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Welcome to the Palace of the Lord of the Rings! Welcome, our guests! In Slovenia, in the Seaside, there is a place called Pšenice, Ajde, Prosa, where we grow wheat, buckwheat, and millet. From these, we make good homemade bread, which symbolizes food, happiness, and prosperity, and with which we feed all the people of the world. Please take this as our welcome gift. Thank you. It’s homemade from the Prekmurje region. And this is the salt from which life comes. This is the water, the symbol of life, so that all people in the world would have the possibility to drink healthy and fresh water. Thank you very much. Now we have a light on the altar. This is a special opportunity for the opening of the new ashram of our center. The Maribor Yoga and Daily Life Center covers the northeastern part of Slovenia. It was established in 1990, and we started yoga in Maribor. Soon, just two years later, we started yoga also in Murska Sobota. We are spreading the authentic system of Yoga in Daily Life, founded by Vishwagurujī. About 45 yoga teachers from our center teach voluntarily; this is not a business for us. It took us many years to prepare this—to buy this place and prepare it according to our standards. The spirit of yoga is also about spreading tolerance, openness, and love between all people. We are part of Yoga Union Slovenia, which comprises 10 yoga centers where 3,000 people are practicing. I am from Murska Sobota, from this place where we are now. I would like to say something about yoga and music. In 1992, Mr. Lojze Ruhitel, an instructor from Maribor, came to us. He was not only a well-known teacher but also led the development of our instructors. The best among them, he said, also learned by themselves. Under his guidance, we got the first five instructors. All of them continued his work and taught five more new ones. This guidance continues, with instructors teaching new yoga teachers. Yoga in Daily Life is still taught in Murska Sobota and local areas. For 25 years, we taught yoga in rented places like gyms and adapted halls. Now we are most happy that we can practice and teach yoga in our own place, which is our home, where we can work as we wish. This ashram is very helpful for our teachers and all of us. In the coming session, we have 23 teachers practicing here and 11 children. For a small place like Murska Sobota, with 13,000 people, this is a really big success. In the name of all yoga societies and the union, I wish for all people to feel well in this ashram, to practice well, and to be able to live well within the system of Yoga in Daily Life, which is the authored work of our dear Master. When I thought about what to say today, I felt the best would be to speak about the modern way of life, in which it is necessary to find inner peace. I think they were great in that—they were able to find this nice place for the ashram here at the back of the hall, a place where they can have access to yoga. When we think about the fast pace of modern society, my thought comes to a specific saying by the Dalai Lama. When asked, "What is the biggest surprise you find in life?" he said, "The human being." Because a person sacrifices their health to earn money, and then sacrifices that money to get back the health they lost. They live in the current time but are always thinking about the future, unable to enjoy the present. I would like to wish all the guests and everybody who will come to this place to practice that they find inner balance—physical and mental—and, as Yoni Saha said, to come regularly to practice. I am very happy and honored to be here at this moment, inaugurating this ashram. I give you greetings and congratulations from India. I am an ambassador of India to only one country, while Swāmījī is our ambassador in many countries. Thanks to him, I have met some of you even in Slovakia. The day I landed in Slovenia, I met some of you at the airport. This love from you has been visible to me even before I came here. Thank you very much. I would like to say that now Swāmījī is here, so in front of him I should perhaps not speak about yoga, as here is the expert. But I will only say that yoga is not specific to one country or one religion; yoga is universal. I see your centers—this center and others—not only as centers of Yoga in Daily Life, but as centers of universal brotherhood. It is this message of peace and togetherness which comes from your centers, and I hope it will continue. Once again, thank you very much and congratulations. Oṁ Asato mā sad gamaya, tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya. Lead us from the unreal to the real; lead us from darkness to light; lead us from mortality to immortality. His Excellency, the respected mayor of the city, our President of the Slovenian Yoga in Daily Life, the President of this district, our dear Dayāl Purī, our Sugan Purī, respected brothers and sisters, and junior ministers… It’s a beautiful day today. I’m very happy and delighted to see all of you. This is what they call Vāstu Śāstra. Yoga is a very ancient science. Yoga begins from Satyugas. There are many Satyugas; there is a cycle of the Yugas: Satyuga, Tretā-yuga, Dvāparayuga, and Kali-yuga. The first who was created or manifested—when there were no creatures—was the Svayambhū, Śiva. The definition of Śiva is light, soul, and sound. In the entire, endless universe, Śiva manifested Himself. He has no mother and no father. He was not born, but He manifested. When He appeared, He was just in meditation, in mudrā. And the first word that He said was "Oṁ." Oṁ karvindu sayuktaṁ nityaṁ dhyāti yogināṁ kāṁ nāma mokṣiṇāṁ sevoṁ karaye namo namaḥ. That was the mantra. So yoga came with Śiva. Yoga means balance, harmony, and unity. Respected Prime Minister of India, Mr. Modi, often speaks in his speeches about yoga not as merely a kind of exercise, but as a science. He says it is especially a science of the body, mind, soul, and consciousness. What we call in our Yoga in Daily Life is that yoga is a science of body, mind, and soul. Yoga is knowledge of the