TV Channel

It is a great pleasure to be with you, my dear brothers, sisters, and yoga friends in Slovenia. The organizers asked me to speak in English, and it is very interesting to do so here. Thirty years of celebrating yoga and daily life in Slovenia has become an international event. Of course, nothing was planned. I did not know I would be here at this moment, but there are some who are planning for us. It was thirty years ago that Slovenia was blessed by the arrival of Vishwaguru Mahāmaleśwar Paramahaṁswāmī Maishrānanjī to this place. Many here were present at that time, and we are still present now. In 1998, I read a book about yoga. It was an old book written around the end of the 18th century. I did not know anything about yoga before that. Actually, I knew of the yoga madrasas of the Mevlog company; they were called yoga. I knew there was a yoga madrasa—Yogī, no? Madrasī. I read the book, and believe me, every word I read for the first time, I already knew. It was as if something was opening my closed pages. Then I heard they had opened a yoga center in Ljubljana, and I ran to it. It was October, and they said, "You are too late, you can come next year." I said, "Okay, okay," but I knew the person leading the yoga. I went in, and from that time, I was packed. The next year, I was in India building Omāśram. So it started a new chapter of education. You see, we think we are the bosses of our life. But in these few years, I realized that actually we are artists in the play—in Līlā, as it is called in Hindi—where we are playing the roles we received for this life. So we are all together one beautiful family, going from place to place, from life to life, and developing spiritually. It is said life is education. Now, in India, a few centuries back, they knew of two types of education given to people in the gurukuls. Every village had its own guru and its own gurukul. In those gurukuls, people received two types of education. One is material knowledge: how to live in this world. The second was spiritual education: Where are we coming from? Who are we? What is the purpose of life? How do we live so that life will be successful? And what is the aim of life? If we get only one education and not both, we are like a bird with only one wing. We cannot fly. We can develop science, technology, and whatnot, but what to do with them? How to use them? We know the West went in that direction, and we see where we are. India, unfortunately, took the same direction in recent years. That is why saints from the Indian mountains, Himalayas, jungles, and forests came to the West, bringing with them blessings and the wisdom of the ṛṣis and munis who actually made India as it is. Wherever Gurudev, Viśva Gurujī, puts his holy feet, there gold will grow up. I do not mean the real one, but in different forms. Can you imagine, thirty years back, a vegetarian living in Slovenia? When I became a disciple, it was also thirty years back; we are twins. Mahāmaṇḍalī Svar, Jñāneśvar Purījī. Actually, I am a little bit older because I got mantra dīkṣā in Croatia a few months before Gyāneśvar got mantra dīkṣā in Ljubljana. At that moment, whatever was connected with non-vegetarian food disappeared, gone. I went to a restaurant where I was regularly eating and said, "Please give me vegetarian food." They said, "My child, what will we give you? Will you eat just salad?" And now, you see, everywhere you get vegetarian food. In so many places, you get pure vegetarian restaurants, and that is something. How many people have become vegetarians? It is not a small thing, as one might think. It has huge consequences for the complete development of the globe, of the complete planet. Or yoga. I heard yesterday, I did not know, that we have yoga ashrams and yoga centers in 108 villages and cities in Slovenia. I do not know if there are so many cities in Slovenia. You know, Slovenia is big, big, like 10% of Delhi by population. And we have 150 yoga instructors, 500. Can you imagine? Five hundred yoga instructors giving knowledge, divine knowledge about ourselves to yoga seekers or spiritual seekers. 108 is a very magic number. Om Ashram has 108 rooms. The height of the Om Ashram parts where the Swamījī will live, or the main points of the building, is 108 feet. We have mountains which we made when we dug a big lake to get water. That mountain also has a height of 108 feet and a diameter of 108 feet. We have been working in Jadan for 29 years. Actually, Jadan is also celebrating 30 years because Swamiji bought the land in 1989, so 30 years of Jadan also. You see? That is why I came. Now I know. Omāśram we are building for more than 20 years. Before Om Ashram, we started to make some residential buildings, prayer or satsaṅg halls, offices, and so on. There is no coincidence in this life. When I was a small boy in school, we wrote homework: "What will you be when you are big?" And I wrote, "I will be an architect, and I will make round buildings." And they were all laughing. Can you imagine? A round house? Your house must be square or rectangular. The first building we built in Jadana was round. The second was also round. It was an office, and it was a terrible building. I was thinking, how is it possible that such an ugly building is built? So I made some sketches and showed them to the Holy Gurujī. He said, "Yes, yes, do it." So we started to build a veranda around and a dome. When Swamijī came from Europe, he said, "What have you done? You didn't listen." Okay, okay, let us correct your mistake. We'll make