Thanks to God, there were no pythons; otherwise, the pythons would have eaten the disciples one after another. Mokṣa. Well, Master used to come once a week, and all are sitting and asking questions, anything, and training. And they all came and sat in front of the Master; all were still in meditation and doing mantras. And the Master asked if someone had questions. Nothing. Only one week remained, and Master had many experiences. "Did you achieve something? Because I do my best, give you mantras, give you trainings, give you this pūjā, this pūjā, everything. In every pūjā, what did you do exactly or not? If you've forgotten, or if you gave up, then you drop down again into the dark. It's like I have this very nice crystal mālā, and this crystal mālā is in my hand. And if it breaks or falls in the ocean, I can't dive so quickly to get it back. It is gone. Similarly, if you do your sādhanās, your saṅkalpas, and then you give it up, you have lost your life. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's it." So while everyone said, "Yes, Master, I feel very peaceful, very nice," everyone did something. One said, "Yes, Master, but I have such strong pain in my knees and my hand. But Master, still I feel great love for God, for you. Master, it is divine." So there was one person. He said, "Master, I got self-realization." The Master said, "I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy, my child." He said, "Master, I can't talk to you." The Master asked, "Why?" He replied, "Because I have nothing to speak. I am completely empty. Master, even to see you is a duality for me. Because you and I are one, I am in the oneness." The Master said, "How great." Everyone was sitting, twenty-four disciples, folded hands to him, and he was still sitting. The master said, "Okay, I will make a test. How far is your self-realization?" He said, "Master, endless. There is no measurement, master. No ego, no master. No ego, no anger, no hate, no jealousy, no this, no duality." Then meditate further. Sitting and saying, "Master, I am so pure. Nothing is under me. I am complete. Master, it's so hard for me to explain or talk to you. Master, I am one with thee. I am one with your skin. Master, I am at the highest level of self-realization." Otherwise, all were sitting like this, they went like this, they went like this. Everyone is looking at him, and he said, "All are my oneness. Master, I can't talk anymore. I am only the one that is for him." Master said, "Should I try to test something?" He said, "Master, there's nothing to test." The master had a bamboo stick. The bamboo stick was a little bit softer on his head. And he exploded, "Stupid man, I have done nothing. I am so peaceful. How can you teach? Hit on my head?" Master said, "Oh, sorry, you said there is nothing in you, but from where did this come? Go and practice under this tree for six months, and then come to me again. Anger. Anger. From where did the anger come?" So, self-realization, reading in the books, is beautiful. Imagining is supreme, and practicing something is all great. But insight into our vṛttis—you know what is a vṛtti? Of course, you know all. The vṛtti means our thoughts, our thinking. The vṛtti is there, and there is so much garbage inside. That is Naraka Loka, what we call Naraka Loka. It is very hard, and therefore, at the last minute when you will fall down and still life is there, you have no pain, and you are in that Brahman Self, the Divine. That one goes to the highest Lokas and becomes one with that. Otherwise, we are all trying, we are all trying, we are all trying. So, the practice, what we do is we are doing honestly, we are doing very hard work, but still the success is not there. The fruit will come after the seed grows into a tree or plant, and this mango, a beautiful mango, will take three or four years until the fruits come. And then come the fruits like this. So, now that disciple went to the first master. And first, the master said, he came to the master, "You are this, and you are not this. I am disappointed in you, Master. Even I don't want to tell you the master and this." Master says, "Okay, uh-huh, okay, I'm sorry for you." The disciple said, "No, sorry. I lost so many years." And the master said, "Yes, I also lost years." So he said, "We lost double years." So he said, "What do you want?" "I want that kind of self-realization. And I went to so many masters, from north to west and east to south, and everywhere all masters are the same." The master said, "Yes, master said all masters are same, but you are not still counted in them, so..." But Master said, "Now I can show you the right way." "What do you