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We have some feedback from our dear friends from different parts of the world. If you remember, this morning I asked if there were any questions. One question comes from Beirut, from Suhad Dolnik, asking: whenever there are questions, we don't hear them. It's a very good question; we hear only the answers. So, the best would be to give them a portable microphone. Thank you very much for your kind attention; we will do that next time. A second question is also from some friends. I don't know what it means—Pekovits or something—but the question is very nice. Many of you would like to know this. It is a general question: "When we are in love with someone, how can we recognize if it is our desire or God-given love?" It depends. Of course, nothing begins without desires. Even if God sends you someone and you have no desires, you say, "Thank you, go home." That's it. The best way, whether it is God-sent or born of desire, is that when you come to know someone, have only a friendly relation for five years, or a minimum of one year and eight months. This means no physical relations. You can be nice friends, and then you will see if it is really meant for you or not. That's it. Dīpā and Bhagavānakī. Are there some more questions, or an answer, a commentary? Everyone is paralyzed. So, no question means also no answers. Therefore, we come to our subject: spiritual development. The subject is spiritual development. Do we need some higher education for spiritual development? Do we need some titles for spiritual development? Or should we have some special course for spiritual development? I think spirituality doesn't need any higher education, or any titles, or any courses. Since the beginning of the last century, humans lost trust in humans and also lost trust in God. The last century had two terrible wars where people were suffering and praying to God, but it seems they think God didn't hear. Well, that was not a war that God started. God said you can stop anytime. It is not necessary that you begin to fight and go into the battlefield. If the whole country and all the soldiers and parents are against it, the president can go along into the battlefield. But it is a manipulation that you think you must go. So in history, the time has to come when there is some war and all the young generation and all the parents just drop down the weapons and say, "We don't want the war." There will be a great change in human consciousness, and that will be the movement of peace. When you drop, others will do too. So many people lost their confidence toward God, toward religion, or toward spirituality, and many people lost their confidence and trust from human to human. Sorry. Spirituality begins already in the astral world, before your birth, before you come to the physical. In connection to the physical world, your soul is already prepared with the spiritual atmosphere in the universe as a destiny, through the decision of the higher consciousness. You are born; you came to your mother's body as a spiritual soul. But now it depends on how your parents, your mother, will accept and have the spiritual thoughts or not. Now we have population problems because there is no discipline. When you are born, the happiness of the parents, the happiness of the neighbors and friends, is a sign of spirituality. Every mother is happy to have a child; it doesn't matter if it is a human mother or an animal mother. I would like to tell you one little story, or something from our Barīkhā, to some devotees living in another part of India called Surat. These are disciples, and I was there this time when I visited India. It is something very beautiful, and I would say something very loving, or I don't find the words for what I would say. That person wrote a small book, about 30-40 pages only, and when you open the first page, there was a picture of his mother, and on the last page, my picture. And there were, it seems, the words of his mother, who wrote this book. Now the sentence which was written, I liked it very much. It touched the heart. It touched the relation. It awoke the love. The sentence was: at the time of your birth, when you were born and you had your first breath, you inhaled and exhaled. By your first breath, your mother was with you. True? Or was she somewhere else, and you weren't? So the first time, with your first breath, your mother was with you. Now, when your father and mother will have the last breath of their life, you should be with them. Do you understand? Who doesn't understand, hand up. So if it is like this, then in the family there is no quarreling. When this education is given to children, that's already spiritual education. Nowadays, our modern education and system, even this, separates the children from the parents. Children often say, "It is your—" they say, "it is my birthright." That's all. So, such a loving care, such a loving relation, such a loving consciousness, that already is spirituality. So these are the worlds of spirituality which awaken in our heart a feeling, and that feeling of oneness should unite us; it should not separate us. So, spirituality begins already from the astral world, when your journey begins to come to this physical planet. Spirituality already begins when you are in your mother's body, and your body is created from your mother's body. When you are