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Part 1: The Sweetness of Bhajans and the Nourishment of Life You have learned to sing beautifully. Next bhajan. The melody was beautiful. It is Mahāprabhujī’s bhajan. It is morning time. Śrī Gurujī, your mic, please. This is Mahāprabhujī’s bhajan, and it is a morning rāga. Rāga means melody. We have all these many books, and this is for us, so it is very important. But we are logical: listen at any time, play any piece, but at the same time, other people have to stand. We wait at least two hours before sunrise. There are many, many rāgas—rāga means the melody—and each has its proper time. The whole night, people sit there to learn and listen to the particular bhajans. It is important to know and hear which bhajans are sung at night. So it is still morning. It is already very late, but it is a morning when you have prayers, and after that, if you listen to this, that is something special. But who can sing this melody so nicely? Otherwise, everyone will listen and speak, and then it is gone. This one has been recorded, and we hope that we will get some time to learn it again. So, the next. Very good. Would anyone like to sing? Not always Umapurī, Śāntī, and all the usual ones—today you have a choice. Okay, then once more, many blessings, mnoho požehnania všetkým. It is very nearly noon, čo skoro bude obed, so midday, takže sa nachádzame v strede dňa. You had a good program, ráno ste mali pekný program. Who was teaching you, giving you instructions? To bol vašim cvičitelom, in your Anuṣṭhāna Kriyā—Ānāpūrṇa, you did? Ānāpūrṇa, you did? Annapūrṇā, you did? You can speak. You did. Okay, good, thank you. The rest, our teachers? Very good. So all were together, no? Two groups, two groups, or one group? One group. Was it okay? Very good. Thank you. And the third one—giving the teacher training? No, very good. Karma yoga? Did someone do karma yoga? There are none. So karma, yesterday I told you, but you were not here. Yoga Karma Sukhauśalam in the Bhagavad Gītā. So if we do Sevā, this is the best yoga: service. Sevā is very, very important. In Christianity, mostly they are doing their sevā. Through their sevā, they bring some kind of religion. The Christians, they are making sevā, but they are changing the religion. They give money, cloth, and many things, but they turn people to Christianity. So this is other people’s religion; they are not happy. That is not sevā. That is doing something in the wrong direction. That is why I am here in many countries. I teach yoga, but I don’t change anyone. I never said that now you should become this religion and not that religion. Because for me, every god is a good god. You may call a god, or you may call the holy saint, etc. We do all good for good. So I didn’t want to talk about this this morning, but it came in this way. Beautiful bhajans, songs everywhere, from many other religions, beautiful bhajans, many countries and many languages—this is something good. We must not convert, but I don’t convert; I convince. So convert and convince—that is the difference. And that is spirituality. That is reality. That does not make something wrong inside. When we take milk and warm it, then we put a little lemon drop, the milk splits. But when we take milk and put a little honey or sugar, it becomes sweet and good, or other things—what do we call that yellow one? Haldī. Haldī, Purījī, and the other one is saffron. So when we take milk and put inside honey or sugar, it becomes very sweet. And when we add a little yellow saffron, it is very good for the heart and for the whole body system—not too much, just very little. It has a very nice smell and is good for all the joints of the body. And it is very good for the heart. Then the yellow one, that is another—kurkuma, as you call it, is also yellow, and it is one of the best for all the joints and the bones. So milk is there, and we give with the milk something more; it remains milk. For example, in India, I would say 80% or 90% of people use haldī. Even at the beginning of a child’s birth, the mother takes a little in her own food, and it comes for the children in the mother’s milk. Now, you can really see: Indians’ bones are not easily broken. You will see many, many accidents, but their bones do not break. And if they do break, they heal very quickly. Not flexible, but still good that they don’t break. Haldī is one of the best, best, best remedies for the whole body. Haldī is the best medicine for the whole body. Similarly, these are called spices. Spices are for all different parts of our body: our bones, our lungs, our heart, and many other things. If you have no spices, it is just nothing. Mostly what we are doing here is only salt. And I don’t know what spices they have, or what other roots they use. Salt, salt made inside some leaves of some trees, maybe some herbs, salt, again salt. Black pepper? No, they never eat black pepper. Very little