mean?" he said. "Yes, now I will show you the way. Why not so many years? And now he says, 'So I will show you the ways.' Yes, the time comes. Okay, Master." Still in his heart is a longing for spirituality, a longing for achievement. Though he is angry, the anger is on the surface. Master said, "Stay with me. In seven days, I will show you the path." The disciple said, "No, I lost so many days, and for seven days I will go from one master to another master to tell them there is nothing." He said, "Of course, that is your choice, you can go, but if you want to get the correct right way, then I will show you." "Okay, I will." "Will you do anything I tell you?" he said. "I will do anything, but master, only seven days. The eighth day, I am standing in front of you." He said, "Yes, you will stand with folded hands." Evening, sitting, talking. The disciple is very happy. The master is happy, but there was no water to drink. Master said to disciple, "Can you dig one water well here so that we and other people and animals can have nice water to drink? Can you do?" He said, "Yes, that is, I can do it, no problem." "Sit on this corner." So he was strong, but still not needing hard work. So, the whole day he was digging, taking the earth out and digging. At night, he slept so good. Morning came, to the breakfast, "Good morning, Master." And the master said, "Yes, bless you, my son. How are you? Have I known you slept very good because you worked very hard?" He said, "Yes, Master." They had a good breakfast. Master said, "But on that corner where you were digging water in the night, I was meditating. There's no water, so on that other place, okay, Master?" So he put the earth back, he dug the other, the whole day, the next day, morning, breakfast. Master said, "There is a rock where you are digging, so dig there." "Okay, Master." So, third day, fourth day, fifth day, digging here and there and there, seventh day. So, seven holes. On the eighth day, he came for breakfast, and he was shouting at the master. "Master, you are stupid," he said. "Why? Look, my seven days I lost. I didn't get any experiences. My whole body's hurting, muscles are so sore. And why? You not meditate first. Where is the water? So I will have to dig there, and in seven days I would have brought you good water, but every day here a whole garden is destroyed." Master says, "This is the path which I want to show you. That's your training?" He said, "Yes." "What do you mean?" He said, "How many holes were you digging, but water still didn't come? If you had dug only at one place, water would have come." Similarly, you were wondering about this master and that master, and some of that kind of practice, and that goes to levitations and some different things, and these got nothing. So if you have stayed so many years in one place and done your sādhanās, today you will be the wise one. He said, "What do I do, master, now?" He said, "No, again, fill up all the soil back, and we will get there. There is a water corner, and in half a day, you will bring water there." And there was water there. So, similarly, you are jumping here and there; you will get nothing until the last of your life, you will fall here and there and there, and finally you will get nothing. Ek sāje, sab sāje. Sab... jay ek sāje, sab sāje. If you do one technique, one path, one thing, you will reach, achieve everything. Once you do, everyone, if you try to do this and that, everything will go out. A dog had a bread in its mouth and was running away from the farmhouse with the bread. And there was a deep water pond. So he went there and he saw the water dog, and the dog saw a dog in the water. It's his reflection, his picture. And he said, "He has the big bread." And the dog, he said, "I will eat, take this bread also from this dog." So he came and opened his mouth. What happened? That bread also fell in the water and had nothing. Therefore, if you want to give water to your tree, take the bucket full of water and a little cotton or cloth, and every leaf makes weight, they will not get water. But put this one bucket of water all in one root; the entire trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits will all get water from the one place where you put the water. And so is that our roots? Is that what we are doing? Don't go here, this, that. But you can go to everyone, every satsaṅg; everywhere is good to learn from everything. But everything, whatever you learn, you get as a purification in your body. Knowledge is endless. So one master has certain training, another master has other trainings. But at the end, all will come. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa said, "Arjuna, it doesn't matter through which path you will come. Finally, I will be there. You will meet me there at the door." And so, that means your path, your imagination, your loving achievement, it will come, it will come late. Before, if you try, then your ego will come. And what is ego? "I have a siddhi. I have this for you." What is this siddhi? Siddhi. There are two kinds of māyā. One māyā is saṃsāra. Māyā is a temptation. Māyā is a temptation. So we have many different māyās. Money is māyā. Husband is māyā. Wife is māyā. Big building is māyā. Many things, whatever it is, is māyā. Is it good or bad? The māyā is good also, because we need to eat everything. We are survived from this māyā, but "ati sarvatra varjayet," "ati sarvatra varjayet." Too much is everywhere. Uh, varjante, prohibited, this is a māyā, and Kabīr Dās has a beautiful one-vajan: Māyā māyā karatā hai, māyā baṛī chamatkārī re. Tri-guṇa phāns liyā kar ḍolāye, bolat madhurī bānī re. Māyā is a great cheater! Māyā is a great cheater! Tri-guṇa phāns liyā kar ḍolāye. The phāns is that coil where you will be hanged up. So that māyā always has this rope in hand. Tri-guṇa. Which kind of rope is that? Tri-guṇas: Sattva, rajas, and tamas. Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, these three, in Māyā's hand, tri-guṇa phāns liyā kar ḍole, bolat madhurī bānī re. And how sweet she is, how nice speaking, always looking, always looking for that. That I would call the chance, like a python, he is waiting, empty his stomach, and he is waiting and waiting, and that snake is now searching. The chance, everything, and nicely coming to the animals or the humans, and then it rolls in such a way with the whole strength, it breaks your ribs and tips, everything is gone. And it swallows the whole completely, without even your nails and everything. Your hair also goes in. Everything takes that māyā, the illusion. Māyā is illusion. Speak so sweet, so nice. But who is very sweet and very nice? Be careful of this one person. That's it. So, always try to attract. There are many, many words about this in these bhajans. So, Māyā. When Māyā has no chance to catch you, then Māyā goes into the temple, and she becomes the Māyā for the priest. When she is not, then she goes to the holy water, the holy Gaṅgā. We'll go there and we'll catch you. So there are many, many words which say that, what we call Kabīr Dāsī said, this is the one māyā. Now you are above this māyā. Good. Very good. You are above this māyā. You are very humble, very kind, everything. And we go to the spiritual path. Someone said, "Oh, you will get mokṣa, you will not anymore come back. Oh, you will die and you will become again animals and this," and there are many, many words we are saying. Maybe it is true or not, but when a yogī or sādhanā, whatever you do, there are many difficult, different... Different way, one only does the puja, puja water, puja water. There you get also something, but when the siddhi comes, what? The siddhi now, siddhi comes. Then the siddhi is a māyā for a yogī. Siddhi is a māyā for the practitioners. Siddhi is māyā for that, who is making the pūjā now? Why? Because when you get some kind of miracles, then your ego comes. You can do anything. So now your spiritual development doesn't go higher. The māyā caught you, like the python has caught you, everything. Now, how long does it take? You can try very hard, this and that, but that python will catch you. Similarly, if I say, "Look, my whole chair will come up a little, and you will not look at me." You will look, oh, my master is levitating. And the master has so much ego inside. The master said, "I can." So in that way, he or she will go away from this perfection. Therefore, if you want to get liberation, if we want to get self-realization, if you want to be successful, then you have to come from this māyā also, you have to come over. So, if you will not utilize your māyā, then it's okay. So, don't run behind your siddhi. Let siddhi go back behind you, that's okay. But don't utilize. If it comes, okay. If something happens, let it happen. But we should not run behind, longing for that, for my perfections and this and that. So my master, my Gurujī, he is holding this, Swami Madhavānandjī. He told me in the Maheshwaranam one thing: take care. Don't tell anyone, and don't say that I am a great master. I am great Swami. Know. Always be humble, and be humble, and be humble. So sādhanā, practice, many, many we do. So one was the path, what we had these four days, five days, about the anti-stress. From where is the stress coming? All yoga students in any seminars going, they are full of stress because