born, your first breath, your first look, the touch of the hands of the mother, the father—nowadays the nurses, it depends how it is—and then the loving care of the parents, and there begins the explanation: there is God. It is spiritual. It is divine. It depends on how you educate your children. A month ago, we had a year visit from one Indian family, and they had a child two years old or two and a half years old. And you know, he didn't need to say anything. He just came and simply made a praṇām to Mahāprabhujī and to everyone they chose. Well, this was put in the consciousness by the parents. So, the same thing, you can put in the children a very natural way to be nice to others. What does it mean to be nice to others? Nowadays, some journalists ask me the question: "People say, why should I be nice? I don't care." You see, then there is no spiritual consciousness. There are no spiritual teachings. Before going to sleep, you remember something. When you wake up, you remember something. When you look at nature, the flowers, the birds, it awakens your spiritual consciousness. We have to come closer to nature, and we should not be frightened by this. We should not have fear from that. Spirituality begins from childhood. You have a spiritual consciousness, and when you have trust there, definitely God is with you and God protects you. Before we think anything, first we should think positive. Try to come nearer. When you see someone, don't think that this person can be a cruel one, this person can be a bad one. Why do you put such blackmailing by thyself into your consciousness? You think it was a bad person, but in turn, that is a very nice person, very helpful and very kind. Definitely, you have to take a respectful distance. Tigers are very nice, lions are very nice, the wild elephant is also very beautiful, very nice, but you should have a respectful distance. For that, God gave you feeling and the consciousness of attention and protection. Then we have to come to one more point. We all know what eating is: food, nourishment. And we know what hunger means. It doesn't matter who is who; everyone feels hungry, whether humans or animals. Even small ants are constantly searching for food. When you are very hungry and someone gives you a piece of fruit or bread or something to eat, how happy you are. And when you eat, how does your body feel? We said, may that person not say thank you, but the stomach will say thank you. Blessing must not come only from here; blessing can come from here too. So there is nothing greater spiritual practice than to give food to the hungry creatures. It doesn't matter if it's human or animals, birds or fish. Every day, just a handful, some corn you throw for the birds. You know how happy they are, and they will sing every day for you. So when all will be done, our birds will not be hungry, and they will be very happy. So there are many options, many occasions, many possibilities that you can give something to the hungry one, drink to the thirsty. We know what it means to be thirsty. There was one thirsty man who came to a shop, and inside, the boss was sitting and working. There was a water pot for drinking water. One man came, and he was very thirsty; he couldn't walk, and nearly he would fall down. He managed to come to the shop, and he asked that man, the shopkeeper or the boss, whatever, he said, "I am very thirsty, can you give me water to drink?" He said, "Yes, sit down, someone will come and give you." He was sitting. After five minutes, he said, "Sir, I am dying out of thirst. Can you give me water to drink?" He said, "Yes, yes, someone will come and give you water." The third time he asked, "Sir, can you give me a glass of water?" He said, "Yes, I told you, someone very soon will come and give you." He said, "Sir, for a while you can become someone." And that's it. Don't depend on someone. He said, "The man will come, give you water. A man will come." So he said, for a while you can become also a man. Indirectly, it means don't be like an animal. You understand? So don't wait that someone will do it. But you must have this feeling: compare yourself with others. What would you think when you are thirsty yourself? Similarly, others also have the thirst. So it doesn't matter, birds or animals. This part of the world where we are, more or less, you have a lot of water everywhere. Birds and animals, they find the water. But there are many countries where there is no water. By the way, what I want to tell you is that, you know, in Rajasthan there was only maybe 20% rain, and people in many, many places have no drinking water. Okay, the people can buy mineral water, but what about the animals? Deer, wild cows, rabbits, and many other animals and birds? They cannot buy the water. Can you imagine? A deer is very thirsty and very tired, and he sees in the desert, far away, what looks like a lake. What do we call this? Fata Morgana. And he is running, or he or she is running, to drink water because he thinks it is water. And he can't come to the water, and falls down and dies. Can you imagine the thirst? Yes, there are many parts of the world that lack water. There was also a kind of program, I think on CNN or something. I sat for a few minutes and looked. In Australia, many kangaroos are suffering. They are looking for water, and people are organizing for them. And similarly, near Khattu