salt. Black pepper comes from India, and chili comes from that country which I always don’t remember the name—from the other side of France, in Europe. And I never remember: Spain? No, no… Spain is good, but others are also good. Portugal—the chilis are coming from Portugal. And the black one is from India. So there are different things; many countries have them. What we call kukurica comes from Mexico, and the best wheat comes from America. Very good food from Europe, very nice, and many good herbs, you know. But they lost their way when they came to meat, boiled the bones, and I don’t want to see the cooking pot. What I can tell you is that I have lived in Europe for 52 years, and for 24 years I was not in Europe but in India so much; otherwise I would be 104 years old, Purī Jī. So I know, I feel very much here, there is nothing wrong, very good, everything. But this eating—this is what is called Āyurveda, Āyurveda, which is mostly from India. Well, I don’t want to only praise India, and now I will say to you that unfortunately, more Indians are eating meat than Europeans now. And fish and fish, all of that—in my childhood in India, I could only see chicken eggs. They were hidden. One great master’s disciple, a Swāmī who practiced Kriyā—Yogānandajī’s Gurujī—wrote in his book: “If you eat one cake or an egg, for ten days you cannot meditate.” Because he is a saint and he understands what meditation is. And if the meditation does not have very good nourishment, that means sāttvic. And sāttvic—meat, eggs, and fish are not for humans. Many times I said in my lectures that this Swāmījī was saying, “One egg, ten days, you cannot meditate.” Of course, you can just close your eyes and do something; that’s okay. But meditation with great depth is not just seeing beautiful clouds and a beautiful sky, a beautiful ocean, flowers, or the sun rising and setting, and just looking at that and relaxing. That is only one kind of meditation. I also teach it, and I do it at the same time. Sometimes people who have some kind of depression need that kind of meditation. No satsaṅg? That’s why Śāntī has so much depression, so she concentrates outside, and she’s making so many books, writing, and she’s very nice, a great person. Joke. I will not say anybody, just a joke. So it is like this, and other things too. When it comes to eating, the Indians—then you know how many spices they have. Now Indians have lost these spices too. The real spices, maybe an Āyurvedic person can cook; otherwise we make chili, salt, haldī, that’s all, oil, a lot of oil, this, that. But we should know which kinds of spices should be there. When Indians come as guests, they give so many good things. Everyone in the house eats that—any kind of rice, chapātī, this, that—but there are spices, and then sweets, and then those are called pickles, maybe. This pickle is great, but you take not so much—just one little spoon, and then another one, and again another one, to taste. So the first time I went with people in India, we put mango pickles and other pickles this and that. With me was a lady, I always called her Mātājī, and we set the food aside. She thought I should eat everything. There were pickles, so she ate everything and said, “Put it around. Otherwise, they will give you more inside.” Other spices, also eat them. Then chapātī, half the vegetable, only vegetable. Oh God, so hot—chili and then chapātīs. She said, “I cannot eat this.” I said, “Mātājī, you should have a little taste.” But I like the taste very much, so I ate it all. Why not? But it’s too hot. It took me two days to drink water only. Yes, these are the spices, but I don’t think many people are using them here anymore. They call you, you get something, bite in the street—I don’t know, they call “dog, dog.” What is that, hot dog or something? So what are they getting, these sources? My dear, today only, I think this is not a good voice, but I’m taking you. You will say, “This Swamiji, you are not good.” But sometimes it is. Oh my God, my lecture was going in one direction, and I went in another. But this is also a good lecture. Long ago, in 1975—and from ’75 to ’73—I was in Austria, in a city called Graz. Near Graz there is another village, and there was someone from a royal family. He had many horses and ponies, and he was a very spiritual person, reading many things. Then he received a mantra from me, and really, he was great. Until the end of his life, I would come to see him. He had a friend, not a Christian, but from another tradition—from the Lamp, no, not Jewish, the other one. Very nice, anyway, he had a church and everything, very good. And obviously, they are… He was like a British person. But it doesn’t matter. So that prince—or not a prince, he was some Mañchadrī, Kumbha Purī, or Śāntī? Hoyos Hoyos, what was he? Anyway, he had a friend, elderly, about 60 or 70, 75 years old. From Graz he used to come by bike, a little bit, up and down