our temple. So we made a Shiva temple. So I was not listening to my Gurudev from the beginning. And still, I do not listen. That is why I have lost some hair. I am thin, but happy. When we listen carefully to Guru Vākya, he will guide us beside all these rocks of life. And when we do not listen, or we listen little, some rocks will hit us a little bit. I will tell you just one small example. When I was going to India for the first time, I was traveling together with somebody who passed away a few days back, from Czech. The time I had with me a theodolite—that is, Tola Purī will know what that is; it is an instrument for measuring length. And she had with her what was necessary for her make-up. In the aeroplane, they said we had too much luggage, we had to leave one luggage extra. I said, "I cannot leave." So she started to cry, so they promised that she will get it in Moscow. We were flying over Moscow in the time of the Soviet Union. We had a connection flight the next day, so we had to sleep in a Moscow hotel for one day. We came there, she got that baggage, and then we put it on the bus, in the room. They locked us in the room, and I was sitting there and looking at that beautiful Moscow snow falling. It was so beautiful. I remember that so much. It was 25 years back, or maybe more. I was again traveling through Moscow to India. And I remembered that beautiful feeling, looking at the snow, the peace. I was thinking how beautiful it would be again to stay there overnight in Moscow and enjoy that snow. It was just a thought, you know, a thought. So we had a lot of satsaṅg in Slovenia, and before my travel, I was not sleeping all night, traveling from satsaṅg to home, and then packing the luggage, and then to Venice airport. I had with me also a nivellir, that is another kind of geometrical instrument. I was tired, so when I came to the airplane and they closed the door, I realized that I forgot the Nivellir in the restaurant at the airport. They were nice. They opened the door, and they let me out. I brought that machine, and we had a fifteen-minute delay. We came to Moscow, and I had two hours—two and a half hours—to wait for the connecting flight. I said, I have so much time. Slowly walking through the airport to the place where the gate was, I came there and I realized that again I do not have that machine. So I went back slowly, slowly, because I had two and a half hours' time. They gave me that machine, and I walked again slowly back to the gate, and when I came there, the aeroplane was not there anymore. Gone. What to do? So I went to the counter, I said, "Missed the plane?" I said, "Show the ticket." I showed the ticket. He said, "Okay, this flight is for tomorrow. This is your hotel room. This is a coupon for the food. We wish you a good stay in Russia." And it was snowing. The beautiful, small, small,... tiny snow was going down, and I was sitting in the window, and I was so happy. So we go further. The day before yesterday, I went to Croatia, illegally—do not tell—to Gjanešvar, for some treatment. In the night came a phone call from Gurudev. Morning, four o'clock. I knew Swamiji, I will not answer. I told him that I am in Croatia. He does not need to know. So time came to go back. I sat on the bus at four o'clock. Or to a car to come to the bus station, the bus was not there. So I tried to buy a ticket for the next bus, which was booked. So I booked a third bus, which was going two hours later. Some Flix bus, something like this, green, international bus. Drago was speaking only Italian language, no Croatian, no English, Italiano. We came to the border. With us in the bus, there was one family from Asia, maybe China, and they had some small problems with the papers. So we were waiting in the bus station on the border, the Croatian border, for 45 minutes. Then we came to the Slovenian border, which they call the frontier border for the Schengen. So, there we were, waiting two hours. And the complete bus was returned back to Croatia, so instead of coming to Ljubljana, as I was planning at six o'clock, I came at midnight. And of course, I phoned Swamiji, and he did not pick up the telephone. So, you see, when we work as per the guidance of the Gurudev, he will take care. Of course, a grain of salt should be put in there, so I will not go into the samples, but yes, we should follow, but mainly we should be dedicated to Him, and we should have absolute trust. You see, our relation towards the Guru, that is important. And if we are doing it by our own, karma will kick us a little bit here and there, sometimes more gentle, sometimes a little bit less gentle. Gurudev has a body and mind similar to us normal people. But he is not the same; there is a huge difference between us. This we know, I do not need to tell you, because you know this very well. But, you see, I read some article that some person sent me. It is written by one doctor of science, a PhD. He wrote an article. It is very good that you are taking the spiritual path. You should search for the spiritual masters and teachers, but be aware of the guru. Be aware of the guru, PhD, who has no idea what he is talking about. That is when we have only one-sided education. Now, can you imagine our luck that from this material education—in India they call it Rotī Kamāne Kā Gyān, which means education or knowledge of how to earn the bread. That is all. And from that knowledge, we started to get the spiritual knowledge, spiritual guidance. That changes everything in our life. They say a sannyāsī is second