and Jardin, and so where our ashram is, the equation is water. And so now I organized. There is one place where there are 2,500 deer. It is strictly prohibited to hunt or kill them. The people who live there say they are part of our life. They are like our children, and there is salty water. So every day, about five to ten water tractor tankers, I organize to have water for them. And can you imagine how this thirsty deer's ātmā feels like? They don't know me. I have not been there, but their ātmā knows. And so there are for animals, drinks where we put the tankers, and animals come to drink the water. This is spirituality, not that you just meditate and sit and do nothing. So what I call helping hands has more value than folded hands. So one tanker costs about five euros, five to seven euros. And we are organizing more than 25 tankers per day, and it will go till July when the monsoon will come. So, of course, you can be a part of this till July when the first monsoon comes. Then you can say, "Now my helping is finished." You will save the life of many people, many animals, and many things. For what is this life? If you are not useful for others, you cannot do something for others. So this is a spiritual consciousness, only thinking about that. It must not be only the money; you can do many things without money too. We have young children from one of our yoga families from Salzburg, near Salzburg, and now on Christmas time and different occasions, they paint some stones and ask people, "This is for the humanitarian project." Or they make these chestnuts, maroni, now in the cold season, and they tell the people this is for the drink for the animals and so on. And people, they do buy, and they even give one euro more. You see, where the will goes away, these young children, they don't have money, but they do it, and they get money, and they hand it over for some good job or good things. Therefore, spirituality is there to understand others' situations. Don't think, "No one loves me, no one respects me, no one looks to me, no one likes me." Why should someone like you? Why should someone look to you? Did you look to someone with a kind smile? Did you think of someone with kind thoughts? Did you think with pure thoughts? And why? Who are you to judge if one is looking to you or kind to you or not? That's it. So just be, that's all. And if you are there with your whole heart, that is a spiritual development. So to understand others' suffering, that's it. Sometimes I am thinking, in hospitals, the nurses and doctors—some nurses have more than 24 hours duty. And the ill people, they ring the bell, and they have to, the nurses have to run and come, you know. This is a great seva, a great deed, a great help that they are doing. They can say, "I am very tired, I will not come." So we should have a consciousness of serving, of helping. Therefore, often Holy Gurujī said in his satsaṅg, "Seva dharma is the greatest dharma." Dharma means duty, dharma means religion, dharma means the principle. Ālī Gurujī said that God put on the scale, on one side mokṣa, the liberation, and on the other side, the seva. What is better? The seva is more than mokṣa. Therefore, God himself gives up his beautiful life from Vaikuṇṭha, or it doesn't matter from where he comes. He incarnates here on this globe to serve us. God is coming to serve us. God is not coming so that we will—he wants that we will pray to him, and this is. Our heart respects him. Why? Because he helps us. So someone who helps you, you have words of thankfulness or a feeling of thankfulness in your heart. So our prayer is not like a slave to God, but appreciation. We would like to express our appreciation, and we would like to say, God, without knowing or knowing, may I have bad thoughts towards you or towards others, please forgive. So this is how the spiritual, it is growing slowly, slowly, slowly. That will be counted, not how many hours you were sitting and meditating, and children said, "Mommy, I'm hungry." "Psst, I told you I'm meditating." "Mommy, how long will you meditate?" That is not a meditation. That's laziness. Yes, meditate, but not on behalf of others' time. So my work is my worship. What I'm doing is my prayer to God, my worship to God. When I do good things, it's my prayers, and when I do bad things, it is I'm harming myself. Bad thinking is poisoning oneself, and positive thinking is enlightening thyself. And without knowing, do not think negatively. Do you know what you are thinking about someone? Maybe you are wrong. Then you will get bad karma. Or you know that someone is bad and guilty, then now your duty is to help, not to think negatively. So that's how spirituality will grow. And then, also, to be helpful to someone, try to help. There is a spirituality growing. And then, definitely, there's a God. Everyone believes in God in different ways. God is only one. There's no two Gods. But that one God, everyone has a different relation to him. One sees one lady as a grandmother, another sees her as a mother, a third sees her as a wife, a fourth sees her as a sister, a fifth sees her as a daughter, and the sixth sees her as a sister. The person is only one, but the relations, the view, are different. So there is only one God, and therefore one should not fight this and that God. That is a blackmailing in the human mind. We don't believe in this God; we believe this