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What is a mantra? It is very simple. When something is painful, it is very bad. When something brings happiness, it is very good. So, mantra—good things are mantras. Bad things are not mantras; they are negative feelings. There are many different meanings for "mantra," but our holy Gurujī always gave the exact definition. In many conferences with swāmīs, mahāmaṇḍaleśvaras, sādhus, and other holy gurujīs, each speaker is given a short time—ten or twenty minutes. For some sādhus, they say, "Please take as much time as you want; we will not limit your speech." Usually, everyone gets about ten or fifteen minutes, but for some sādhus, they say, "Speak as long as you wish; we will not restrict you." When a governor or president speaks many words, no one tells him to stop. But we, as ordinary citizens, have limitations. Even the great saintly Swāmījīs know time is limited, though they are given more. These respected people also know their boundaries. That is very important. Sometimes people talk a great deal about mantra—what it is, that it is good, about ceremonies and many things. In the end, the listeners do not know what the mantra is. There is so much definition that you lose sight of what, where, and how the mantra is. So our Holy Gurujī always used to say, "Salt and sweet." Salt and sweet. That is the blessing of God or Gurudev. Now, mantra. "Man" is the mind. But it is that kind of mind which is always restless. Our mind—you will never control it. We can try some technique. Can I speak for one minute after the program? Can you control your mind? You should be very... the right persons are not serious. I said five minutes, not one. If you can control your mind for one minute, that is great. If for one minute the mind can remain concentrated on one point, then the mind would say, "I’ve lost," like a football player. You try, but you kick not the table or the goal—you kick to the goal. In football, there is a table? There are eleven people on one side and eleven on the other, is that not true? Between the eleven is the ball; that’s why the zero is a football. Therefore, eleven. Now, the football is the mind, and you are the player. You cannot hold your football. You are very near the goal, and with one kick, someone sends it to the other corner, going out of bounds. So how will you balance or hold your football? How can you say, "I can control my body and mind"? We would like to control that mind, but it happens within a second. Then it is again out of the goal. Therefore, it is mantra: "man." For "man," there is one very profound poem: > Man marā, nāmamātrī marī, mar mar gayā śarīr, > aisā tṛṣṇā nahīṅ gaī, ghe gayā Dasā Kabīr. That is a beautiful, beautiful poem from the great saint Kabīr. "Man marā na mamatā marī"—until your mind is not killed, until your desires (mamatā) are not dead. As long as you have desires, the mind will not be on one point. So mamatā is desire, and desire is the ball, the "man." So we should not touch the mind; let it go. There is a story about how to control your mind. It will not be controlled, nor will your desires be controlled, but something between both. There is a second word that will come. Do you understand me? Who doesn’t understand? Raise your hand, then stand under the tree. You don't have to go anywhere. Then you will understand. Go under that tree and stand there. Not sitting? Then you will know how nice it is. Is there anyone here, any lady or girl, who has controlled her mind? She cannot control it. Is anybody else? You see, no one dares to say. Then it is your problem. Anyhow, this is beautiful. There was a shepherd, a person who took care of cows and animals. One man had about fifty big animals—not goats, camels. In the evening, the caretaker would tie each by the neck with a chain. Then all the animals would sit in their places. The camels sit and do what they want. But one camel lost its rope, and it was going here and there. It was sure that at night that camel would go away and disappear. The master was worried, and suddenly a sādhu came. The person said to Gurujī, "Do you have a rope for a camel?" Gurujī said, "I have no ropes. My rope, my Gurudev, has cut it off, so I have no more rope. I am free. But, my camel..." Gurudev said, "I know you are asking for a rope." Gurujī said, "I can give you a technique, but not a rope." So how? "Go with your camel and your little stick, bring him to one place. He will stand." He should have something like a hammer; he takes out a hook and goes like this. The camel is standing. That is his master. He’s called by Seffert, maybe. Gurujī said, "Now just pull your hand and look. You had the ropes, and you sit like this, and just move your hand as if you are tying the rope." Then he touched the shepherd and said, "Sit down." So he sits, holding his neck, and says, "Sit down." He is with his hand, holding something and making gestures. That camel relaxed. All are sleeping, and he said, "I was not sleeping." Now he also sleeps like that, and the owner of the camel is sleeping. In the morning, he opened every buffet of camels, took all the ropes, and they all went to eat. But one camel does not go. His master, with a stick, is calling, "Come on, let’s go." That