time born, but I would say we are all very young, thirty years or less, young humans who are walking the spiritual path. I am the one who was born twice, and I say that we are all 30 years young, and we are lucky enough to walk the spiritual path for 30 years. Nothing on this planet happens by coincidence. Everything is very carefully planned, very carefully. You will remember in Vṛndāvan we were singing one bhajan of Mahāprabhujī. And Swamiji asked us, "Do you like it?" "Yes, it's beautiful." What did Swamiji say? You were singing the same bhajan with Mahāprabhujī because you were His disciples. Is there somebody who remembers that? Yeah, see. So we are not born from the monkey and become humans. We are living on this planet for many, many yugas. Traveling through time and space together, we are one beautiful family. We did not develop ourselves out of habit, but yoga, and yoga travels through different lives, and we live on this planet. And we have our own duties to perform. And we are doing them. What Yoga in Daily Life, made in Slovenia, is a miracle. Very, very proud of ourselves and very, very grateful to our destiny, our karmas, our good luck, that a great, great soul, a great saint decided to come between us and guide us through this hard time, which is called Kali Yuga. If the saints would not balance the energies of this planet, the planet would be in complete chaos. And we are lucky, very lucky, that we can be part of, let us say, those who are cooperating or be instruments of those who are balancing that chaos, balancing the energies on this planet. And we can be very happy to cooperate with those who balance the energies of this planet. Now, I am sure you want to know the news about Omāśram. Yes. You know everything more than I know, because the news from Jadana comes quicker than I know what is going on. Already you know. But still, Gurudev decided to complete the ashram in 2020. You see, Om Ashram could have been ready 10 years back, 15 years back, if Swāmījī would have decided like that. But the Om Ashram, Jadan Ashram, and all buildings, and all other ashrams in India—Jaipur, Kailash, Kathu, Nepal, Delhi—now we have Rupavas, a new one, a project. So, all these ashrams as well, every yoga center, every ashram in the world, same, same, the same thing. They are like a medicine for all of us. We are all working very hard to make them, to build them. All of us, everyone in their own way and in their own capacity. What is medicine, which is an ashram? You see, when people come to yoga classes—and you are more or less all yoga instructors and teachers—you know very well. I am not. You know very well how surprised people are when you tell them, "Now relax your small finger, small finger, and lower arm, and upper arm, and shoulder, and ears, and nose." How can this be? So, what happens? The people, or all of us, who were searching for happiness in the outer world and blaming the outer world for unhappiness, start to find ourselves. First, through the physical body, then through the breath techniques. And then we find almighty mind, and then we start to look in it. What is that? In the beginning, we are the best of the best, and all others are the worst of the worst. He is like that, and he is guilty, and he is guilty, but I am always right. It takes ages to realize that they are guilty, but we are also a little bit guilty, maybe. And then again, it takes ages and ages of education to realize: what I do is their problem, what I do is my problem. It is a very complicated educational process. It is not sitting in the classroom and listening to the lectures. But it is hard work. It is called Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Rāja Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jñāna Yoga. All four yogas are included, or how to say, interwoven, how to say in English, involved. Interwoven, yes. So they are interwoven in these ashrams, and whatever we are doing for these ashrams. Because theoretically, I can tell you, Indians are all enlightened. Every Indian is an enlightened person. It can give you a lesson on everything, whatever you want. But practically, 0.000000-0. But we are not anymore zero. We are developed quite much. We are aware or we are not aware, but we see on others how much we changed in these 30 or less or more years. Amazingly. And that gratefulness, or let us say, all zasługa, how to say zasługa? Merit. All merit goes to the Gurudev and, of course, to us also, a little bit. It is not free. Oh, Swamījī will do this, and Swamījī will do this, and Swamījī will do this. He will do everything for us. What we are there, then, Swāmījī will do this and this, so he will do everything. Everywhere in the universe, business is business. If you want to get something, you have to give something. Swamiji has immense powers. He has the immense support of the Guru Paramparā, Śrī Alak Purījī, Devpurījī, Mahāprabhujī, and Gurujī. They are working. The sweat is coming from them, so much they are working to support Gurudev and us. But still, the body is the body, and the mind is the mind. Swamijī Ganeśwarjī said that Swamijī is running now more than ever. Yes, he is right. But can you imagine sitting from aeroplane to aeroplane? Yesterday he was in India, now he is on the way from Vienna to Ljubljana. And crying. Tomorrow he will be somewhere else. He just runs from the airport to the hotel or to some room, gets food wherever, does not matter how nicely prepared, always different. Solving all our problems, Swamiji is all the time sitting on