God is bad, this one. Who are you to say? Very soon you will be under the earth, Hari Om, and then you will come, and then God will say, "You were this one, putting me in a difficult place." So spirituality grows with your body, grows with your ears. And then, of course, what you eat, what you drink, and with whom you spend your time. With spiritual persons, you will have spiritual thoughts. You will feel harmony, love, understanding, oneness. And when there is a kuśaṅga, you feel there is no trust, there is restlessness. No one cares about others. The spirituality is suffering. Good eating, sattvic, vegetarian nourishment creates in your body the spiritual energy. Humans understand what violence means or what non-violence means. Though you haven't done this, you know it has been done. Someone has killed this animal. Why? Because you want to eat meat. Or, you know, people who are working with the coffee plants, they gave us a handful of beans only. Children are lying under the coffee plants where they are spraying some kind of pesticides, hardworking, and they have no coffee to drink. But coffee comes to us. Yes, but there must be some karmic vibration. What do we do for that? Of course, we give the money, we help them. There are people who are helping. But it is a vibration inside, and this vibration we have to harmonize, balance. We are not so far that we can put our hand and feel what kind of vibration our food has. Maybe some people can. Similarly, with the chocolate, we don't know what kind of things are inside. In cheese, we don't know what's inside. In many countries, by law, they have to write exactly what everything is, and many do not. So whatever comes to you, if you take it, was taken away from someone or caused pain to someone, and that becomes a karmic burden on us. Because you were consuming, and it is very hard, very hard, and therefore, in every religion, I think there are prayers before eating for forgiveness, for thankfulness, and so on. Mantra, which is a part for tomorrow for spirituality, is very important for our spiritual development, but that will come tomorrow. So this is how you live. Also, what kind of material do you have? The cloth over you. Many people have jackets, belts, and trousers from killed animal skins, which is not so good. To have a skin over animal skin over your human skin is a little bit not good energy. There is one very nice poem I will try to translate, it's not easy, but don't torture, don't cause pain, don't trouble the meek one. Because what will pain and coming from their heart? That will be a very big sin, or a very big curse for you, and the revenge will be there. The skin of the animals, which are already killed, the skin has no more life now, but that skin can burn into ashes, that knife or the sword which killed that animal. And that means, in poetry, that when you have a kind of pump, you are blowing the air into the coal to make a strong heat, the fire, and when the iron is inside, it can burn into ash. And so, sooner or later, that will burn you into ash, which means again you will go to different parts, a kind of life far away from human life, far away from it. Spirituality is not only that you will pray and go to the holy places, no. What you wear, what you utilize. Now, thanks to God, we have a lot of natural cosmetics, mostly for ladies. Made out of the nature from the plants. But there are some cosmetics which are done with animal research, and that's not good. That's not good, shuffling. Someone told me they are doing some kind of experiments on the cats, and the cat is meowing very strongly, so they cut the vocal cords of the cats so she cannot make noise anymore; she can only do like this. But you know how cruel it is? Can you imagine human hands doing such things to these innocent animals? Kabir Dāsjī said in his bhajan, "God gave you the hands to give help." So the human body itself is spiritual. The human body itself is divine. The human body is great. The human body is like the body of God. Therefore, don't destroy your body with certain desires and kuśaṅgas. Be sure you will lose nothing. It is said, "The wealth of your youth is only four days' guest." It will go away. Dhan means wealth. Joban means your youth, where you are very young. The horses are very wild, you know, desires. "Swāmījī, will I find one wife? You told me last year I would find, but I haven't found yet." Enjoy your days. That you didn't find. Slowly, slowly it will calm down. And you had, when you had a husband, what you are looking for again. Or when you had a wife already, so this is only for sometimes. Again, your body will cease, will die. This body is given to develop spirituality, Bhagavān ke bhajan karne ke liye. Terī bītī umar Hari nāma binā, sumiran kar le mere manā. Now finally, it has turned towards spirituality. Mother and wife, husband and father, brothers and sisters. We have in every life, birds also, they have father and mother. Brothers and sisters, animals also. In every life, we had a father and mother. But Gurudev is only in human life to guide us. Don't lose, don't miss this chance, and only the chance to awake into the divinity, into the divine. So, spirituality means 24 hours: how you think, how you live, how you work, how selfish you are. Good things, give them to others, and hard work from others, take it from their hands. Say, please, can I help