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Part 1: A Welcome and Discourse on Stress, Home, and Human Development Praṇām Gurujī, dear friends. I extend my heartfelt welcome to all those present at Swāmījī’s presentation today. It is a great pleasure that Swāmījī is in Debrecen for the eleventh time. For twenty years, he has given us personal guidance on our path of yoga, encouraging and supporting us to know ourselves better. I respectfully welcome Mr. [Weissmeier]. Owing to his kind contribution and great work, we can gather in this beautiful hall today, an expression of the fact that Swāmījī’s work is respected and honored in this city. The first part of this evening is a short presentation of our children’s yoga. The children will show us what they have learned so far. It is a silent presentation, but very spectacular. Now, I ask Mr. Weissmeier to open this evening. I believe Debrecen is a very special town. Great efforts are ongoing here, and it can be an example for the whole country, even when the situation is not easy. Many initiatives try to preserve culture, like the flower carnival, alongside economic and political developments such as bicycle roads. Ladies and gentlemen, I heartily welcome you on behalf of the city board. It is a great pleasure and honor to have Swāmījī here in this cultural center. A common opinion in Hungary is that Debrecen is currently the most pleasant city in the country, according to a survey. We cannot judge this, but it is sure that we all like to live here. We are always happy to receive everyone who visits. In one of his books, Swāmījī writes that yoga is joy and courage. We like to live in Debrecen with joy and courage. I wish you to experience all the joys of yoga and have a glimpse of it today. It is a joy and honor that you have all come. Thank you. This lecture was originally supposed to be on stress. During a friendly talk between Mr. Weissmeier and Swāmījī, other topics emerged. So, the lecture has altered slightly and will likely focus on personal and communal development. We keenly await Swāmījī’s lecture. I think it begins with the mind. Om Yaja Sugandhi Puṣṭi Vardhanam Vandanā Sa Seltis Into the Cosmic Light, Omniscient and Omnipresent, Omnidivine Presence. Good evening, dear brothers and sisters, respected Vice-Mayor Mr. Halász, and all dignitaries. It is a blessing to be in this beautiful cultural hall. There is a multi-culture here; it is the proper place. The first sign of tolerance from Debrecen was offering facilities for multi-cultures. Stress is our original subject and will remain so. Everything negative in our life comes from stress. It is a destructive factor. First, it destroys the whole personality, then disrupts the environment, then splits families when confidence and love for home are lost. One begins to dream of realizing something from a far distance. But to see the blue sky, you need not travel anywhere. Remember, at sunset, every bird returns to its nest. Similarly, whatever you achieve far away, your deep inner self wants to return to that beautiful, warm nest—your home. That’s why they say, "Home, sweet home." "My house is my castle." We should have such feelings towards our beautiful country, birthplace, city, or villages. I am not only telling this to Hungarians but to the whole world. Yet, it is said we are citizens of this planet. What should be at the bottom? The whole planet is familiar, but still, blood is thicker than water. Our blood relations are where we have our roots and ancestors. We all have a beautiful dynasty. Our ancestors kept our culture; they gave us traditions and languages. We think with this mentality. Project this: we have no stress; we are the happiest people. Then our self and our home will look different. Yoga, especially Yoga in Daily Life, is a way of life—24 hours. Live according to yoga: what to eat, what to drink, where to go, what relations to build, where to sleep, how and where to work, and to know the purpose of human life. Yogic thoughts and way of life make humans healthy, spiritual, and wise. Yoga is a science of body, mind, consciousness, and soul. Through practice, we keep body, mind, and soul in harmony. Yoga is a beautiful, easy system everyone can practice, young or old, ill or healthy. We saw beautiful demonstrations from juniors. Children are the culture of tomorrow; they are the future of our country. The direction of the youth is the direction of the country. How did you get this country and culture from your parents? In what condition? You must pass it on to your children. If you cannot do better, at least do not destroy. This is the message for the whole world. We humans are responsible. There are two different kinds of worlds. One is the God-made world—perfect. The second is the man-made world—imperfect. No matter how much humans research and work, we cannot compare with God, the Divine, Mother Nature. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, we shall find within ourselves self-confidence, motivation, and inspiration. When you find this, the world will look different. You will be very happy. The Creator has created 8.4 million different creatures on this planet: creatures in water, on earth, and in space. Out of these, one is human. Humans have a powerful tool called intellect. Other creatures have a little intellect. Human intellect needs education. According to education, our feelings, opinions, appreciation of culture develop, and we think accordingly. In one way, it’s good; in another, it makes us narrow-thinking. The best education for human health is in the motherland, from parents. That education makes a human a human. Every parent loves their children more than themselves. Our parents worry about us, take care of us, and tell us, "Be kind, be nice." Then we enter social life—schools, colleges, universities—and learn different educations. That is also good, but the education that makes us human is crucial. We need good society, companion, partner. If you befriend an alcoholic, you will soon become one. If you befriend a drug abuser, you will become an addict. If you are with thieves, you will become a thief. If you are with a yogī, you will become a yogī. If you are with a politician, you will become a politician. Companionship develops our intellect and inner feelings in that direction. If you befriend someone with great ambitions, a businessman who wants to be a billionaire, that person is a workaholic, and you will become one too. Both alcoholic and workaholic are dangerous; both create tension and stress. Do you feel stress sometimes? How does it look? Research at an American university, I think Berkeley, targeted the brain’s hemispheres. They found interesting results regarding stress symptoms. Stress is thinking ten things at once. Suppose you are driving a car. You are aware of what’s behind, left, right, and in front. That stress is enough, but then you are telephoning, lighting a cigarette, and the person on the phone is angry with you. You cannot control your concentration or alertness; an accident can happen. Stress develops when someone is ill and you must do double work, or you miss an airplane. At home, the neighbor’s dog barks all night, a husband comes home at three o’clock, a child is crying, the heater or air conditioning fails. All this becomes stress. Technology, in some ways comfortable, is not always healthy. We became slaves to it, and it became a stress factor. When stress is present, pressure on your brain and nerves means you are not relaxed. Everything contracts. When angry, mostly men express it. Women may manage by enduring without aggression, withdrawing their feelings. If these feelings are negative, they attack her organs. Now, women suffer more from different illnesses than men. I do not mean men should be angry. We should talk, discuss, and relax. When a man is angry and hits a window, that is his stress. Then he may go to the hospital. Every time he uses the bathroom, he will remember his stupidity. Under stress, there is less oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Organs like the heart, pancreas, or gender organs are in tension. Symptoms develop: first, a feeling of anger, but it is not continual. Then develops a feeling of loneliness, which lasts long. When lonely, one may turn to alcohol, drugs, or leave home, seeking happiness inside. But drugs and alcohol cannot make you happy; you only want to forget. The result is more negative for physical and mental health. Loneliness can develop into depression. In depression, you are deep within your emotions, paralyzed. The result is often suicide. Hungary, unfortunately, has a high suicide rate because Hungarians are very emotional, loyal to family, attached to their country, and proud. These symptoms happen with modern civilization. We fight for emancipation, but it is misused, resulting in broken families. Is there a happy family? Very few. Father in Sydney, mother in Johannesburg, sister in New York, brother in India. What a family! Sometimes you just say hello on the phone. Mother Nature develops a feeling of belonging as a family. The warm hands of your parents protect you forever. The second symptom developing from stress, after depression, is schizophrenia. It can attack the body as a disease like cancer, which is increasingly developing. There is no medicine against stress or depression. In that research, they say three techniques can