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Sound and color generate immense energy and profoundly affect the body. Today, there are therapies based on color. There are many different colors, and certain ones only certain people can see. Similarly, there is that sound, nāda. But one who does not understand it can create many, many rāgas. Rāga means resonance, sound. And rāga also means rāga and dveṣa (attachment and aversion). So, rāga implies duality, and dveṣa means conflict. But this rāga is the sound. We often speak about sound: Nāda-rūpa-parabrahma. Therefore, it is called Nāda Yoga. Among the four Vedas, one is called the Gāndharva Veda. In Gāndharva Veda, there is rāga. It is beautiful, but one has to understand it. If you don't understand, it is merely a kind of noise. There were two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight—a group of musicians. It is also a blessing, given by God. Only they can understand what we call talent. For them, the instrument is very, very important; it is holy. They take great care of it, always carrying it with great respect, like parents carefully carrying a small child. This group, with their concert of instruments and rāgas, also singing—something like this, I cannot sing—one is playing the flute, others have a sitar, some have the ḍholak. It was very nice. They landed in a small village. It was already evening, so they decided to stay and play there. They informed the villagers that there were great artists performing rāgas, etc. A nice stage was set, everyone had their place—cello, violin—everything was perfect. They were only singing rāga, playing this and that, everybody singing. The farmers did not understand. They thought, "This must be... they must be stupid." One left, two left, ten left; slowly, after half an hour, they all left. Now, there remained one old lady, a grandmother. The musicians looked at each other. The head of the group said, "It doesn’t matter if they go. Let’s see if we can practice our concert. We like it, and we are learning." It was very nice: a full moon, a peaceful environment with no highway, no cars, no other noise. They enjoyed it very much and kept singing. All had gone away, but one grandmother remained, looking like this. Everyone was singing or playing, and she was looking there. Brahmamuhūrta in summer is around three o'clock. The dawn rises, and the grandmother begins to cry. They thought, "At least one person understands our music." Tears flowed all the time. They were singing, and she was crying loudly. So one of the artists said, "Grandmother, thank you very much. Please don’t cry, but we understand that you understand the music." She said, "No, my children. I’m crying for you now." They said, "Why? What?" "Because I had goats and sheep, about 200. They got some disease, and the whole night my goats and sheep were screaming. At sunrise, they all died. So I’m sorry for you; you got the disease from my goats. Very soon the sun will rise, my children, and you will die." They said, "Grandmother, it will not happen. Your blessings will be with us." They packed their luggage and instruments and left. She said, "The sun is rising." They said, "It will rise every day." So, who does not understand, then it’s okay—it is some kind of noise. But who can understand? And nāda—only when your heart awakens. That’s why it is called anāhat, the endless, beyond the border. That sound, that resonance, only that can bring our consciousness. There is nothing else, and that guides us. And so, the sound and the color. Every different minute, there is the color of the sun in the water. So, there is which day or which time, which kind of nāda is best, and which effect helps us for our particular wish. Therefore, nothing can lead us there but the resonance and that color. There are not only the seven colors, but many, many different colors which we can’t see. And so that is called Nāḍī Yoga. Nāda Yoga is one chapter as a yoga, like Haṭha-yoga, Bhakti-yoga, Karma-yoga, Rāja-yoga, and Jñāna-yoga. This categorization is only by Patañjali. But the subject of yoga is vast; there are many, many. Every technique, every path of different yoga leads us to our destination. It is very difficult to understand Nāda Yoga. It takes years and years, but you may still not understand. It is said: What is the difference between a student and a master? The student, when they take the sitar—I think it has 18 strings—the student takes one instrument and has to learn where is what. You see their fingers; the skin becomes very hard. It’s not easy. Many use some kind of protection, but when you have a cap here, the sound is not like that. So, it must go into your flesh. That’s it. You cannot make everything like this; that doesn’t help. The master will put your hand somewhere, but still you don’t know where, what, this, all. So, there is one instrument, let’s say a sitar. Now you take it to play. You will go "boom, boom, boom." What is that? Hold it there. Holding there—this is a student. As a student, we cannot bring that resonance, that very fine tune: for which string, how to play, where to touch, how to tune. So we are sitting. That is, we are not perfect. We are students. But the master uses the same instrument, and the master gives it into your hands. So, who can’t understand? So, when he threw his sitar in the field and ran away... because otherwise, the master would give him another instrument. One day, a farmer was in his field. The crops had grown, about one and a half meters in height. In little villages, farmers don’t know. They had a happy life, living in the field, and so on. Suddenly, he fell over on that sitar. Because he fell over, and there were the strings, you know, by him... He said he fell