hills, and we three would talk very much. He was a complete vegetarian, very strict vegetarian, and his name was… And he said that when he was young, during the Second World War—and even now the government in those countries requires every young man to do one or two months military service, but some can say, “I will go to the kitchen,” or “I can go to the hospital,” something like that—he was in a factory. This factory was making sausages. He was eating them too, but then he went into the factory and saw what it was: all the meat thrown here and there, everything brought out to make the sausages. His name is also something. But then he said, “I will never, ever eat meat.” So he never ate any meat. That is how he became a vegetarian. He was an old person to me—maybe 20 or 35 years older than me or more. From that day he told me, “Swāmījī, please don’t go to this dog, pet, or whatever it is.” Because you don’t know what you get from all this eating. Even in a restaurant, it might be vegetarian, but you don’t know how the hands were, what was in the kitchen. Once they brought a plate and there was something dirty, so one of us said, “Please, can you clean this?” The waiter said sorry and went outside, then inside, and then he licked it, so heaven you know. So please cook at home. You will cook nicely, your children, your wife, your husband, your parents. Whatever they cook, at least they cook clean, not dirty. But now in this world, it is moving more to restaurants. That’s why I don’t know, but someone told me—and the person sitting here can tell yes or no, I will ask her—they say that now they are making buildings with no kitchen. There is no kitchen in the house. You have a bathroom, a very good bed, everything modern, but they don’t want any cooking there. And why? Because everyone is cooking differently in high buildings, and there is so much spice, so many smells: one is eating this, one is eating that, one is eating Indian food, one is using Indian spices, some are burning agarbattī, etc. So they make restaurants two floors down. People come home, they go eat there, and then go into their house. Now, what they’re eating or not, I don’t know. But they only eat because of the smell. But then why not let the smells come from the floor of that species? So that is why they made it so that people don’t cook, this and that, so they have nothing more to do. They have to eat there. I heard this from San Francisco. Please, maybe you are sitting there—where are you? Please, can you come here, close? She is American, but please speak Czech. Yeah, because otherwise people will say that Swamiji is making a real joke. So what Swāmījī was saying—pronounce Gurū Dev—yes, it is right. Yes, I now live in San Francisco, the Bay Area. The population is about 15 million people in that area. Part 2: Life in the Modern World and the Call of the Sacred Mountain Indeed, the situation is changing very rapidly there. In the last ten years, they have been building high-rises with flats—very small ones, and there are no kitchens. As Viśvagurujī described, you have many flats, and then underneath on the ground floor there are restaurants. Whenever I see people, they come down and, let’s say, they go for their breakfast, then for lunch and dinner, and there is a long queue outside. They might even stand an hour in that queue, just to wait for their meal. Watching this, I think to myself, why don’t you stay home in peace, cook your own meal, and enjoy it with your family? But simply, as Viśvagurujī said, they really do not know how to cook. I like to go to the farmer’s market, where I get my fruits and vegetables from the farmers. I see many people there with their iPhones, looking at fruits and vegetables, and they do not know what they are. It may be a very basic vegetable, and yet they search on their iPhones to find out what they are looking at. I have also been teaching yoga for children. As part of a program, I was doing a cooking class with them—a cooking class for children. I brought many vegetables and was simply teaching them how to wash the vegetables, how to make different things from them, things that children can manage. And it was really surprising. I had carrots there, and when I asked the children if they knew where carrots come from—where they grow—the answer was, “They grow in the supermarket.” So yes, Viśvagurujī, such is life. Maybe they will eventually learn to cook. There is so much traffic that they might cook between one task and another, but they do not know how. At restaurants, too, they endure a lot of traffic and pollution. Often the outdoor seating is right beside the road, so they eat their meal with all the noise and pollution, but I do not think they even realize it. Eating in cars is another chapter—yes, eating in cars and microwaves. When I look at many of the younger, educated, so-called professional, successful people, as Viśvagurujī said, what they really do is