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Part 1: A Journey of Destiny: From Moravia to the Guru's Feet Hari Om. Welcome, everyone. Today is a very special day because, as we know, it is our holy Gurujī’s birthday. Vishwa Gurujī has a personal matter he is attending to at the moment and has requested that I come here to talk about something. So, let’s start with a greeting. As always, I don’t know what I’m going to talk about, and whether it will be good or bad—it’s all in Gurudev’s hands. Vishwa Gurujī asked me to perhaps talk about my experience of meeting him, my experience of teaching yoga in America, and the experience of yoga around the world as I have seen it while traveling with him. So, let me introduce myself first. My name is Amrit Sāgar. I was born here in this beautiful part of the world, in Moravia. Somehow, a twist of destiny when I was 19 took me to America for two weeks. I never wanted to be in America; I wanted to have children, be married, and live in a little village in Moravia. I ended up in America for two weeks, and now I’ve been there for 31 years. I have spent 31 years on my own, learning a lot about American culture, American values, and life in that part of the world. I live in a very unique place that I am now starting to understand—California, which I sometimes call the Wild West. It’s really wild over there. Sometimes I still don’t understand how I ended up in that part of the world. I have asked Gurudev, even telling him it was a mistake in my destiny and that I should be back in a village in Moravia. I asked him, "Why here? Why in this part of the world?" He just looked at me with his mischievous look, with his mischievous Śiva eyes, and said, "But there is really something you like there." I have limited time to talk about my experiences with Viśwa Gurujī, so I will skip many chapters. I will perhaps start with how I came to yoga in this life. I never liked yoga. I was never interested in yoga. I actually didn’t even know what yoga was when I was 20. I was very active, very competitive, and I really liked sports. I liked mountains and always liked to be sort of one with nature. Then some things happened when I was 30 years old. As a result of many years of training in sports, I had a spinal injury. Gurudev laughed at me and said, "You had a midlife crisis." So it was a spinal injury, back pain, and a midlife crisis. I found myself in a very challenging time in my life in San Francisco. My profession is that I work on Wall Street. I work in a very interesting environment with very interesting people. I am surrounded by money and by the wish to have more and more. I think that brought that crisis into my life because I started to realize I couldn’t understand how I found myself in the cream of society, as they call it, but I could not really become that. I could not be that. So I started asking a lot of questions, trying to figure out what to do with the enormous physical and mental pain I was in. I had a herniated disc and a slipped disc. I went to the doctor when I was about 32, and the doctors wanted to operate on my spine. I just looked at the doctor and said, "You are not going to touch my spine until I am maybe 80 years old and I cannot move. I will figure it out myself." So I took that condition into my hands, into my body, my kośas. I became an object of my own study. I started going to yoga classes. They were really boring to me at that time. Also, because of my condition, I was going to yoga classes in San Francisco where a lot of the yoga teachers were telling me, "You cannot do this, you cannot bend forward, you are going to get injured." So I was always in child’s pose in the yoga class. It was really hard for me because, being a gymnast and a tennis player, suddenly having this debilitating injury and not being able to do much was very challenging. I was searching for a good yoga teacher. I was also searching, as I was living in that society, for how I could be of help to the world—how to continue and not become that which I see all around me. I remember a very interesting experience when I first came to America at 19, right after the wall came down in Germany in 1989. I got my education at university, and even though I didn’t want to work for a bank, my first job was in a bank. There was just so much money everywhere. I remember coming from Czechoslovakia and how things were in 1989, how I grew up, and I found myself surrounded by so much abundance. I used to go to people and say, "You have so much money here. We can do so many good things with this money around the world for people." I really could not understand that the people didn’t understand what I was talking about. They kind of thought I was… they could not understand what I was saying. So I was always sort of different from them. I had different ideas. I was opening them up to different conversations, but there was never a kind of understanding between my values and their values. It used to be very frustrating for me that they could not see how much good we could do for the well-being of the world and nature. While dealing with this back pain and going through my life crisis, I decided to go on a trek to climb to the base camp of Mount Everest and to build an orphanage there in Kathmandu, Nepal. I feel I had a blessing of Alakpurījī or our paramparā there somehow. I returned to San Francisco from that trip. Maybe two days after returning, I woke up in the morning with the idea, "I want to be a yoga teacher." It was such a strong thought in my mind, and I had no idea—I didn’t even practice yoga. I was practicing one class a week, and I wanted to be a yoga teacher. Because I was really ambitious, I found the best school in San Francisco to go and study yoga, and I signed up. It was a very intensive, physically intensive training for six months. During that whole time, there was