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Part 1: The Path of Guru Bhakti: Preparing the Heart for Guru Pūrṇimā Om Bolī Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Śrī Siddha Viśvarām Deva Kī Jaya, Sattva Guru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, Svāmī Maheśvarānandajī, Yogirāj Kī Jaya. Bhulīsī Dīpnā Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Devadhī Deva Sat Deva Sura Mahādeva Kī Jaya, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Satgurūsī Mādhava Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Viśvagurū Mahāmaṇḍaleśvarānanda Śrī Maheśvarānanda Purī Satgurū Deva Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Dayālu Hame Nāme Āpa Kalī Nāma. Prabhujī, hame nāme āpa kalī nāma. Bolī Siddhipnā Bhagavān Kī Jaya Devadideva Devaśra Mahādeva Kī Jaya Oṁ Śrī Alakhpur Jī Mahādeva Kī Jaya Devadideva Īśvara Mahādeva Kī Jaya Siddhip Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jaya Hindu Dharma Samrāḍ Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Śrī Madhavānanda Purī Jī Sadgurudeva Bhagavān Kī Jaya Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī Yogī Rāj Kī Jaya Sadā Śiva Samarambhām, Śaṅkarācārya Madhyamām, Asmadācārya Paryantām, Vande Guru Paramparām. First of all, I bow my head before our beloved Gurudev and our Guru Paramparā. As you know, Vishwagurujī has been speaking over the past few days about the upcoming Guru Pūrṇimā, which falls on the 5th of July 2020. Due to the Coronavirus, the Guru Pūrṇimā celebration in Jadan will not take place as usual. Instead, Viśvagurujī will be with all of you in Europe, and everyone will celebrate Guru Pūrṇimā in their own homes through satsaṅg with Gurudev’s photo and with devotion. So today, by Gurudev’s kṛpā and blessings, I would like to speak about Guru Bhakti, about the devotion you should have towards your Guru. Whatever I am saying now are entirely Gurudev’s words, not my own. The first and most fundamental aspect is paying attention. When you have a guru—whether a spiritual guru, a teacher in school or university, or your parents who teach you many things—you must be profoundly attentive. A true disciple is one who pays complete attention, absorbing every single word of the Guru within himself. That is the mark of a genuine disciple. When Gurudev gives a discourse, we may sometimes close our eyes and start to doze off; that happened to me often when I was young. But now I realize that each word is like a drop of nectar entering our being. Whatever he says is divine and necessary for every little aspect of life, even when he is angry or speaking about ordinary matters. Every small detail is important. So paying close attention to the Guru’s words is truly essential. Second, when a guru initiates us with a kriyā or a mālā—as on Guru Pūrṇimā, when many receive guru dīkṣā from Swāmījī and he gives a guru mantra to repeat—that practice becomes a living thread of connection. Whenever you see Vishwagurujī giving a discourse, he always holds a mālā or a sumaraṇ in his hand. The practice grows more and more absorbing; you continue it constantly, 24/7, immersed in Guru Bhakti through the mālā. An example: a person once asked Holy Gurujī, “How do you feel if you skip your mālā for a day?” Holy Gurujī replied, “If I skip even a single day, it feels as if I forgot to brush my teeth or missed my shower.” For him, these small daily routines were just as vital as his mālā. He used to do his mālā with such intensity that the textures on the rudrākṣa beads were completely worn away by his fingers, simply from continuous repetition. There is another story about a guru and a disciple. Once they went to bathe in a river, and the disciple stood on the bank holding the guru’s clothes. When the guru entered the water, he saw a scorpion floating on the surface, struggling and drowning. The guru reached under it, picked it up, and began walking. The disciple cried out, “Gurudev, it will bite you! Please take care!” The guru replied, “Do not worry; the dharma of the scorpion is to bite.” The scorpion bit him. Again the disciple shouted, “Gurudev, I told you—leave it now and take your bath!” Yet the guru continued, and the scorpion bit a second time, and then a third time before he emerged from the river and placed it safely on the shore. The distressed disciple said, “I warned you so many times it would bite. Why didn’t you just leave it?” The guru answered, “The scorpion did what its dharma demands—it bit. My dharma, the best I can offer, is to protect and save it from drowning. So I acted accordingly. The Guru always knows what he is doing. You should never question a Guru.” In Sanskrit there is a saying: “Guru Vākya, Guru Ājñā, Avacāra Nīyo.” This means you should never question your Guru or ask, “Why?” If the Guru tells you to do something, you do not deliberate; Guru Vākya is Guru Vākya. Follow it without hesitation. In the prayer we sing every evening, there is a line: “Rāma Kṛṣṇa se kaun baṛe?”