help a person come out of stress. First, they said, "kind of Eastern exercises," meaning yoga. Originally, it was spoken as yoga, but in German, it was translated as "ein Art vom häuslichen Körperjugung," which is not bad either. Second is meditation, which we will do today. Third is prayer. They didn’t say go to church, temple, or ashram, but prayer—a personal consultation with God where you get all answers. Prayer must not be only a religious act. Religion depends on prayer. Spirituality is above religion. Religion is a part of spirituality. Religion is that truth, and that truth is the reflection of that spirituality. Part 2: The Practical Path: Spirituality, Meditation, and Conscious Living Spirituality is love, kindness, understanding, and forgiveness. These are all beautiful qualities. When they begin to blossom in our body—through the science of the cakras and Kuṇḍalinī—then spirituality is developing. Then you have no qualities [of a limited nature]. Imagine a father sitting, an old man of ninety years or more, and all his children and grandchildren are coming. The whole family, the daughters-in-law… can you imagine the happiness of that old man? "My family." He doesn't make differences. Similarly, a spiritual person doesn't make differences between religions, minds, brothers and sisters, or humans. And humans are born to protect all creatures and the environment, and to "eat the vibration." The stress caused by this modern way of life will kill us. Therefore, you will see around the whole world: where there is a human, there is yoga. Where there is yoga, there are humans. Every fourth person, if not the third, practices yoga on this globe—except some who are very narrow-thinking about religions. The scientific, systematic system, the Yogī life, is practiced a lot around the world, and especially in Debrecen, Hungary, and in Szeged and Budapest. In any town, any city, any big village, you can go and have a Yogī's life. For nearly 35 years, the Yogī's life has been active in your beautiful country. This modern system is creating stress. The second biggest problem is pesticide. Please try to get and cultivate your food with organic fertilizer. Even the cows, the milky animals, get everyday injections, and that goes into your body through the fast-food system. It is all very unhealthy. Try to eat organic, good Hungarian products. You can create the jobs. Don't think there is a lot of unemployment. Two hundred years ago, one hundred years ago, was everyone employed? Everyone was themselves a king. They had their own land and were cultivating it. Now we become the slave. It doesn't matter which high position you have—director or general director, or whatever it is—still, you are the slave of that company. Create yourself jobs here. It is a golden chance. You have beautiful, blessed soil. You can supply organic food to all of Europe. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, in many, many European countries, people are looking for organic vegetables, organic paprika. A lecsó which is made from organic paprika is tasty. So, I am not talking about economy and such, but I would suggest to Mr. Vice-Mayor Halász to dedicate some hundred hectares of land—a thousand, two thousand hectares—for organic production. That field will need hundreds of people to work. We have a job, and we will have money and whatever you call it. So, don't think there is unemployment. There is no money. One year before, there was a lot of money. Where did the money go? Did it fly into the sky? Or float in the Danube? Something must be wrong. We don't depend on that. You show yourself you have multi-talents. From hands, anyone can take away. But what is in your kismet, no one can take. Your talent, multi-talents—and Hungarians have multi-talent. After working in any office, a hectic day, you come home and go and work half an hour, one hour in your garden, a vegetable garden. The whole stress will go away. Or take your child, or grandchild, or neighbor’s child for a while into your lap. Or your cat, if your "pipe" is not at home. And when you come home, you are a thousand times more happy than the other one. So, we developed one meditation as anti-stress meditation. This is also developed for some people called politicians or directors. They can use it for ten minutes. And one for local people. These are very VVIP, the local people. Yes. VVIP, very, very. And these are we all. You are all very V.V.I.P. No? Again? Well, every creature—even the trees, plants, flowers, day and night—is searching, struggling for life and happiness. Happiness is the nature of our inner self. And our inner self is a part of the cosmic self. And that cosmic self is known as happiness, or love, or