maybe one hour’s mention about chakras. I had never heard about chakras, but it was again something that intrigued me so much. I went home and, having never even heard the word 'chakra', I googled it. As I was googling, on the computer screen the book The Hidden Powers in the Human appeared in front of my eyes. It was this beautiful picture of something on the cover. I started reading more about this person who wrote it. I started reading about yoga in Czechoslovakia and thought, "I am from Czechoslovakia, but I have never seen yoga in Czechoslovakia." I wanted to get the book. Again, I was googling where I could find the book, and the only place that appeared where I could buy it was Wellington, New Zealand—our ashram in Wellington. So I picked up the phone and called the ashram. A very nice lady answered the phone. I introduced myself, said I was in San Francisco, and asked if they could please send me the book. I also asked because I was reading that the book was available in Czech, and I wanted it in Czech. She answered, "Of course we will send it to you, that’s not a problem," she said in Czech. Then we started talking, and she said, "You know, once a year this person who wrote the book is actually coming to Wellington. Why don’t you come?" I said to her, "I’m in San Francisco. I’m not just flying across the world to meet this person." Lo and behold, two days later I was buying a plane ticket and flying to New Zealand for three or four days. I flew to New Zealand because I wanted the book. They gave me the address where I was supposed to go. I came to the ashram, and there was a small group of about 30 people awaiting Swāmījī to come for satsaṅg. I was there, just looking around at these strange people awaiting somebody to come. It was a very strange experience back then. I understood how important it is to welcome someone when they come, especially when they are not part of yoga in daily life. The people were so welcoming to me; they really embraced me because I was, as we say in English, the newbie. Then Vishwa Gurujī comes. I stand there in the corner, and he walks around and greets people. He comes to me, looks at me, and actually asks me where in the Czech Republic I am from. I’m looking at him like, how does he know? I haven’t even said a word. How does he know where I’m from? I answered him, "I’m from Moravia." He looked at me and said, "We have met before." I looked at him and said, "Sir, I’m sorry, I have never seen you in my life." Vishwa Gurujī just walked away from me. It was evening satsaṅg, and I didn’t even stay for it. I had to leave that room. I went and had coffee somewhere outside, then came back to the ashram. The lady of the ashram said to me, "Swamiji was asking where you are, and you are supposed to come and get mantra tomorrow morning." I asked her what mantra was, and she explained. I said to her, "I don’t want any mantra. I don’t want anything. I’m just fine." Somehow again, I really didn’t plan to go for mantra. Then I came to the ashram in the morning, and she was already standing there. She gave me an apple and flowers and said, "You know, just have it in your hands and go for mantra." So I was there. Viśwa Gurujī came, and I had no place to run. I received my mantra. I spent about two days there and stayed in satsaṅg. I had a very special experience with Viśwa Gurujī. It was an experience just being with him for a couple of days, where Vishwa Gurujī took me somewhere with my consciousness, which I am still trying to understand. After two days, I was going to catch my flight back to San Francisco. Swāmījī said to me that we would meet in India in the summer. Again I said to him, "Sir, I’m sorry, I have no plans to go to India." Lo and behold, two months later I was going to Amarnāth with Viśwa Gurujī. That was my meeting with Viśwa Gurujī. Even before that transpired, I was already a certified yoga teacher in San Francisco. I was continuing to study yoga with various teachers like the Iyengars and Dharmamitra—some of the names which I think are still perhaps teaching what yoga is. I was receiving a lot of training, a sort of preparation to meet Gurudev. When I met Gurudev, I didn’t even know what Yoga in Daily Life was. It was just a few months after meeting him that he told me I should do a lecture on meditation. Again, I said to Swamiji, "Swamiji, how can I have a lecture on meditation? I don’t even meditate." But he said, "No, you go, you organize something, and you do a lecture on meditation." So a lecture happened in the library, and I gave some lecture back then on yoga and meditation. When I eventually opened up the Yoga in Daily Life book and was reading the different levels of meditation and what it is about, I started to discover that, really, throughout my life, a lot of these questions which are being asked in meditation I had already been doing on my own. I wasn’t calling it yoga in daily life, but I was sitting with my eyes closed and asking many questions, doing a lot of purification of my mind, my emotions, and my physical body as I was going through a lot of difficulties. With the Guru Kṛpā, with the blessing of my Gurudev and meeting him, it was almost as if he had awoken some knowledge for me from the past. I just had to find the words for it so I knew how to teach it and share it with others. As I was reading the books—Yoga in Daily Life, Hidden Powers in Humans—I was reading it, and it was always, for me, "I know it, I know it, but I don’t know how to say it," if you understand what I mean. Then, after meeting my Gurudev in 2007, Swamiji, maybe eight months after or about a year of being with him, said to me to open an ashram in San Francisco. Again, I said to Swamiji, "Swamiji, I have different plans. I already have my plans." I started to tell him about my plans and said, "I am not staying in San Francisco. I am not opening up an ashram in