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A beautiful good evening in this beautiful forest atmosphere, among many different trees and a very nice environment. We are here. Our subject is Haṭha Yoga, which we can also understand through Patañjali. Ṛṣi Patañjali was from the time before the Mahābhārata, the time of Bhagavān Vedavyāsa. Some scholars say it is even older, but certain scriptures tell us it was the time of Vedavyāsa. He was the ṛṣi who brought yoga together. We call it Aṣṭāṅga Yoga from Patañjali. He tried to make everything very simple for all. His teaching with his disciples was very beautiful. The speciality of Ṛṣi Patañjali is "Ahiṃsā paramodharma." Ahiṃsā means non-violence. So the greatest dharma is respecting everyone; it is non-violence. When Ṛṣi Patañjali was in the jungle—we call it jungle, or forest, or araṇya, a place of beautiful trees—many ṛṣis performed yajñas there. About eight years ago, we were at the Mahākumbha Melā in Prayāgrāj. One of our Mahāmaṇḍaleśvars gave a bandhārā, and his ashram is there, about five or six kilometers away on the bank where the Gaṅgā, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī meet. We know the Gaṅgā River very well, and the Yamunā, where Kṛṣṇa was incarnated. The Sarasvatī River was with Alakpurījī, joining with the Alaknanda. Bhagavān Śiva, Gaṇeśa, and Vedavyāsa were having a satsaṅg and writing the Vedas. Gaṇeśa said, "The sound of this river's water is too strong." So Vedavyāsa said to the Sarasvatī river, "From there, you should now go deep underground." We can see that the Sarasvatī river is still there, but from the words of the ṛṣi, it went underground. It is near Bhīm Pūl, where the river emerges. The Sarasvatī River went under the rock and is said to come out in Dev Prayāg. That is why the Kumbh Melā is there, and it is called Triveṇī, where three rivers connect. At that time, Sarasvatī emerges, joining the Yamunā and Gaṅgā. Bathing in the confluence of these three rivers is one of the most sacred acts. Many ceremonies were performed there. You may remember that Bhagavān Śiva was there, and Brahmā and Viṣṇu were there. There was a yajña, a pravāhalaṁ yajña. To the right of that river bank is an ashram of one of our disciples, a member of our Akhāḍā. We went there three times for Bandhāra. When I left our camp, I went with an ācārya of our akhāṛā, the head of all, Swāmījī, in my car. The Kumbh Mela was behind us. On the left side—I am telling you this because of where Patañjali's knowledge was given—there were very old trees, thousands of years old. That is called Araṇya. The Ācāryajī, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvarānandajī, said to me, "Look how beautiful this forest, this Araṇya, is. I think many, many ṛṣis have performed hitapasya and yajñas here." I said, "Yes, Swamiji, it is very special." There was one tree with very long and big roots, about 30 or 40 meters wide. I said, "Ācāryajī, I will take a photo and give it to you." Unfortunately, I did not get the place or time to do this, and our Ācāryajī died by accident. These were the ṛṣis. They performed yajñas, tapasyās, meditations, and they did not have any prapañca, which means no excessive problems in society. We are so much outside ourselves. We are in the body, but our thoughts are always outside. Similarly, there were many, many ṛṣis at that time: in Satyugas, Dvāparayugas, Tretā Yuga, and now the fourth, Kali Yuga. We hope Kali Yuga will finish very soon. So many ṛṣis wrote many, many scriptures. It is like universities today, where each university has faculties, and every student learns and works on a faculty. This knowledge was given by the ṛṣis: some for haṭha yoga, some for karma yoga, bhakti yoga, rāja yoga, and many other techniques of spirituality. Someone wrote about birth and death, where the soul goes and how it comes back. This is contained in the Vedas and the old scriptures that followed. Among them was Bhagavān... not Kapila Muni, sorry, Patañjali. Patañjali wrote this beautiful book. It is evidence for all yogīs and others who want to learn or know what yoga is. First, it is about the body, so that our body is healthy and comfortable. You have to work with your body yourself. After we are gone, we are lost. He also said, "What kind of vṛttis do you have?" If you have negative vṛttis, it does not matter where you are or what techniques you are doing. When you have such negative vṛttis in you, you are lost. If you have good vṛttis, good thoughts, it does not matter even if you are not practicing. Your positive thinking brings you higher and higher towards Brahman. So the first thing is that we should not have any negative thinking. If negative thoughts come, then you are separating from your Master. It is like on the bank of a river, where suddenly there is a creek, and the water goes to the left side into the canals. So if any kind of negative thoughts come, or if devotion or good things diminish, then it means you are gone. When devotion is lost, it means you are lost too. It is said: you built a beautiful castle, but there was a little shake from an earthquake, and the wall became a little creaky. Now it means this building will sooner or later be destroyed. Similarly, Ṛṣi Patañjali said that in your thinking, in your