down, but through some strings or the wires, it made a sound. All strings were very loose, and he fell over. It made a sound. The farmer ran away out of the field and went to his Gurujī. In that little village, Gurujī is also like that, very nice, very normal. "All babies should go to sleep, please." And he ran and ran, one after another, rāgas... so he went, "Gurujī, Gurujī..." He said, "What happened? What happened? Are you crazy? What happened?" "Guruji, Guruji, please, please help. What happened? In my farm, some ghost came. In the middle of my farmhouse, in my crops, I was getting a heart attack because that ghost wanted to catch me. And you know what he said?" So Gurujī said, "What?" He said, "Khaun." And you know what that means in Hindi Marwari? "Khaun" means, "I will eat you." He wanted to eat me. And it worked a few times, because the wire made the resonance more and more. And with his running, these crops, like grass, were touching the sitar. "Please, Gurujī, come and get this ghost out of my farm. Come, Gurujī, come." He said, "OK. Now go. Where is that?" "There, about twenty meters away." And Gurujī is going also slowly, slowly. "Come, show me." "No, Gurujī, he will eat. He will kill me. Gurujī, if you die, it doesn’t matter. I have children and this. But Gurujī, be careful, he will say cow." Guruji is going like this, and then he saw it is the sitar. But he also doesn’t know it is the sitar. The master said, "Oh, stupid one, what will you do without me? When I die, people, how will you live? You don’t know." "Yes, Gurujī, then what?" He said, "This tool, it’s for milking the cow, because the cow is very naughty." So we hold like this, and you know the sitar with the pumpkin. So they are milking there like this, and one is holding. "Oh, Gurujī, thank you." So that is it. People who have no knowledge about instruments... you know how many harmoniums we destroy every year? Two, three. All these girls and boys come and play harmonium. This harmonium tells me, "Oh God, everyone is making sound like Gajānāth." All the time, one finger is there. All the time on the same key. Harmonium is something like this. You don’t continuously press anything, or they put one key down which makes a constant sound. That means that person doesn’t know about the instrument, how to play. An instrument is holy. You should very gently, with respect and with love, take care. Any instrument of music is holy, gentle, pure, of quality, and it has sound. So it is said: If a husband wants to be happy and have a lifelong good marriage, then he should trust his wife like this instrument—very gentle, very kind, very good. Clean everything. But this harmonium, look... Every day, this harmonium says, "Guru Dev. I was so happy in Jaipur, in that shop. I hoped that I would be in good hands. Gurudev, why did you marry me with this, that European? They don’t know." So, none of them can play the harmonium. But only one, our dear Madhurām, he plays the flute. So ask him how many hours and hours, months and years he practiced. That’s why it is said: "Karat karat abhyās pyāre, jaḍmatī hot sujān, rasik avat jāvat, śil par padat nisān." This is a very nice poem, very nice. Karat karat abhyās—while practicing, practicing, practicing. Jarmatī hot sujān—an uneducated person can become very wise. While practicing, learning, learning, learning. And you must have every day prayer to the mother Sarasvatī, goddess Sarasvatī. Every day you should offer morning prayer to goddess Sarasvatī. Sarasvatī is the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. So, she is the goddess of vidyā, or knowledge, and so all teachers and students pray every day for—it’s called the Sarasvatī prayer. And Saraswati is Brahmā’s wife in our Hidden Powers in Human book. You will read there: where there is Brahmā, there is Sarasvatī. And they said, "This is also daughter, and this is also wife." Now, how is this possible? So it is said that Sarasvatī is the wife of Brahmā, and Sarasvatī’s daughter of knowledge is called vidyā. And that also to Brahmā. So this is symbolic and not in reality, that this is a daughter and wife. But vidyā is the feminine. So, those students who are learning should have this Saraswati picture, and they should pray. We have a very nice prayer, and we can look in the computers for a beautiful version. And in every college and every university and every school in India, there is a temple of Saraswatī. So there is Gaṇeśjī, and Saraswatī must be. Brahma doesn’t matter if he is there or not. And so every student—for music, or philosophy, or mathematics, or science, anything that you have to learn—that is the Samatha Mother Saraswatī. So you will see the best of the best sitar player. You know, that was Ravi Shankar. He died, and he was very famous. So when he sat on the stage and took in his hand his instrument, the sitar, he would first salute. Whom? Mother Sarasvatī. So, that instrument goes itself. Your instrument is your guide, not you being a guide of the instrument. So, learn; otherwise, don’t humiliate the instrument. And rāga. So rāga is a kaṇṭha kamala. And kaṇṭha kamala, it is on the viśuddhi cakra. And that’s called the vocal cord. And the seed of the Saraswati is in the vocal cords. And when the Anāhata chakra is awakened, then with dhyāna, the knowledge, the perfection that awakes in the heart manifests in the vocal and then comes to the Brahman—not Brahmā, Brahman—in the brain, so it is divine. When you understand one instrument one hundred percent, if you understand, you have achieved certain levels. So, Gandharva Veda and these instruments. So, like this, we shall learn. And now, what’s happening? One begins to sing, and you are all running in the front. When you go to the Prague music hall—a music