San Francisco." Part 2: The Call to Serve: A Journey of Grace and Transformation I was telling him, "Swāmījī, you know, I have other plans." I began explaining those plans, saying I didn't intend to stay in San Francisco. In a way, I was running away from him. In the beginning, I truly used to run away from Swāmījī a lot. I was very honest. I always told him exactly how I felt in my heart when he said something to me. I just had to express my feelings. It almost felt as if he was holding me like a little baby in his arms, awakening that baby with so much love and kindness. And so, as I was running away, he would remind me every time he saw me: "How is it going with the ashram?" Then, I think it was during my first visit to Střílky, that Viśva Gurujī asked me again, "So, have you opened the ashram yet?" He actually raised his voice at me and looked at me with his penetrating eyes, saying, "I have already told you three times to open an ashram." That really did something to me. It was like an energy that shot through me and transformed something within. I returned to San Francisco from Střilky, and things just started happening. A place appeared. An architect appeared. I began designing and building an ashram. When the architect asked me what it should look like, I said it would be a small, small house in the mountains near San Francisco, like a cottage. And so, the ashram opened. For anyone who visited, it was our first commercial space, and it was the most beautiful place to enter. For me, it was my home. I remember when Viśvagurujī came to the ashram one time. He looked around and said, "There is so much love in here." It was truly an ashram, and it still is. Anyone who walked into that space, in my opinion, felt the love, mercy, and energy of Mahāprabhujī. Because Mahāprabhujī was there, is there, he is there. Teaching yoga in San Francisco in that society was not easy, especially teaching Yoga in Daily Life. I think many people, when they walked into the ashram, found it almost frightening to enter a place so welcoming, loving, and open. You come in, the teacher greets you with a smile. You get chai, you get some muffins as you leave. And then, when teaching the system of Yoga in Daily Life, they all wanted to do one posture after another. In an hour-long class, they would say, "We should have done 20 postures, and I have only done..." five in an hour. It was kind of boring to them. So, even the yoga practice—and there are, or there used to be, many yoga centers, which are all now going away during coronavirus—was just gymnastics. I would describe the state of yoga in America as gymnastics. It’s really interesting for me now to see these yoga centers all going away, bankrupt and shutting down. What is now sprouting, what people are looking towards, is something like Yoga in Daily Life. People are looking deeper and deeper. Before I came here, Viśvagurujī called me this morning, and I was sitting with him for a while. We were talking about what I should perhaps speak about. It’s kind of hard to describe in words because I don’t want to generalize the entire American society or the state of society in the West. But as I am there and have been observing the situation this year, everything in America is crumbling. The values are crumbling. The society is falling apart. The government, the country, doesn’t know how to take care of their people. The society is very much based on individualism and the pursuit of material wealth, and now that has all been taken away. As I observe the situation there—which is actually different from what you are living here—it’s like birds being caught and put into a cage. Imagine what that must feel like for someone to be in that state, in that situation since March of this year. I am mainly speaking of my experiences in California, San Francisco, and the Bay Area. It may be different elsewhere, but I speak especially about California because I think there is a very interesting karma in that part of the world. Imagine what someone must go through—not just adults, but also children, now closed in their homes. Parks are closed, beaches are closed. It is summertime, and you can’t even go outside. So, I think it is an Anuṣṭhāna. When the coronavirus came, I stopped teaching. Many former students wanted me to do online classes. I used to tell them, "Look, I fly across the ocean, I go and do anuṣṭhāna, I have to pay money for it. Now you are at home, you don’t have to pay anything, and you have your anuṣṭhāna for free." So I said to them, "Well, enjoy your anuṣṭhāna. It does not cost you anything, and it’s in the comfort of your home. You can stretch your legs whenever you want to." I think many people in that part of the world nowadays are going and looking within. There is a saying that there is always something good in anything that is bad. As I teach classes, both there and here, I truly believe we can transform anything. We can transform ourselves, our beliefs, our mind, the way we think. It’s really just cultivating a habit, a good habit. Viśvagurujī often says that education is missing. He talks about the education that starts with the first guru, which is the mother, then the father, then the society, and then comes Gurudev. Here in this part of the world, even as I am here, I really rejoice when I see the mothers and how they tend to their children, how they relate to them. In my own life, I had a beautiful childhood. I had truly amazing women in my life when I was a child: mother, grandmother, aunties. The mothers have taught me, the women have taught me and have given me a very strong foundation. That foundation, I think, is really something that is lacking in the part of the world where I live now. If you don’t have that foundation, everything really crumbles when things become difficult. For example, when the coronavirus started in California, there was a