they are thinking, "I will get now something more. I will get something." No. Humble. Just go do your sādhanā, your mantras, your pūjās. Humbleness, kindness to everyone. See each and every entity as thyself. Love each and every entity, if not more, at least that much, as much as you love thyself. Bhagavān Dīpnā and Mahāprabhujī's golden teaching, it is said. Then you will see that at the end of your, this world, you will come to the divine world. There will be, your, our consciousness will take in such a light, like what is called escorting you. And you will say, "No, I don't need, please don't take me like this." But these are the siddhis, the powers, or devas, or whatever we think, will bring us to the better lokas, the better. So it's like a very dirty water, filter and filter and... filter and... Filter it, and it will become very pure, very clear, crystal clear. That drop of water which was very muddy and very dirty takes a long, long time. So don't run here and there, going everywhere to listen to something. Learning, learn something more. But your prāṇa is hanging on that one tree. This tree has so many things, so many birds there, but this tree is standing there for all and has its own prāṇa inside. So, it's the many, many great saints whom we worship like gods. Yeah? Jesus, how hard his life was. How hard. Before the birth, he already had problems. And when he was born, was that the situation of the mother of Jesus, that she did not have a little piece of cloth to cover her child who was born? Was that child born in the animal's stable? Was that not in something when the cold and this? What situation was that? We are looking at the cradle and making on the Christmas Day, very nice cradled, and we saw Jesus as a baby, naked, and there's nothing there. On the grass, he is lying on the grass, and how was the... After all, how was He till the last minutes of the last minutes? Now we worship Him as God. At that time, everyone was looking at Him, how hard it was. So this is a test for all of us, a test for all of us. So many, Krishna, you don't know how hard the life of Krishna was, and Krishna's mother, and how everything was till the last minute of his life. Thanks to Kṛṣṇa, I would say thanks to God, now I am gone from this world. In Gujarat, no? That's it. How he separated from Rukmiṇī. There is no Radha. No scripture is written about Radha. It's now, after the last centuries, two centuries, that everybody is saying Rādhā, Rādhā, Rādhā. Rādhā is nowhere, nothing. But Rukmaṇī is somewhere, and it was Dvārikā. And in Dvārikā, there are two Dvārikā. So first Dvārikā is called Bhet Dvārikā. I am wrong or correct? Bhet Dvārikā. So, what means the bhet dvārikā? Bhet means meeting. Ek du se se bhet ho gayi. So after a long time, I found again the... my brother. No, this boy, Sukhdev. Sukhdev. Or Madhuram, or any word, Gyanananda or Gitananda, or any. So "Bhet" means we met again. "Met" comes from "Bhet." We call Ladi, and Ladi ka hogay, lady. Yajña. This is Sanskrit language. So, Bhet Bhet Udvārika, what does the Bhet Udvārika mean? There, when Kṛṣṇa ran away from that second war, after this war. First war, Mahābhārata. Then was the second war. They were fighting against Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa's name is called Raṅśoḍā. Yes, am I wrong, right? Please. Raṅśoḍā. And what means? Raṅśoḍā means he ran away from the battlefield. Kṛṣṇa. Yes. Rāṇachoḍ. Yes. Rāṇachoḍ. Yeah. So, rāṇ means battle. Desert. Battle. Battle. And so, Rāṇ showed. So, Kṛṣṇa left from there. Rukmiṇī left from them. Running here, there, here, there. From that time to Gujarat, where it was, half of Gujarat was underwater at that time. And so there was one little island, there was another little island, there was more muddy and this and that. They lost. Rukmiṇī went somewhere and Kṛṣṇa was somewhere. They were hiding, going. So what happens? Again, one day, Krishna met. So Rukmaṇī is there, so they met again. Who? Rukmiṇī and Kṛṣṇa, they met again. And that's called Bhetā Dvārikā. They met again. Then again, something happened. The, the, this—what we call them—the Kaba, the forest people, a word I have forgotten, anyhow. They were running behind Krishna. So Krishna left there. He was running and running. Yadava. Yadava. No, no, Yadava is Kṛṣṇa's. Here, so anyhow, then these people who were in the forest and had arrows in their body, so they shot Krishna. They said he touched the feet of Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa said, "Now I will go." Okay, good. We are saying. Who knows how much they tortured him. Maybe not. Kṛṣṇa forgive me, but I am a speaker. So he cannot stop me. You