the telephone. Both. Yes, it will be okay, it will be okay. And we are all coming, Bābājī, please help, help,... Help. I need this, I need that. A child was born yesterday. I need to talk to Swamiji. I need to inform Swamiji. We are doing all that, no? All we are doing is that. So, we are all going to Swāmījī, please, please, please. And he is always saying, "Yes, yes, come, let us do that." It is not free. He is paying with his health, mainly his health and time. He does not live for himself; he lives for us. So that is holiness. Holiness is when a person does not live for himself anymore; he lives for others. When we are practicing yoga, when we are teaching yoga, we should not forget that. There was one gurujī, a spiritual master, so there was one gurujī, old, and he was working very hard. And the disciple said, "Gurujī, why are you working so much? Rest a little bit." So he said, "I will work for you till my last drop of blood." He passed away, and then they checked. They made this abduction, I do not know how you call it. And they found that there is no blood in his veins. Swamiji told me this once, and he said, "Yes, I am doing the same." So every thought, every atom of energy Swāmījī is giving to us, his children, his beloved, to bring us a step closer toward Self-Realization. And we are doing our best to follow him. But also with a little bit of reserve, and that is understandable. Because we are living in the world as it is. And we cannot fully understand what he is actually giving us. If he would know, and if he would put so much energy into studying to be a doctor or engineer or whatever profession he would choose, then we would meditate and do seva to everyone, because we would understand that with that, we are... Are getting liberation from this physical mortal world? We live in this material world, and we try as much as we can. We meditate according to our best powers, but we are not as dedicated as we would be if we knew that we are going against self-realization. Because every penny or euro cent, which we give to the person who is begging on the street, brings us a step nearer to our salvation. Every hand which we give to an old person to cross the road, or to a neighbor to bring them some nourishment from the shop, brings us closer to salvation. What that person asking for money in the street will do with that money is his karma. Ours is to help, not to be selfish, because we humans become selfish, and in that selfishness we are just getting more and more and... Never is enough, so in the good deeds, in the good words, with the good words, we are helping ourselves. And this is what Swāmījī is teaching us: give, give, give. In giving, Swamiji said, when you give, then you get. First we have to give, and then we will get. It is so difficult to understand, but it is working 100%. So Gurudev is giving, giving, giving. And we should learn that from him. And this is the purpose of our activities in yoga. To give knowledge when we become instructors. To do seva in the ashram, cleaning the ashram, or to help organize some programs. And then we can go wider, and we start to nicely talk to the neighbors and the people whom we meet on the road. And we can go to the āśramas and do sevā in the āśrama. In Jadana, it is not simple. It is not because Swamiji is there and he is changing everything. Of course, he is changing everything all the time, but this is for us. Just giving us a new lesson. Just to steer this mind again, that is not getting dull, sitting down and content in its own pleasure or whatever it is, so he is steering through that, actions, activities, changing and changing and changing. Yes, make a beautiful garden between the Gurujī building and the White House. Make beautiful walkways that you will walk on and meditate on. Put flowers, roses, and mogras, and I do not know which flowers, beautiful, organize everything. Clean this bad grass, and we are doing ink, and then he said, "Bring tractor and plow everything." Bam! What? So many years of work destroying? How can he do that? Yes. What happened in that bunk? Let us see now what happened in the bunk. Attachment, anger, hatred, jealousy. Yes, from where did it come? That is education. You see, education of our mind, because we are as our mind is. If we are observing what you said yesterday, some very important words, not awareness, but mindfulness. Mindfulness, what is that? Mindfulness or awareness, if we are aware of what is going on inside, and of course outside, that is spirituality. That is spirituality. A disciple came after 20 years of very strong sādhanā tapasyā in the jungle to his master. It was raining, and he put an umbrella in the corner. He made praṇām to Gurujī, he gave him presents, and then Gurujī asked him, "In which hand were you carrying the umbrella when you entered the room?" I do not know. Go back the next 20 years in meditation. So, observing our self, observing our thoughts, thoughts are most important. If a mosquito is flying here and we think, "I will kill him. No, I will not," we are already done. It is done. The thought came: "I will kill him. I will take this life away." Go back. Next, 20 years of meditation. The word is the next step, and the deed is the third step. So if you want to get liberated from this mortal world, if you want to achieve Ātmā Gyan and Brahma Gyan, what is the purpose of life for every one of us? We should become pure. There should not be negative thoughts. All kinds. Of course, we are so far, we are already there. So, the ashrams, Om