—who is greater than Lord Rāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa? No one. Yet the next line says, “usne bhī gurukīna”—even they had a guru. And further, “Tino loke ke nāṭ hain, vā bhī guru ke ādhīn”—the lords of all three worlds themselves remain under the guidance of a guru. Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, the supreme lords of our Indian culture, went to Gurukul, listened to their Guru, and worshipped him. This shows that you always need a Guru who can lead your life forward. Life remains incomplete without a Guru. What is Guru Kṛpā? As Gurudev always says, “Guru Kṛpā He Kevalam, Śiṣya Ke Ānanda Maṅgalam.” Without the Guru’s blessings, without his kṛpā, the disciple is nothing. To be a true disciple, you constantly need Gurudev’s grace. Vishwagurujī once gave the example of a pot: when a Guru pours something into a pot, it must stay there. There is a Hindi saying: “Upara se bhare, nīche se jhare, Guru Mahārāj kyā kare?” If the Guru fills from above but the pot has a hole at the bottom, all the knowledge he pours in simply flows out. The Guru is always trying to push you forward, to give you the knowledge he possesses. Yet if you lack the inner capacity, if you are not ready, you cannot retain that knowledge. If you have Gurudev’s kṛpā, if you are truly devoted with niṣṭhā and bhakti, you become capable of receiving what he offers. But until total devotion is present, the true knowledge he wishes to impart cannot take root. I have been under Viśvagurujī’s kṛpā for the past twenty years, traveling extensively within India with Viśokānandjī and others, and I have witnessed much politics. A disciple is not truly a disciple if he thinks with selfish motives, yet nowadays this is common. Look at Holy Gurujī or Viśvagurujī: when Holy Gurujī was in his physical form, he never complained, “Why is my picture not on the altar?” He always had Mahāprabhujī and Devpurījī above him. Even now, Vishwagurujī always places his gurus above himself. He never thinks, “I am the greatest, the highest.” He says, “No, the Guru is always higher than you.” If he wished, he could demand his own picture on the altar. But he does not, because he knows that Holy Gurujī, Mahāprabhujī, and Devpurījī are always above him. For me, Viśvagurujī is everything; there is nothing and no one higher. I have seen many disciples who secretly wait for their Guru to pass away, hoping to claim the property or become the successor. If there are three or four sannyāsīs, they fight over who will succeed him—even while the Guru is still alive. They tell the Guru with diabetes, “Take sweets, no problem, you are Brahman, you can digest everything.” Their intention is simply to hasten his departure. Recently, a Mahārājī known to Viśvagurujī passed away. I spoke to a friend who was a disciple there, and I heard that they felt absolutely no sorrow. Not even twelve hours after the Guru’s death, there was no grief; they were only planning who would take which āśram, and debating whether to wait sixteen days for the śrāddha before proceeding with ceremonies. That is not Guru Bhakti. Finding true Guru Bhakti is extremely difficult and rare. The Guru must always remain the highest. As Guru Pūrṇimā approaches, I will speak a little about the procedures and observances we should follow. But the heart of the matter lies in cultivating that unwavering devotion, where every word of the Guru becomes nectar, and his kṛpā alone is recognized as the foundation of all spiritual growth. Part 2: The Procedure and Philosophy of Guru Pūrṇimā On Guru Pūrṇimā, as Viśvagurujī mentioned yesterday, you should fast. People with medical conditions or similar constraints may take some fruits or normal food, as they need it for their body. But for others, we should fast on that day. As soon as you are fortunate and in the presence of your Guru, and your Guru is there in physical form, you should be ready when he comes out with a thālī, a plate. In the plate, usually, there is chandan. Chandan is what I have put on my forehead. Kumkum is the red tilak we put at the center. Dakṣa, coconut, molly—this red thread which we bind on the right hand—and dakṣiṇā. Dakṣiṇā does not need to be a specific amount; it is as much as you offer, whatever comes from within you, however much you wish. You can offer that to your Guru, it is up to you. That dakṣiṇā, some fruits, and obviously the devotion and bhakti towards him. Then you begin by applying chandan, kumkum, and the rice. After that, you proceed by tying the molly around his right hand, and you also put molly on his big toe. Mollies are usually auspiciously tied once, thrice, nine times, or eleven times around the wrist. So you may tie the maḷī as many times as you want, but usually, because there are many