oneness. All are the same: beauty, oneness, happiness, love—all are one. Our God, when you think, happy hour, many things are changing. So the stress will release, more circulation will begin towards the brain, more oxygen will be supplied, and every cell of the body will be recharged with that resonance of happiness. And all insults, cells, or some disease begins to dissolve. It means the immunity system in the body will get strong. The energy centers, cakras, will awaken. It’s a beautiful meditation. It’s called sound and light. The resonance and the light, love. The resonance and love vibration. Through your own thinking, afterward you will feel different energy in your body. If you practice five minutes, ten minutes, it is enough. You can do it silently, or you can do it loudly. So, I would like to practice with you. Okay? Have you time? Good. You can take off your shoes. There is no table or chair. So, a few minutes of silent meditation. We shall release the stress and recharge the vitality in the body. No miracles. It’s just a way of thinking, techniques. Don’t think that you will get levitation. The ceiling is too near. Don’t do this, okay? The ceiling is not a problem; we can levitate through. We all suddenly go up. Be prepared. But the problem is the electric wires, so better we will not do it. Make yourself comfortable. You may lean on your chair. Place your hands on your lap. Whatever you want to see in this hall… When I tell you to close your eyes, then don’t open your eyes until I tell you to open them. Be sure that in this period there will be nothing new inside. So, relax, be comfortable, close your eyes, withdraw yourself from the external world. Once, deep inhale and exhale. Relax, just relax. Be aware of your being in this hall. Feel your whole body, that your body is relaxed. No tensions at all, either physically or mentally. Your toes, your foot soles, ankle joints, calf muscles, they are relaxed, both legs. Relax. Trunk of the body. Relax your back muscles. Stomach muscles, relax your heart. Relax your leg and your jaw. Body… to the top of the head, from the top of the head to the toes. Concentration, no imagination, no expectations, only relax. Say mentally to yourself, "Relax, my friend. Relax, relax." Bring your attention to the breath. Do not change the breath rhythm. Just become aware that you know you are inhaling, that you are exhaling. And at the time of the inhalation, the body is slightly expanding… and slightly contracting. Feel the breath. Relax. Sleep, relax the whole body. Sleep, relax the whole body. Straight anywhere in the body at a particular place. No stress, no tension. Relax. I know that I am inhaling and exhaling. I feel my respiration. I am relaxed. Your whole body is relaxed. A few times, deep inhale and exhale. Try to be the next true word. Be aware of your being here in this hall. Deep inhale, and change all ones, and let this Oṃ resonance effect penetrate to the whole body to relax the whole nervous system. Inhale, contract and stretch your toes, and pull your toes towards the body and stretch them out again. Your fingers, make the fist, rotate your wrists. And move your shoulders, rotate them, and grab your palms. Place them on the face and re-massage your face muscles. And open your eyes and move your hands. Now, this kind of meditation, one can add all mantras. But the main thing is, don’t concentrate on anything. As soon as you sit in meditation and begin optimizing, you are causing more stress. Stress. Let your horse free in the field, the horse of the mind. It will help you if you do it every day for 5–10 minutes. In one week, you will see the positive result. So this is one technique. Second, we should do two, to regenerate the blood cells and awakening of the energy in our energy cakras. In our body, there are 72,000 nerves, and three are most important. In yoga, we call in Sanskrit the name Iḍā, Piṅgalā, Suṣumnā. You may call them the lunar and solar. That lunar is the moon principle. It controls and represents the emotion. The sun, that is our intellect, activities, creativities. Both connect directly to our hemispheres. In yoga, there is a prāṇāyāma breath technique called Anulom Vilom. That Anulom Vilom actually harmonizes and balances both our hemispheres. The more you will read in our book… the third one is called Suṣumnā, which controls and maintains our consciousness. And these three channels, beginning from the small of the brain, are the reflection on the eyebrow center. Two nāḍīs, Iḍā and Piṅgalā, they are going like waves. And that’s why it’s called serpent energy, because it’s moving like a snake. The Suṣumnā is more or less moving, passing straight. These Iḍā, Piṅgalā, jñāna, and