Ashram, it does not matter if somebody is working there as a stonemason, or the tile layer, or the sweeper, or the gardener, or the cook, or the engineer, it does not matter. Or we are working here. Or we are supporting the building of a mazhar. You see, in India also, materialism is coming in through the big gate. It is there, so everything also costs. So every contribution which you give has a very big meaning and supports or helps very much to complete the Omāśram. It does not matter in which... Part of the body is the cell, in the hand, or leg, or in the brain. All together, we are creating one body. We are equally important. There is no less important or more important cell of the body. Similarly, there are no less or more important disciples. We are all equally important, and just we are doing different duties, or we are sitting on different places of this body. So the purpose of all these yoga activities, when we just come over the stages, is just to practice for myself and do asanas so that I feel better, good, and healthy. So the purpose of all these activities is our spiritual growth. Spiritual growth. And yes, we are on a very good way to achieve that. So, Swamijī said, "Yogeśa, we will open Om Āśrama in the year 2020, when the Gurujī Samādhi will be, on the date of Gurujī Samādhi." So I cancelled my holidays, one and a half month, working very hard. Making a double shift. So, we were working from six o'clock in the morning till eight or ten o'clock in the evening. Somewhere all night, in some places. And then Swamiji said, "Yes, Yogesh, it is not good that we will make the opening on the Guru's Mahāsamādhi day, because this is somewhere at the end of October, I think the 20th of October. But we will have it for the day of the celebration of the Guru's birthday, that is September 11th." Ok, two months gone. And then he said, "We can make the opening of Om Ashram on the day when Gurujī took Sannyās Dīkṣā." Five days back, Swamiji said, "Yogesh, how much time do you need to complete this temple?" Two months, Swamijī. Okay. This Diwali, I want to open the temple. Ask me when Omāśram will be opened, please. I do not know. So, Omāśram will be open when Swāmījī says yes. Now we will open it. No idea. There are some theories that in 2020, some very important age or time age will be completed. So it is good that we complete Omāśram in this time. So, we try to come into this very important time of the century. So, Yogesh, you should make the Aum Ashram and complete the Ashram as per Vāstu Śāstra. Swamiji, the kitchen, as per Vāstu Śāstra, should be in that corner, the Agni Koṇa. Where is that? There, Babjī. Okay, made kitchen there. Okay, he can do that. All energies will be imbalanced. I am Vāstu Śāstra. So in the guru, in the realized son, life, there are no rules, there are his rules. And the planet will adjust its own rules as per his rules. Yes, that is the rule. We started to make a new ashram in Rūpā Vās. It should be beautiful and big. Yes, Swāmījī. It should be here. It should be here. Make it there. Make it there. Should be so much about a print level, means the floor level should be so much about earth. Should be so much about earth, should be so much about earth. Yes, make the plan: one room, one kitchen, one bathroom, one storeroom for me, yes. And same for Mānasa Devī. Yes, Swāmījī. And one smaller for the caretaker. This is how Guru works with disciples, said Swamijī. Yogesh, make whatever you want now. You see, Swamiji said, "Guru is as a tiger. He grabs, he grabs the goat and shakes it. So far as the goat is moving, when the goat stops to move, the tiger will put the goat on the floor." So far as we are moving our mind and expectations and wills and, I do not know, willpower. I am, and I will. Who is he? So far, we will have a hard life. But when we give our want and don't want into the hands of the Master, he will do everything for us. We just need to move a little finger, and he will move the complete hand. So this is in short what we are doing in the Jādana Śram, in Omaśram. What? We are building ourselves. So we have a great master, great, great,... great. He made the system Yoga in Daily Life, which is great, great,... great. There may be millions of yogas and millions of other teachers. It does not matter. We have our own way. We should just walk step by step. When we go to the top of the mountain, we do not look at the top. We look one step in front of us. Because if we looked up, we would get so scared that we would just turn around. So let us go step by step. Let us be aware that we have great, great luck and that we are very blessed to have one of the very rare and very real saints of this age, who is our Master, our Gurudev. And all we need to do is to give our hand, keep his hand, and go wherever he goes. He will bring us there, where we need to come, where we want to come. So with this, I would finish. Thank you very much for listening. If I said something too much or too little, please forgive. And Gurudev is coming very soon. We will be very lucky. He will be between us soon, so I wish you a good day. Śrīdhar Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Che, Śrī Alak Purījī Bhagavān Kī Che, Devāde Dev Śrīdev Purī Samāhadeva Kī Che, Hind Dharma Smṛit Parhaṇ Śrī Sāī Mādhav Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān Kī Che, Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar Parhaṇ Śrī Svāmī Mahiṣānjī Satguru Deva Kī Che, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar Śrī Svāmī Jñānaś Purījī Mahārāj Kī Che.