physical, mental, and intellectual being, in your knowledge, you are destroying yourself. We can try to support something, to put cement inside, but it is already separated. Why? Because of negative thoughts—neither towards your parents, nor towards your brothers and sisters, nor towards your neighbors and friends, nor towards your teacher or master, and finally, the highest, your guru. Anything you do regarding your guru, you should never harbor negative thoughts. When you lose hope or devotion, then you have cracked. So Patañjali was thinking of positive and negative vṛttis, and we shall always go towards the positive. Within you, there is no inherent negative, but you may have some kuśaṅga. Someone is putting a bug in your brain; someone tells you this and that. It comes from outside. Sometimes you come back to the right way, and sometimes it is very hard to get rid of it. For the last three days, I have been observing every day, every year here. But the last three times, I was thinking and saw with my own eyes—you see it too. There is a beautiful big tree, a chestnut tree, with beautiful green leaves and very beautiful nuts. But this tree has an illness, not from itself, but from outside. Last year, the year before, five or six years ago, someone told me this is a bug that came from China. I do not know if China has anything like this, but it is said they brought some trees from China, and there were bugs that attacked the chestnut. Not only here in our ashram, but in all of Europe. I thought, well, this is not good. What should we do? Should we cut all the leaves? Should we put a little fire around? It does not help. This disease attacks only the chestnut tree. All other trees are very healthy. Why only this one? Yesterday, around midnight, I went to visit my beautiful bathroom. I wanted to see how it is at night—very clean, very nice. But why? I went there, but I was thinking of the chestnut. This is what I wanted to take as a subject from Patañjali. For example, we are here, hundreds of people. One of them may be very negative but does not show it. Still, we see the illness of negative thinking. So among all of us, one may have that illness of the chestnut. The name is a very nice chestnut. I was thinking a long time ago, 20 or 30 years before: why is it called chestnut? Why not toes or fingers? Because the shape of the chestnut is like our heart. And that is in our chest. In this chestnut, in the chest of this tree, it is destroying itself—not from itself, but from outside. So some of us sitting here may have an illness inside: "I have no bhakti. I do not meditate. I cannot practice. I want to go somewhere where everyone is happy, but you are not." Even if you go to kuśaṅga, you are also not happy there. You sit and think, "Oh God, better I go to Satsaṅg." But when you come here, you say, "No, I do not want." So you are neither here nor there—not in heaven, nor on the hill, but somewhere in between. It is like this: you have a beautiful park, about 5,000 or 25,000 hectares of land, and you build a wall, eight feet or ten meters high. Whoever wants to do it will do it. The American president is making a beautiful high wall between Mexico and America. It is okay; it is his hobby. That is good. But the bugs that will come over—it does not matter how high the wall is, they can come. What I said is not about Mexico and America; this is about our little land, about 20,000 hectares. There is a lost animal going round and round, but it has no entry anywhere. You do not want to go into the forest; you are alone and afraid. When you go far, you are in danger. Now you cannot come to your own park because you ran out and are running left and right, left and right. Similarly, as Patañjali said—not me—we are destroying ourselves. We go outside of ourselves. And when you go outside your own body, your good things go out, and other people become interested in your body. They come into your house, and everyone begins to drink or do something, and they are all in the house. The owner of the house cannot say, "Go out," but he will say, "Bring more, one more bottle, bring this; you have to go outside and bring for us." So it is said: when kuśaṅga, the negative vṛttis, are in our self, then you are destroyed. You try to become good, but then come these bugs, like in the chestnut tree. So how to get rid of that? Perhaps you can do it, or that ṛṣi will do it. The ṛṣi will say, "Come back with the spiritual vṛtti." It is said that Patañjali Ṛṣi was sitting under a beautiful tree in the Araṇya. You are all sitting here; only I am not sitting under the araṇya. He did not have such nice things. He was sitting on a little earth or a broken branch or the trunk of a tree. Patañjali comes and sits there, and the devotees and disciples come and sit. You will see in one book a picture of Ṛṣi Patañjali, and it is said there is a sitting tiger, lion, cow, deer, peacocks, other birds, many animals, and even snakes coiling. He was sitting there, giving a lesson to the disciples. That was the subject of Kuṇḍalinī. That is why the cobra was there. For the ṛṣi, all are one. There was a little pond of water, and all the tigers, lions, deer, and cows were drinking, body to body, from the same water. The disciples came and sat. Such is the energy of a Ṛṣi, who