shepherd goes to Gurujī and asks him about it. "Gurujī hypnotized my camel. How did you tie him? He doesn’t go out. Liberate him." Gurujī said, "How you tie him, then free him." "But I did not tie him. Okay, he was sitting. But now I don’t know how to take the rope out. Please, Gurudev, this is one of my best animals." So Gurujī said, "Go there and again tell him, 'Sit down.' Hold his nose, and then with the hand, like a mantra: 'Oṁ svāhā, oṁ svāhā.' Quickly, lick the rope here, rope here, and roll your nose." Then he came up and ran away. Nothing was there—neither hook nor rope—but that was the mind. If you can tie the mind, then you can. But you should know: if you talk only about body and mind, many people will become mad. That is why many people go to some gurus, read books full of kuṇḍalinī. They have kuṇḍalinī śaktis, this and that. But their guru did not awaken the kriyā śakti. It is only in thought. Your brain is not your master. Your mind can kill you. So the mind is good, but be careful. Before that, what is it called? Dhyāna, science. You call it science, and we call it knowledge. So: body, prāṇa, mind, science or knowledge, and ānanda. In this way, when you go there, this is how we can do it. You can see someone can tie you like that. And when you look at it this way, someone can seduce you. Then you say, "No, this boy was very nice, but I don’t want him. He is trying me, and I don’t want to see him, and I want to go to the doctor." You have mentally made yourself completely wrong. He doesn’t want this and that, and your mind completely confuses you. If you didn’t kill your mind, you didn’t get rid of your desires. > Man maraṇā, mamatā marī, marmar gayā śarīr. But with this too—man and mind, that man maraṇā, mamatā marī—the desire and mind: many times your body will die, but this will not set you free. It will not let you go. These are not my thoughts; they are of the great saint Kabīrdāsa. Kabīrdāsa said you cannot hold your mind, you cannot get rid of your mind, because you have desire. There are many things about desires; there are many, many stories. What is māmatā now? You understand? Desire. Desire... Then we say, "I want to have only this," but what you want to see is not there. Desire has nothing; it is only wind. And suddenly you will say, "That bloody person, I don’t want anymore." And suddenly you say, "I’ve had enough of this lost man; I don’t want to do anything anymore." You are liberated, but again, that mamatā is in your mind. You try to get this desire out, but in your mind you put that nail, and that nail is inside. Therefore, these are the five elements: body, then body and prāṇa, then mind, then knowledge, and then more. > Man maraṇā mamatā marī marmar gayā śarīr. Therefore, it is said: you are in the mind and your desire you will never fulfill, but yes, your body will die. You will dream, we die. So how can you say, "I am going to do the body and mind"? How then can you speak about it being about the body and mind? But between them is that corona. It will attack you and the body will die. And that’s it. Many, many times your body has died. And there are two things you have to kill. Āśā. Āśā means? Hope. Hope. I hope I don’t want to tell you someone’s stories. I will not tell the name. He is a very nice person, for many, many years my disciple, and still my disciple—very nice. Always, she comes and gets a good path and Mahāprabhujī’s blessings. But at the age of about 20 years, or 30—I don’t know, I didn’t ask her, maybe 13—so that is a woman. And there was a man; they were in love. But that man left her and went to far countries, very far countries, because there was some other woman, and he was searching for that one woman. And her thought was, "This man is my heart’s complete." Many, many years. But somehow he found it, so she went there by aeroplane. She borrowed money, and in some countries there were big problems. She was calling him, and he said, "Hello, how are you?" So again, she thought they were back on their path. There are two things about rivers: the curves belong to the river, not the water. Water is not a curve. The curves have the curves. The earth, number one, number two. Maybe in one river, a big river, in the middle there is what is called a lake island. Now you are separating one water this side, one water that side, and between there is nothing. They are crying. But if it’s hope, then one day, after this, what’s called the island, suddenly that water will come together again. And they don’t know the water is one. But also, this river water thinks, "Forever, I will be together." It will come to the beach of the ocean and merge into the ocean, so neither river nor water will be there. What are you searching for? So when she met him for one or two days, I was there, and the person said, "I am very happy in there." Of course, she was in the hotel because he has a family. Men have families, so they came to me for coffee, tea. After some days, she came back crying because he said, "Don’t wait for me. I am not your friend. I am no longer your friend," whatever it is. So this is how: > Man maraṇā, Mamatā Marī, Maramara Gaya Śarīra, Āśā, Tṛṣṇā. Āśā, first hope, hope. And Tṛṣṇā, again, is like being very dry; we are very thirsty. We are dying of water