you? You sit down; I will do it. You go and do these good things. How selfish you are, that you run to the front when the good thing is there. That is not, then. It doesn't come as a good seva. It comes as you are taking away. You want to have it only for yourself, and there the problem begins. So spirituality grows with your body, slowly, slowly, and every time you will be more and more spiritual if you live aware. When you were small, the toys were everything for you, a small child, all kinds of toys, oh, happy. And one day, this toy, you will know it's your only toy, and you will search for some other toy. And then after some time, this toy, you will say, "Oh God, I was mistaken." And you will search for another toy as a God. And when you get ātmā-jñāna, Self-realization, then this, that kind of search will also go away. You come then to the reality. So let this spirituality grow day by day. Give up your ambition and your ego, your selfishness, your greed. Be generous, just let it be for others, that's it. You know, the young mother, when the child is still eating, she is still feeding the child slowly, slowly. When the child doesn't want to eat at all, then the mother will eat. He is also hungry. I never saw any mother that first eats everything and then gives what remains to the hungry child. That's it. So automatically, mother has such a feeling. That feeling you should have for everyone. Spirituality is a part of human life. Spirituality is everyday life, and that's why we call it yoga in daily life. Many things you can do, and we are doing already. So there come also our pūjā, our prayers, altar, giving flowers, and this is coming tomorrow in our subject. So now, think over what you are doing for your spirituality, and how angry you are, how jealous you are. You know everything, and how much you are longing for that. There is one story from the life of Tulsīdāsjī, a great saint who wrote this Rāmāyaṇa, the life of God Rāma. It's a beautiful Tulsīdās Rāmāyaṇa, it's very, very beautiful. And it is said he was young and married. And when someone is married and young, then of course his wife is everything for him, or husband is everything. By tradition, after marriage, when the wife is with you for some days, then she will go back to her home and stay a few months there, and then again, ceremonially, you will go and bring her back, by tradition. Now, Tulsidas couldn't say to his parents or anyone, but he was suffering; the wife was gone. After one week, he tried to cross the river. Big river, and in the night he was swimming through the river to come to the place where she is living, or her parents are there and she was there. Very cold, cold water. He swam through and through. He took the risk; maybe there could be crocodiles or anything. Yes, he came and he knew that his wife was on the first floor somewhere behind. So he went through the window because he was afraid that his parents-in-law, if they came to know, what would they say? What a shame! On both sides, the poor boy, on one side he doesn't dare, on the other side he wants to see his wife. Did it happen to you, Rosni? Never. There are some times, previously in farmer's houses, you know, they put then a ladder, and the girl climbs up, or a boy. And he came to her, and she said, "You, how did you come? Rainy, cold, dark, you were on the other side of the river." And he told all how he felt, and he said, "I love you so much, and I didn't care: water and dark and thorns and rains and gold and everything." And she said to him one word, one sentence, "My dear, that must be which you love me as much as you love me, if ten." Percent of this, you would love God. You will be great. And her words went in his heart like a knife and never came back to her. Girls, be careful. He meditated, he realized, and became a great saint. So that much, what you are desiring, something, if some percent of that you have desire for God, will be greater than anything. This body very soon will cease, will go under the earth or become ash. All will be erased. What was the purpose of life? Jagat me kaisā natare? What kind of relation do we have in this world? Mother said, "He is my son." Brother said, "He is my arm." And sister said, "Is my brother?" And wife said, "Is my husband?" But one day you will die. Your bones will burn like wood. Your hair will burn like grass. And this body, like gold, will just turn into ash. Mother will cry. Brother will hold his hands and cry, "I lost my arm." And sister and wife also will cry for a while, then they'll find another husband. It's a very nice bhajan from Kabīr Dās, very, very nice bhajan. Perhaps I will translate it for you completely one day. So, spirituality as well as your normal household life, the day when your husband or wife will come, you will know that is that. And wait, if you come to know someone, don't go immediately the next day to bed with this person. Wait for one, two years, yes. Check the spirituality, check the thoughts. Otherwise, you will say again, "I am mistaken." My God, again this man has the same habit. Oh God, that's it. Therefore, transfer your feelings to the divine love. That's the greatest thing, and that is the aim of human life. So, wish you all the best. Think over. And tomorrow morning, we will have the second or the third part of this spirituality, about the ceremonies, meditations, and mantras, and so on.