this: they wake up in the morning, go to Starbucks, then work ten to twelve hours under a great deal of stress. They become very exhausted. They come home with very little energy and a lot of tamas. They sit in air‑conditioned offices with screens in front of them all day long. And so they come home tired, then go to a restaurant for dinner. That is every day; they just do not cook at home. They come home, go to bed, and do it all over again. That is how it is every day—they do not worry, they go to the restaurant, come home, lie down, and this is the cycle of their lives. It is sad to watch sometimes. But wait a moment—well, I mean, we do not want to think negatively. In America, there are many, many good things. The people are very good. Yet there is always someone working and going and working; it is a different way of life. Everywhere the streets have beautiful trees, and everything is very clean. Of course, it is a big, big city and you do not know who is who, but if you have some friends there, they will always be very good to you. And they were learning only one subject, and that is all. After they have done it, they can think something, but not as we do. Still, there is a very pleasant climate in San Francisco. I was there many times; at that time, she was not there—I did not see her—she was here studying at her school. But it is very nice. Now she has beautiful places, many places we need, but she has one beautiful mountain, and it is truly like our beautiful Kailāśa mountain. You can speak about that—it is really very, very special. Yes, Viśvagurujī is talking. What I was saying is, Viśvagurujī said, “People are beautiful and wonderful wherever you go in the world.” With the blessing of Gurudev, I found myself again about three years ago now, and actually I used to visit that mountain often before I moved there—a mountain about 300 kilometers north of San Francisco. Now there is a house right under the mountain, and really, if you see the mountain, it looks like Mount Kailāśa. The people in that mountain town form a very, very spiritual community. I remember when I was moving there, a new chapter of my life was opening up. I was again somewhat worried about how it would turn out, how the ashram would look, and what to do there. Back then Viśvagurujī told me, “Just go, and the āśram is going to happen around you.” In that community, with those people, I truly feel as though I am in an āśram, and I have been with these people for many, many, many lives. They are very kind. They came and embraced me when I moved in. They help with shoveling snow and moving wood. It is at a very high elevation—about 3,500 meters, the elevation of the town. So on one side of the ashram is the mountain, and on the other side are cows and fields. I really enjoy spending time there with the farmers and the people who tend to the cows. I am very glad to be able to stay with these people who care for the cows. A very beautiful experience happened this year in March when little calves were born. One of the farmers said, “Why don’t you come and watch the calves being born?” It was actually thirteen little calves, I think thirteen. What an experience it was to watch the process of a calf being born and how the cow tends to, and looks after, her little calf. As I watched, it reminded me very much of how Gurudev speaks about the mother and the love of a mother for her children. I also see there a deep respect for nature among the local people and the farmers: they worship nature, protect nature, and worship the mountain. It is also an area where many Native Americans live; the Native American culture is felt all around. So I came there about three years ago knowing no one, and now I know everyone. I cannot hide there now. It is a beautiful place, and again, my wish is that Viśvagurujī visits that beautiful, beautiful part, that sacred mountain, and I hope that many of you can come with him. It is a wonderful place, and I wish that Viśvagurujī would visit this secret cave again. The water is very nice. Oh, you cannot imagine—there is very good, fresh water. Actually, since Viśvagurujī came to the house, there is a well. The water is very good; the property has a well. When Viśvagurujī came, he said the water is a little bit hard. And yes, it is hard because it contains many minerals. So I use the water, but I do not like to add any chemicals to the water that comes from the well. When Viśvagurujī was there, I would go to a sacred stream to fetch water so he could drink from that sacred stream. This water is actually melting snow from the mountain; it comes from the stream, and it is the start of the large Sacramento River in California. Supposedly it takes about fifty years for the ice and snow to melt and reach the stream, traveling through all the minerals along the way. So, since Viśvagurujī left, I have made it a kind of ritual. Because I spend much time there, I go early in the mornings