festival concert hall—and there is singing, also many opera singers and many others, and people who understand, they go there. And who doesn’t understand, they go to the pub or somewhere else. That is what they call the club where they drink, and these lights going like this, and full of this smoke. And what is that? A discotheque. When I came first time to Austria, and somebody said, "Can we go to discotheque?" and they said, "There is a discotheque," I never heard in my life. Discotheque, and my language was not so that I could understand the very good language of German. And in Rajasthan, we never had anywhere a discotheque. Maybe in Delhi, Mumbai, somewhere. This is a high society, and I am in the normal society of the bhajan and satsaṅg, but I don’t know what is a discotheque. So, one Indian came, and he was a sitar player. He was from Pune, and then after, he said, "Swamiji, do you know where is the disco here, the discotheque?" He said, "I don’t know, but maybe I want to go. I don’t know the temple." So I asked, "Can you tell me what means the discotheque?" He said, "Oh Swamiji, it’s called Jiskodek, Jiskodek," very clear. "What you should see, that is called discotheque." Really, to see that one, I said, "What can I see there?" Then he taught me everything. I said... I turned my face other side, so... so who don’t know the rāga and that very fine feeling is like... Opera, satsaṅg, etc., in the church, but now they try to call the young generation into the church. In Europe, I think we don’t have this, but in Australia, they bring the young generation to the church where the ceremony is, and their priest is also doing something. I don’t know what they are doing in the discotheque. Can you tell me? I saw someone on television for a minute or something, like everybody’s done, that’s making the Mendukī Kriyā. So they are making a discotheque, and they are going. I don’t know what they are singing. My Jesus said to me, he said, "Swamijī, let’s go by the back door to the āśram and have a satsaṅg." So, how are the people doing? So when you are in the opera, you are the best singer. You know that song. You know all these instruments. And when they are on the podium, they are playing the instruments and they are singing. But no one will sing with them. If people in the opera are sitting and singing with everybody, they will immediately say, "Go and get out! Just listen, yes." And if you don’t understand, it is different. So, in Prague music again, what you said—concert hall in 1975—holy Gurujī, I invited Gurujī to come here. And it was the first time Gurujī and I were in Prague. It’s not a joke. So they said, "Gurujī and I," they said, "we go to this museum." And that was the Swan Lake. So Gurujī never heard this, and neither did I. And they gave a good seat in the front. The second row, I’m sitting there, the Jñāna was there, the Muktānand, she’s, I think, gone, she was there, I’m sitting, and they came to me. Completely white dress, the rock is like this phallus, and Gurujī said loudly, "What is this?" I said, "I also don’t know." Gurujī said, "What will they do?" I said, "Gurujī, I don’t know, let’s see." And people said, "Psst." And again, Gurujī said, "How long will it be?" And people said, "Psst." Well, Gurujī sat in his lotus posture, and Gurujī said, and he said, "Yes," and he put his, really this, and time to time Gurujī said, "Oh, oh." So someone came, and he told me, "Can you take this man out?" Guruji said what he said. He said that we should go out. Gurujī said, "We pay money." And then there was nothing. It was only some music and some people singing. And Gurujī said, "This old, they will be naked, they will dance." I said, "No, they have a dress." Gurujī said, "I’m not stupid." After about 40 minutes, Gurujī said, "It’s hopeless. Let’s go." He said, "Let’s go." I said, "Okay." And all was looking. The people, they said, "That’s it." So, when does one hear someone singing bhajana? You should not begin to sing with. You must know the tune, these, that also. And I think these instruments are suffering. For an artist, the instrument is life. And who doesn’t have respect for the instrument as life, then it’s like this: those who don’t know what is a sin, they kill the animals just like this or like that. Therefore, the respect to the instrument. And similarly, we have within us, you know, how it is. Did you ever think in this instrument of this body how God made this resonance, and that we can speak? How we can... manipulate our vocal cords, and the tongues, and also our lips, everything. So this is, this has nāda in the body, and that’s why Gurujī said, "One bhajan I sit in one coach of my body," which is very wonderful. So think and think of your voice. And when you want to know your voice, then you will not eat things, different this and that. You have to take care of your voice, care of your instrument. Those two things are very important. So we take care of the instrument and our voice. So we have to take care of our vocal cords, and it’s coming from the navel. And the good singer is always bringing the air from the abdomen, the lower abdomen. So the diaphragm goes further down. And then from there they come slowly, slowly till here. And who has not learned it, then it’s only here. Then our breath is short. And if we learn to sing from the abdomen, then constantly our navel is pulling, yes. So when you say "Aum," you know, the nābhi, the navel is pulling in. So from here, and then anāhat, anāhat or nād, endless resonance. So it was very nice, Madhuram was very nice playing the flute. And so there are different kinds of instruments, and the best instrument is also our vocal chords. So when one becomes a good singer, who is trained and sings, all be silent.