have a democratic right. Yeah. So then it is gone. So even Bhagavān, Kṛṣṇa, we said Kṛṣṇa was the highest. He was also. So hard life. So hard life. Similarly, God Rāma. God Rāma was 155,000 years ago. Kṛṣṇa, Rāma's incarnation, and there is this, the correct Rāmāyaṇa is Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. Yes or no? Yes. You see, the Indians, otherwise all they will say, "Swamiji is making us little bit stories," but this is not a story. So how was the life of God Rāma? You know, he had to go away from his palace, from his kingdom. He excelled in 14 years, only in the forest, and Sītā was kidnapped, etc., etc. The Buddha—what was the hard life of the Buddha? There was nothing. Buddha was the son of a king. What was his name? Siddhartha. And Siddhartha, he was a king's son. So he was a Hindu. After Buddha, Buddha was not his name. His name was Siddhartha. But why the word came Buddha? Buddha means bodha. Bodh means knowledge. Now he said, "Oh, he is a very wise person," so he has that wisdom. So, Bodha means that knowledge. So, they did not give the Siddhartha, but they gave the name Bodha. Buddha, knowledge. Knowledge now has become the Buddha. And then they separated religion as a Buddhist religion. It should not be separated as a Buddha religion, because all teachings are from those Vedas and from those Upaniṣads, what was in Sanātana Dharma. So, but the question is this: how was the hard life and tapasyā Bhagavān Buddha have done? So all holy saints, great saints, that have that kind of life, very hard, but they don't give up. They, after when they will go, then we will cry, "Oh God, we made a mistake." There was one saint among Muslims, and his name was Anal Haq. Anal Haq, and that was in the Sufi, they said. Anal Haq means Aham Brahmāsmi. Do you know what is Aham Brahmāsmi? I am Brahman. I am Brahman. I am Supreme. Ahaṁ Brahmāsmī. When you will get this knowledge, that time you will be the Brahmāsmi, meaning you are the Brahman. You are above this now. Any karmas, anything that comes for you, it just goes away. That time, when you get that knowledge, then if someone gives you bad thinking, it goes back to them. If they think good, it will all go well. So at that time, the salt does not get or involve anything in that. I want to tell you one story, a very clear and practical story. Just now, I can give you the proof, and this proof, this crystal mālā which I have in my neck for 20 years, is not glass, it's a stone. But what I want to tell you is, many things, my rings and these and everything, balls and everything, become dirty or... dust comes there, but on this crystal, never remains any kind of dust on it. So, like this, it's called crystal clear, that your soul, your heart, your self becomes so pure, then all is behind. So through this, when it goes, so Bhagavān Buddha, that knowledge, when he came there, then he found that he was lost. He went deep, Buddha writes, he went to his last or deepest and deepest of his life, to the stone, the coal, the algae, the water animals, other animals, etc., etc. He said he was watching all the levels of his consciousness, how they were coming. And that comes directly to the Buddha. Bodha, buddhi. What means the buddhi? Intelligence. Okay. So buddhi, bodha. Ādiguru Śaṅkarācārya is writing in the Aprokṣāṇabhūti about bodha. So, that, until we come there, we are in Brahmaloka. So, that Brahma, there, then your karma is finished and you have freedom. You can come back, that's an incarnation. There are two kinds of incarnation: the Nitya-Avatāra and the Nimitta-Avatāra. Nitya-Avatāra means always, which is holy saints are coming. But we will not realize whether this is a saint or not. But when this is gone, then we will cry and we will say, "Oh God!" But we have to follow the steps of that. And so this is a sanātana. Ever and ever it will remain. There will be many, many disasters coming, but that truth, it will always be there. That's called the sanātana, the pure, pure consciousness, pure consciousness. So go ahead, do your sādhanā, do your mantra, do your practice, and I wish you well from myself. I pray to our Mahāprabhujī, Devapurījī, and Alagpurījī. I am so delighted and enlightened when I saw Alagpurījī. And he saw me three times. I had visions, but last, finally, behind his cave, on the rock, he impressed his body. So, in particular hours, you can see complete two eyes, nose, beard, everything very clear. So, someone is painting now. So, well, that was the closing ceremony or closing words of this month or this year. I hope, I wish that you will be healthy, happy, and alive so that I can come and see you again. That's it. Thank you.