śvala principles… They are changing to balance our existence, our body, mental, physical. Like the moon, within twenty-eight days, is differently changing. The moon has a perfect balancing influence on our body, mind, and consciousness. So, these three nāḍīs pass parallel to the spinal column, and down at the bottom of the spine, there is what is called the Mūlādhāra Cakra. There is dormant energy and destiny from past lives that have to be purified and awakened. The second cakra, about two centimeters above the end of the spine, is called Svādhiṣṭhāna. Where our emotional and psychic problems are. The past time of this life is stored there, where there is anger, jealousy, hate, sexuality, and so on. Then comes the third one, connecting with our navel. The center point of our being is the navel. Our life begins to develop from the navel. And there is the seat of the sound. And there is the seat of the digestive fire. And another cakra, the fourth one, that’s the heart. And the fifth one is near the vocal cords, nearby, connected to the thyroid. The sixth one is called the third eye, the center of the brain. And the seventh one is on the top of the head, where the Indians or Hindus keep, like, this big hair growing here. People who have depression or psychic problems should let go here, especially, and tie it there. This is the center of the nectar, immortality. And the eighth cakra is the Sahasrāra; it is the top of the head, the crown of the head. That’s called the door to the supreme. In our whole body, there are 72,000 centers, with the cosmic energy constantly flowing in and out. Every creature is representing the light of the universe, but not this kind of light—that is a different light, and there are different eyes to see that light. And that’s called enlightenment. So when the cakra’s energy begins to awaken, then the whole body, mind, emotion, and intellect come into balance. So this meditation, which we will do, is only a small glimpse of that vibration, and that is recharging the cells in the body. It means immunity will be stronger. So, we do this one, okay? More about these cakras, you can read, and next time, maybe when I come, we will have a cakra seminar. You have a Hungarian language book called Hidden Power Syndrome. Until I come next time, you should have read it already ten times. Yes, that is the science, you see. Very concentrated information, and very simple, that we all can understand. Now, if you remember, before 25 minutes I told you, the entire creation is searching for happiness, which we call in Sanskrit Ānanda. I am Ānanda. I am bliss. I am bliss. Bliss am I. I am happiness. I am not a problem, I am not this illness, I am not this body, I am not this emotion, I am not this mind, nor the thoughts and intellect. I am not the soul, I am the Eternal One, Supreme, Unborn, Immortal, Everlasting. That is thyself, and that is called Ānanda. And the seat of this Ānanda is in the entire body, but connected to the navel. So we will chant Ānandoham, Ānandoham… all it is. Ānanda means bliss. Aham means I. I am bliss. I am happy. I am happy. If you don’t want to be happy, then it’s your karma. You do what you want. So, here you have to sit straight, not like that. Boys, sit straight. Close your eyes. First, I will sing a few times. Then you will also chant as I do, and then the word is called Ānandoham. Ānandoham. Again, a little more volume, please. Ascending and descending of the vibration of the sound through the spine. Feel the ascending and descending vibration of the resonance through the spinal column. Sound is penetrating through the whole body. The resonance from everyone reflects on our body. Within your silent place, resonating, make, "I am bliss, I am ānanda." Let your whole being be filled with happiness. Many times we will say, "Peace, peace… Oṃ Śānti." Oṃ Śānti. Fingers, close the fist and open the palms. Close the fist and rotate the wrists. Raise your shoulders up and down. Bend your head forward, raise up, and lean back to the side. Right and left, rub your palms. Once more, gently rub your face muscles, open your eyes, and just move. This meditation you can do for five minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute, or ten minutes, according to your life. Or whenever you feel sad, say, "I am not sad, I am alone." In the end, this will release the entire tension or stress, and again, a new horizon will open in front of you. I wish you all the best, good health, happiness, harmony, a long life, and God bless you. Thank you for your coming, and tomorrow morning we will take up some subjects, more on cakras, energy, a little bit more on how to control them. So, kérem szépen. Thank you. Salām Gurudev.