to the sacred stream and offer my prayers to Gaṅgā and Mahāprabhujī. I bring the water and drink it, and the water is—if you can imagine—you can live on that water. Sometimes I drink only that water all day long because it is so nourishing; the prāṇa in it is indescribable. Now there are businesses putting that water in bottles, and I am sure you will probably even be able to buy it in Europe. The mountain is called Mount Shasta, and I think they call it the sacred springs or geyser, something like that. You see the mountain on the bottles. There are many, many legends, many, many histories behind the mountain, and one that is very dear to me says that it is the seed of Śiva in California. At times the mountain is likened by the locals to the Divine Mother, to Mother Gaṅgā. Many times, clouds and other phenomena happen around the mountain. The drive from San Francisco to the mountain is really beautiful. When you come next time, bring water. Thank you. Our water is everywhere in the world—very nice, good water always. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, there are many different kinds of minerals. And where there are mountains, there is holy water everywhere. The water she spoke of is also very, very nice. What I want to say is this: in these times, people are only studying, studying, and going nowhere, achieving nothing, and then immediately working like this. There are certainly places where there is neither good water nor good air. But in America there are also forests—vast, very nice, very, very good. Still, I can tell you that the best thing would be for her to bring people from San Francisco here for a retreat. Yes, bring the Americans here, and then you will see how nice it is. We have nice, good water too. Even in the air—well, in America, you know, there is very, very much pollution, very much. Europe is still very clean and very nice, and the pollution is still little. These are little countries, so we can take care of our country. It is very good. Thank you very much. And you see how people are—San Francisco and many others. Now there is something called, what do they call it, alcohol—wine yoga. They have made a yoga center with wine. It means that when they come in, a boy or girl is standing with a plate and a little alcohol. They drink, then go in, change, and again sit on their yoga mat; once more they are given a glass, and they relax. It is like everywhere; people are doing many things. We also have what is called naked yoga—that is, everyone, no matter who, what we call FKK, so they have FKK yoga. All right, let them enjoy. Thank you very much. But we should do our sādhanā. I tell you again, if any of you go to America, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, etc., or London, you can bring a group of 115 or as many as you can. Walking, very nice walking. There is a beautiful park, very vegetarian and very peaceful. And there is a place called Tilak. Purījī, Purījī… from any country, it is not a joke. Come for a holiday of one week, two weeks, or even one month, and your life will be completely different. There is cooking, cooking training, teacher trainings, yoga, and meditation. We have a whole program, and we make it happen. So, my dear, wherever you are sitting, you know that what I am telling you is good for you. We have places in India, and in Australia we have very, very nice—about six or seven hectares of land—seven hundred, yeah; the farm is so big we do not know where our border is. At night and during the day, there is no sound except the animals; that is something special. Everywhere there are nice things. We have them in Hungary, yes, and it is very flat, very… flat. You can ride horses. If you are a good rider, you can ride two horses at once—yes, if you are a good rider, you can ride two horses at once, but your thighs must be very strong, because when the horse may go to one side, your legs may lack power, though your jeans are very good, they keep it out. And Croatia and Slovenia have some of the best swimming. People come there, so everywhere is nice. But this sattvic atmosphere we have here—it is great. What I have told you now is not simply a talk; Swamiji gave you all training, and everywhere, what is it? So, I will share one more truth. It is not wrong or anything, but I will tell only you. Otherwise, everyone will come to me and say, “Please, can you take us with you? Can you take us with you?” Namaḥ Śivāya, Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya, Oṁ… Namaḥ Śivāya. Oṁ Namaḥ Śrī Prabhudīp Nārāyaṇa… Haṃsabhādas Prabhusaraṇ Parāyaṇ… Om Namo Śrī Dīpa Nārāyaṇa. Om Namo Śrī Prabhu Dīpa Nārāyaṇa. Hama Sab Dās Prabhu Śaraṇa Parāyaṇam. Hama Sab Dās Prabhu Śaraṇa Parāyaṇam. Om Namaḥ Śrī Prabhudīp. Om Namaḥ Śrī Prabhudīp. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī Devādhi Dev, Deveśvara Mahādeva, Satguru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān, Alakh Purījī Mahādeva.