in the Sahara, where there is only sand and sand for thousands of kilometers. There are some animals, like deer, and there is no water. In summer, it is different. The deer are dying because there is no water. That same thing I can tell you, for example, here. This deer was running and running on beautiful sand, and about 200 meters or 100 meters, the deer is running because he sees there, like, a lake, and he’s running and running. The horizon—what is the horizon? What is the horizon? The closer you get to it, the farther it will go. That is hope. You think it will be. Don’t wait for that. And that deer dies of thirst, very hot, bleeding, running, and dies. On a beautiful road in summer, or when it’s nice and sunny, you are driving your car and you see about 200 meters distance, or 100 meters, there is water on the road. But as far as we come, that water goes farther. Do you know this? You know what you call that? Fata Morgana. So that is called, that is called āśā. That is called that āśā. > Man marā, na mamata marī, marmara gaya sarīr. Āśā tṛṣṇā. Āśā means hope, and tṛṣṇā means thirst. And this will not give you this mind. What you are calling for the mind is not in your mind. Therefore, go further, go further, my dear. Jñāna. That you should, jñāna means knowledge. And what is that knowledge? That jñāna knows it is only a reflection. There is no water. Therefore, these four points, what Kabīr Dās is saying: > "Man marā na mamatā marī, marā marā gayā śarīr, āśā tṛṣṇā nahī marī, kehe gayā Dāsa Kabīr." So, my dear, don’t go somewhere here and there, thinking, "I will get this and I will get that." You can go, no problem. Some years ago, one person asked me. He came to me and everything. And he said, "Swāmījī, Gurujī, I have one Gurujī." I did not meet him, but I see his photos and I like this, but I want to go and see, and he is so great, and I would like to be with him. So he went for about six months, but not for one half-second did that Gurujī give her a hello. And she came back, and she was so sad. So that is not like this. Be free; it will come. Therefore, this was the point. What was that? > Asatṛṣṇa Naimarī Marmārgaya Śarīra. The body died. So in that way, when you want to come to Mahāprabhujī’s seat, in this His bhajan, beautiful: > Yogī Janakī, Yog Nindra, Birla Sant, Jana Janīye. I spoke in the morning, no? I spoke about it in the morning. If there is smoke, then there is a cough, and when there is no cough, then it is mosquitoes. So, yoga nidrā—we have to learn and understand what is yoga nidrā. Just lie down and relax, and we are telling, we also have yoga nidrā. But those who want to have yoga nidrā should do that at a time when, before eating, they are very hungry. At that time, you should make yoga nidra. Then you will see where your vāsanā is going—to the dinner table menu. But you said, because you were completely very hungry and everything, and then you said, "Relax the whole body." And then relax your stomach. And in the stomach, it’s like... That is tṛṣṇā. And that tṛṣṇā you cannot fulfill. That is called Yoga Nidrā. So what we are doing, sorry, but we had a nice lunch, and we were sitting in the yoga, and now we ate very nicely, and we were tired. Now we eat yoga nidrā, then it’s like a harmonium. But the harmonium has a nice, not so nice rhythm. But we all do yoga nidrā in our place, everybody, so their rhythms, they are all yoga nidrā. So one said, and another said, and another said, so rhythms. This is the rhythm of the yoga nidrā, and what happens there? The teacher who is giving the yoga nidrā was also full of the stomach, and he also liked to relax, so that is a yoga nidra, different. So that is what we call rest. After a certain age, one should also, daytime, sleep at least one hour. And Gurujī said, but what we in India, we said, "Sona." So there are three different "Sona." Sona means gold. So in this, according to this language, we call it "sona," which means gold. "Sona," and we say here, "gold." Then we call sleep "sona." Sleep. Put your child to sleep. Sona. So that is also the sona. And then the third one, you know what it is? Sauna bath. Sauna bath. So now, which kind of sauna do you want to have? So what to do? So yoga sādhanā is very easy. And also, it is not easy. First, we have to purify all our five elements. Desires have to be taken out. That’s it. Desire can be about eating. Desire can be about football. Many, many desires, but one day this desire will die. So Yoga Nidrā is what Mahāprabhujī is writing. What Mahāprabhujī here writes about yoga and the tree: > Ulta nain sen mein laga, sun mein sehj si vichāṇī hai. > Nira lamb ka panka chale, puni swet sun selani hai. Till here we have, and then: > Ulta phool khilā hai, san muk. This will be morning after your techniques. We will continue, because every paper here is also going to the water, so it is very, how do you call it, humid. So, my dears, did you understand what that was? What were the words of the Holy Gurujī? Which kind of words? Just one word. What? Mantra. Mantra. "Man" is mind, and "tra" is thirst. We get the thirst. Thirst means it must not be only for water. We are thirsty for you. Everything, many, many things are there. So these are only two words, and how much is there inside to learn?