disciples, what we generally do is tie it once, or we simply place the maḷī in his hands. Then you tie the maḷī. You offer the dakṣiṇā and the nāriyal, the coconut, at his feet or into his hands, wherever suitable. Then you have a flower mālā. When you offer a mālā, you always try to ensure that the mālā is the most beautiful mālā, or that it is full of devotion, full of bhakti within. You put all your love and devotion into that mālā. It does not need to be a lavish mālā; it can be a simple flower mālā. But that mālā should be full of love towards your Guru, and then you offer it to your Guru. As you may have seen, we have had so many Guru Pūrṇimās over so many years. Thousands and thousands of devotees come and place mālās on his head. So if there are too many mālās, you place them into his hands or at his feet. He does not necessarily need to wear them on his head. After that, you perform Daṇḍavat Praṇām. Daṇḍavat Praṇām means Śāṣṭāṅg Dhanot, where you lie down. You fold your hands in front of you, and you pray to that Lord, to that Supreme Self, to your Guru, to that Divine Self: "O Gurudev, please bless me with all the śakti and bhakti, with all devotion, and please bless me in everything. Please forgive me for all the mistakes I have committed in the past year." And you ask your Guru for whatever you wish, for instance, "I wish to pass my exams." So I would pray to my Guru to bless me with vidyā, with knowledge, or to bless me with Guru Bhakti, so that I may be more devoted towards him in the coming years. Pray for whatever you want, just pray. Āratī follows, and after āratī, that is essentially the procedure. If I have missed something, Viśvagurujī will tell you. Thank you very much, and I would like to thank Viśvagurujī for giving me the opportunity to speak before all of you. Oṃ Pūrṇamadaḥ Pūrṇamidam Pūrṇāt Pūrṇamudacyate Pūrṇasya Pūrṇamādāya Pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate. Oṃ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ... Again, I would like to sing the beautiful Viśvaguru stotra which Jayadeva and I wrote for Viśvagurujī last month. Jayadeva, Jayadeva, Jayaviśvagurujī, Śrī Viśvagurujī, Śrī Maheśvarānanda, Guru Sarvabhauma Jaya Deva Jaya Deva... Jaya Viśvagurujī Śrī Viśvagurujī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Guru Sarvabhauma Jaya Deva Jaya Deva. Jitādiṣaṇa Mukha Nirdhūta Tāruṇāruṇa Bhakteṣu Sākāruṇa Jaya Deva Jaya Deva... Jaya Viśvagurujī Śrī Viśvagurujī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Guru Sarvabhauma Jaya Deva Jaya Deva. Jaya Deva, Jaya Deva,... Jaya Viśvagurujī, Śrī Viśvagurujī, Śrī Māheśvarānanda Guru Sarvabhāuma Jaya Deva Jaya Deva... Jaya Viśvagurujī Śrī Viśvagurujī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Guru Sarva Bhauma Jaya Deva Jaya Deva. Iti Avatārpūrī Virachita Viśvaguru Stotra Yapatetā Guru Sannidau Guru Kripāsa Āpnoti Śaśvatī Satvatī Tathā. Om Śālakpurī Jī Mahādeva Kī Jai Kī Jai, Ārādya Bhagavān, Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān. Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsvāmī Śrī Mādhavānanda Purī Jī, Sadguru Dev Bhagavān Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsvāmī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Oṁgirāja Kī Jai. Thank you, everybody. Nice bhajans, nice lecture by our Avatārapurī Jī. It was good, and the time has come. It will be very soon. What we call, there are two things, two ways. One is Sūrya Bhagavān, and now Sūrya Bhagavān will stay for a while. And then again, it is not that Sūrya Nārāyaṇa moves; he will not move. The moving is the earth, and that earth which is moving, the whole globe, moves at a very high speed. We know that we are so perfectly balanced. But if the globe stops, everything will break apart. So it is there, the power of the sun and the power of all five elements. Similarly, we may not understand the height or the speed of movement. It begins with our blood movements in our body. And when our blood movements stop, it becomes cold, and hurry home, finished. The breath movements also finish without that. The heat in the body—that body has different signs, as they say. But the yogīs say that the blood, the air in the body, all movements come from the Sūrya, the globe. When we walk, we stand up and we move; we have balance, but we are moving. We can also go jogging, we follow the movements, and balance for us is very hard. But the most balanced are the birds. Birds, any kind of bird, flying very quickly onto the thin electric wire. And any bird will come and sit there, and they do not sway. They are so balanced. We cannot do that. We will run quickly, we will try to stop, but how many meters will we travel before we stop? But birds do not. That demonstrates greater balance because they fly similarly to an airplane. And we know, many have been in an airplane, and those who know will understand. But