teaches love towards all. That is the depiction. I am not a good painter, but you can see it in the book from Gurū Gorakhpur's books—a very nice picture. There were many ṛṣis, and they were talking in Sanskrit. I told them, "Patañjali, you cannot teach in Czech Sanskrit." He said, "What will you do? Either you send me here, allow me here, or keep mauna (silence)." So I came here and taught in different languages—Sanskrit, Hindi, English, French, German, or any language. Every language is good. In this part, Patañjali gives us bhakti yoga, karma yoga, rāja yoga, and jñāna yoga, and he put it all in one. So Ṛṣi Patañjali was a great, great saint. You can say he was an incarnation. My dear ones, just open this book, and you will see the wisdom of Patañjali. I do not want to take his words from him. That is what I want to tell you about Patañjali. Therefore, it is said: Ahiṃsā Paramo Dharma. Ahiṃsā paramodharma. At the time of the Mahābhārata, when Bhīṣma was lying on the bed of arrows, the Pāṇḍavas came and said, "Uncle, please give us the way, what we should do now." Bhīṣma said to Yudhiṣṭhira, "Yudhiṣṭhira, everything that has happened is not good. But only one thing is my instruction for you: Ahiṃsā paramodharma." Ahiṃsā means non-violence; paramo means the highest dharma. The highest religion is non-violence, and that was from Ṛṣi Patañjali. It is a great teaching, and what we are learning and teaching is about this. Let us sing one bhajan. There was one bhajan. What was it? Who said? Umapuri said, or someone? We had one at noon time. Who was it? No, no, this was Holī Gurujī's bhajan, very nice. And who sang something? You were singing. Come here. It is a very nice bhajan that Gurujī said. Beautiful. Gurujī was like an incarnation of Vyāsa. Everything was in his heart and mind. Like Vedavyāsa, or like the Aṣṭāṅga Ṛṣi, or like other ṛṣis such as Nārada, always going, "Nārāyaṇa, Nārāyaṇa," giving beautiful messages everywhere. Āje ānanda mere Satguru āye, Satguru āye, sarva sukhala āye. Satguru āye, sarva sukhala āye, āje ānanda mere, Satguru āye, āje ānanda mere, Satguru āye. Darśanāde Sarvapā Paṇṇāśaye, Darśanāde Sarvapā Paṇṇāśaye, Āja Jīvana Merā Saphala Banāye, Āja Jīvana Merā Saphala Banāye, Saphala Banāye, Āja Ānanda Mere Satguru Āye, Āja Ānanda Mere Satguru Āye. Kum Kumakhe Sara Gaara Nipaahum, Kum Kumakhe Sara Gaara Nipaahum. Motiyanachoka Aajapuraye, ... Aajapuraye Aajhe Ananda Mere Satguru Aaye. Ājhe Ānanda Mere Satguru Āye, Sattva Guru Āye, Sarva Sukhal Āye. Ājhe Ānanda Mere Sattva Guru Āye, Ājhe Ānanda Mere Sattva Guru Āye. Karuṇā Āratī Seva Pūjā. Karun Arati Seva Pooja Nija Ghar Shyama Baraye, Nija Ghar Shyama Baraye. Āje ānanda mere satguru āye, charaṇa koḷ charaṇa amṛta lehu, charaṇa. Na kolchara, na mrittale, hum kotiti rata phala paye, kotiti rata phala paye. Ājhe ānanda mere sattva-guru āye, sattva-guru āye, sarva-sukhalāye. Ājhe ānanda mere sattva-guru āye. Lehu vāraṇā tāna manavāru, kāli kāli hāra hārāśāye ājhe. Ānanda mēre sattā gurū āye. Śrī Pūjā Bhagavān Ādipa Nārāyaṇa Sana Mukha Darśana Dikhaaye. Āyā dikhāye, āje ānanda mere sattā guru āye. Āje ānanda mere sattā guru āye. Sattā guru āye, sarva sukhāl āye. Sattā guru āye, sarva sukhāl āye. Āje ānanda mere satguru āye. Kahe Madhava Nanda Baro Dine Aayo, satta guru aaya huta ne chitaye. Aaj he ananda, mere satta guru aaye. Satguru Aaye, Sarvasukal Aaye. Aajhe ananda, mere Satguru aaye. Om Śrī Dīp Marāyaṁ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Śrī Devapurī Śama Deva Kī Jai, Satta Guru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Viśva Guru Mamandale Śvara Paramaṁse Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī Guru Deva Kī Jai. Very good. So that was today about Patañjali. And our Haṭha Yoga is very good. That bhajan of Gurujī was written on Haṭha. Yesterday and this morning we were talking about our Aṣṭāṅga Yoga—no, not Aṣṭāṅga, sorry, Haṭha Yoga. Yesterday and today we talked about Haṭha Yoga. Now, in Haṭha Yoga, there is what is called Nauli. Many of our practitioners do it every day. Many can do it from time to time. If one can do it every day, it will protect that person from cancer, from difficulties with cancer, with diets. And it is thanks to our navel, which is very powerful. It takes many days to learn how to control the stomach muscles. First, the stomach has to go down. So my stomach said, "Your navel is automatically functioning downward." But it is when one inhales, exhales, then pulls the stomach in and the muscles out. Then you are moving; it is really very nice circling. Many are doing it. I could not master it fully, but it is very, very powerful. Also, it is said you will have no diabetes, no cancer, no kidney problems, no problems with your gallbladder, and of course, no problem of constipation. This is one of the best practices. And also, no problem with blood from hemorrhoids. So this is a very, very good one. Which prāṇāyāmas have we done in the program? Neti, dhauti, nauli—now we have spoken about it. You all know very well, so I need not tell. So: neti, dhauti, basti, nauli, trāṭak, and kapālabhāti. Tomorrow we will learn Kapālabhāti, because now we are after dinner and cannot do it. This will be tomorrow. We wish you all the best, and we will find this bhajan. Hari Om. Satya Sanātana Dharma.