body, soul, and spirit. Yoga is a bright future for mankind, if they will use it. Then we come to our children. The children are the culture of tomorrow. It is very important nowadays, in this modern world, that children need to be educated by their parents in spirituality, ethics, and morals. Only the parents can teach the children, and that is also a part of yoga. Yoga does not count as this modern way of "religion." These religions, as we call them, are not more than a few thousand years old. But what is a religion? "Realize your relation" is the religion. It means to realize thyself with the Supreme. Then we will understand what religion is. Nowadays, religion is a different philosophy. It is not that it is bad, but yoga is beyond that. Yoga does not fix or connect with a particular religion. If anything, every religion is a branch of yoga—like the sun and the sunrays. Yoga is like the bright sun, and the rays come from it to different parts of the world. Our main aim to practice yoga here is to have good health. Some philosopher said, "Health is not everything, but everything is nothing without health." We cannot gain health only from external things; we have to learn yoga and get help from within ourselves. One master said, "Within you is the immortality of the ocean. Within you is the fountain of joy, and within you is the immortal soul. Live divine life and be happy and relaxed." We should practice yoga not as a kind of sport. Yoga does not have competition; it has no challenge, and it is not an acrobatic exercise. Yoga has to be practiced very carefully and slowly. Every age of a person has a different yoga. One can practice yoga in any condition—even if you are in the hospital lying in bed. There are yoga exercises if your body is not movable at all; you can use your willpower and mentally give instruction to yourself. You need the willpower. Once someone told me a story about a person from Africa who had a problem with his legs; he was paralyzed. But he wanted to win the Olympic Games, and he did it three times in the marathon. I don’t know his name. He had only artificial limbs, but he won at the Olympics. Similarly, we need inner willpower. Don’t give up. Don’t give up anything, except drugs and alcohol. In Slovakia and Slovenia, there is a lot of alcohol. Someone said there is one person who is the best. He is from the other side of Slovenia. One day he brought me to his house. I don’t drink alcohol, but he persuaded me so much, "Swāmījī, you must try." I said no, I don’t need it. He said, "It’s not that alcohol that people think." So he brought me to drink half a glass. The taste in my life… nothing happened to me. It was something bitter, like soda water, that’s all. But the point is we need our willpower. People think, "I have no time for practicing yoga." It’s not true. We have 24 hours in a day and night. What are we doing in these 24 hours? Who is the lucky one who can sleep eight hours? But sleep eight hours, please. Have a lot of work? Okay, then work eight hours in your office. If everyone works eight hours, the economy of your country will go on. But we are escaping from work. Okay, that’s 16 hours accounted for. But still, you have eight hours. When we fly from here to Singapore, it takes eight hours. How many times do we look at the watch? We sleep, we get tired, we get up, we eat twice—it’s still boring for eight hours. Okay, for shopping? One hour. Cooking and eating, two hours. But still you have five hours. Okay, one or two hours for your children. Which is the lucky child that a parent gives attention to for two hours? We put children in kindergarten. At home, we feed them and put them to bed. But still, two and a half hours remain. What are you doing with that? So at least use one and a half hours to practice, and you have one hour for your hobby. So time—we have enough. The problem is not time; it is willpower. A person who is a smoker is very busy, but they will find the time to go outside quickly and smoke. Also, alcoholics say, "I have no time," but they do have time to sit and drink alcohol. Why can we not find good time for our good health—physical, mental, social, and spiritual? Yoga is yoga, but why did I put the name "Yoga in Daily Life"? It means practice every day. It is the system, and the further you go, the deeper you go. So we practice here for our good health: physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. I wish that you will practice every day. You can come here once or twice, but in reality, you have to practice at home. If one day you can’t practice, you have no time? Alright. On that day, you should not eat either, because you have no time. The next day, you have no time to practice yoga? Then you should also not eat. Yoga should become a part of our nourishment, of our health, for concentration, to develop memory. Yoga is the science of body, mind, and soul. If you practice for 15 days, then your body will call you every day to come and practice yoga. If you are "addicted" to yoga, is it healthy? If you are addicted to something like drugs, that’s not healthy. But an addiction to well-being is different. I wish you all the best. I am very happy that our President of Yoga in Daily Life of Slovenia and our Dayāl Purī brought this beautiful yoga center here. The wise mayor of the city came, and we are very happy he is here. I think he will see this room many times and will inspire many people of this village. Also, yoga for the children. Children are the culture of tomorrow, and yoga is the bright future of mankind. Dear sisters and brothers, thank you for inviting me here. I wish that under this roof, hundreds and thousands of people will come and be here in good health, peace, and harmony. I pray to the Almighty for the well-being of this village, the citizens of the village, and the surrounding villages. God bless you. I will chant one mantra. Oṁ Sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ, sarve santu nirāmayāḥ, sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu, mā kaścid duḥkha bhāgbhavet. Oṁ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