one can also say "bike." If you are riding a bike, can you stop instantly? Everything will burn down. You will break your head, and this, and that, and everything. So we have to move with our love. Now, the airplane. An airplane sometimes travels at high speed—10,000—and there is fear of some other object. Otherwise, they come back again at between seven and ten kilometers of speed. Now, we sit in an airplane as we are sitting now, like this. We stand up, we go to the bathroom, we walk, etc. We lie down, we sleep. But sometimes, when the wind is at high speed, the wind is very high, and at that time even the clouds are below, all the clouds are down. So now we can understand that this speed is greater than the globe's, and that is how this technology balances, and how nicely it balances. And when it is landing at the airport, there is a painted line, and that is the first thing: we cannot land with this airplane, we cannot do it like this. If we try to stop suddenly, we will roll it, but what we do, you know, everybody knows. So what we are doing is, we look to, "Whom are we looking for? That wood is the best, the birds." So kabūtar ko, kowe ko, jo bhī pakṣī jo hai, āp dekhnā, vah kaise baiṭṭā hai. Wo niche aisa karke thoda hi beṭṭā hai. Wo pīse kā jo pair hai, yā jā ke beṭṭā hai. So this is the balancing of speed, and that speed belongs to our globe. And so Earth is balancing, we are balancing, and so that is similarly what we call our life, our knowledge, our being, and what is our speed. Our physical body is not very strong, but of all our elements, or whatever we call them, the highest is the mental. The mental speed is one of the highest, perhaps even more than the sun or the movement of the moon. So we sit here, and immediately I will bring you somewhere. Still, you do not know where you will be. Puri Ji, but your brain will tell you how quickly, and that speed, I will show you: look behind your door. Now, before you physically go, you are already behind the door. Our thinking is already behind the door. Then, physically, we will get up and see what was there and there. Similarly, we travel to the moon, to the sun, to the stars, and beyond. That ability is not only for humans, but for animals too. And with that, if we practice and we can purify, then rapidly we can come to the cosmic self, to God, or we can fall down also. Climbing up a mountain is very quick, running, running... but still, it takes time like this, even for the dog and even for the bird. But when you fall from a peak, you die, or you fall very quickly. So that is what we call this: from water, from water our earth, and in earth what we have is this gravitation. Gravitation is such that, you know, all. If we throw this up, it will fall again. Come here. Why? We want to throw it into the sky, but it will come down again. Likewise, we in our ātmā, in śarīra, the body, in everything—we are still with the ātmā to work on ourselves to come to the Supreme. And therefore, that will remain here. And so, it is said, I do not know why, but it is said by the scientists, Mahāprabhujī, Karatā Mahāprabhujī, Karatā. We will be like one piece of paper. All heat, our body, our sweat, everything becomes very sticky. So, Bhagavān, God has created such a technology, and also what we call water, and the water from the globe, and from that, everything. In yogic techniques, in meditation, we can go everywhere. And if you say, "I want to see the light with my eyes closed," you will not see the light with your eyes closed. Open your eyes and see that. Our light is not this, but our knowledge, our thoughts. And those thoughts go through our mind. And that mind, that is the light. So this light will go away, but we will be with another light that will be over the world. So that is why Guru Kṛpā He Kevalam, Disciple Ke Ānanda Maṅgalam. So Guru Pūrṇimā is coming, and Avatārapurījī was explaining very nicely what we should do, how we should perform the worship. Guru Pūrṇimā is on the 23rd of this month. It is also the day our holy mother, Mātājī, took sannyāsa. We have her samādhi here at the temple, so on this coming day in 2023, we will be doing the worship. Of course we are a family, so we are all bhaktas, and all who are here, we are in our house. Maybe some people come from outside, but of course, the government said that many people should not come from outside. But we are nearly more than 150 here. So we are here in one family. We are in one family. One, one... what we call one yard, so we are there and we are locked. So we are not going out. We did not get anything like that. We are very healthy, very happy. So we will have the satsaṅg and bhajans for Mātājī’s temple. So we will have a program for a while. Then we will go to sleep. Deep and morning will be a prasad, Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān kī Om Śānti, Śānti, Śānti.