lot of panic in families and with women because they didn’t know what to do with their children. People were really saying, "What am I supposed to do now with the children? They are at home with me." There was also a lot of panic because restaurants closed, and people were at home having to cook. I have yet to meet someone over there who knows how to cook. Many times I would do some cooking, bring some food to the ashram. To me, it is very basic, very simple, very sāttvic—foods that we eat here, with just some spices, chutneys, and mixed vegetables. Simple. And people would be, "Wow, wow... what is that?" This year has been very interesting for Yoga in Daily Life in California as well. March was a very interesting event because, just as the pandemic started, Viśvagurujī was supposed to have a program in San Francisco that was all organized. We were just waiting for him to arrive. For me, it was very interesting to observe the timing of everything. It was a visit that never happened physically, but it was the most powerful visit I have ever experienced. I also somehow found myself teaching yoga, and how things have changed in the last couple of years. Most of my students or people who practice Yoga in Daily Life are Indians—the Indian community. I somehow found myself in that community, and with them, I have been learning a lot. I’ve been chanting Hanumān Chālīsā, Bhagavad Gītā, and Guru Gītā with them. They have been giving me a lot from their culture. I learned a lot from them. We sang Hanumān Chālīsā, Guru Gītā, Bhagavad Gītā. But they don’t know yoga. I learned the culture from them, but they didn’t know yoga. So I started teaching yoga for the Indians. Interestingly again this year, with what is happening, and because Viśvagurujī also speaks so much about the Indian culture being lost, I am also seeing an awakening of the culture and interest in their culture amongst the Indians, and also an interest in yoga. Many of these Indian practitioners I have encountered in the last couple of years—and it has really increased this year—value Yoga in Daily Life. In their culture, there is the aspect of spirituality which Yoga in Daily Life offers. So I am very happy that Yoga in Daily Life is perhaps starting to grow somewhat in America again. I just wanted to share some of that journey. It’s very hard to speak about it in the short time I have, because since I met Gurudev, my life with him—and not just since that time, but I feel my entire life—has been a fairy tale. It has also been a fairy tale to be born in this part of the world, in the kingdom of perhaps Mahāprabhujī, Śrīdev Purī, Jalak Purī. I have traveled through many parts of the world, and I always return back to this part of the country because what you have here is really something very special. There are still roots, there are traditions, there is good education. So if there were a wish that I have for this country, it is that this never goes away, that we maintain these traditions of our ancestors, which in many ways are traditions of the Vedic culture. It was interesting today when Gurudev and I were talking about America. I asked Viśvagurujī, I said to him, "Everything is just crumbling. How can it get any better?" And Gurudev just said, "Put it in the fire." Tapasyā. So I’m actually very happy for my other home, where we are going through a very strong tapasyā and a very strong anuṣṭhāna. My wish again for that part of the world is that it’s going to be beautiful again—a beautiful society, a happy, peaceful, healthy society. You can’t imagine the state of health of the people there. The health situation is influenced by a lot of stress and the environment. There is a lack of home-made food. A lot of it is processed food. There is much cancer in people already in their twenties and thirties, and many, many diseases in children. You can’t imagine the health. Over the years, when I would encounter someone and speak with them about health, it’s not easy to explain to them that they can improve many things themselves. They are lacking that strength within them to believe they can help themselves. There is a lot of reliance on medications—medication for everything, operations on very young people. I often ask myself, what does it mean to teach yoga? Many times, it’s just having a conversation with someone about food—cooking something, bringing it to them, sparking an interest in eating healthy food. Or just having a conversation about their health condition and offering them one little sarvahitā āsana that they can do that could help them. So I am learning what it means to live and practice and teach Yoga in Daily Life. It’s not really coming to a class and just doing one āsana after another. It’s perhaps the purification we have to go through of the very different kośas—purification of our thinking, of our mind—so we can be a healthy human being for ourselves, for our family, for the society, for the world. I sometimes think, as I work on Wall Street, I say, "I practice Yoga in Daily Life." That’s my job on Wall Street. I am kind of the consciousness of the corporations. The role I am in—somebody actually said to me, "You are the consciousness of the corporation." I interact with very stressful people, and they always remark how I’m so calm and kind and peaceful. So sometimes in my job, as they are stressed and want to do so much, I just say to them, "Just take a few long, deep breaths." They complain about this or that, and I just say, "Well, how about if you just... your hands are hurting? Let’s just do some stretches with your hands." This is Yoga in Daily Life. My gratitude to our paramparā, my gratitude towards my Gurudev, our Gurudev. May he guide us, may he remain here with us for a very long time, and may he guide us and the world to Satyaloka. May he be with us for a long time, and may he lead us and the whole world to Satyaloka.