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First is the Guru

A disciple's unwavering devotion is tested to its absolute limit. A boy seeks a spiritual teacher, pleading to renounce worldly life. The teacher accepts him but imposes severe austerity, providing no food and assigning only the care of cows. The boy endures, surviving on milk, then alms, then foam from calves, then leaves—each sustenance forbidden by the teacher. Other disciples protest this harsh treatment, but the teacher insists it is a necessary test. During a storm, the boy uses his own body to dam a water channel, lying in the cold flow overnight. Later, eating poisonous leaves blinds him, causing him to fall into a dry well. When the teacher finds him, the boy declares he will accept food only if given directly. At that moment, divine presence manifests. The narrative reveals the disciple's divine essence, demonstrating that such perfect surrender is exceedingly rare. The teacher's role is paramount, for it is the guide who enables the vision of the divine.

"When the calf is drinking, a little foam comes out. That I eat."

"Gurudev, I will not take it. Without you giving it to me, Gurudev, I will not take it."

Filming location: Zagreb, Croatia

Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān kī jayā! Devadhī Dev, Dev Puruṣa Mahādeva kī jaya! Satya Sanātana Dharma kī jaya! This is the grace of our Gurujī, Mahāprabhujī, Holī Gurujī, Dev Purī Jī, Alak Purī Jī, and many other saints and gurus—and they too had their own gurus. Long ago, I shared stories that Holī Gurujī often told. These are not mere stories; they originate from a great ṛṣi. The tales of these saints and many ṛṣis were recorded in scriptures long ago. In those times, those wishing to become sannyāsīs or swāmīs would retreat to the forest. They had āśrams and land. One such ṛṣi owned two or three hundred cows and had thirty to forty disciples. Each disciple had a daily duty: some fetched fodder for the cows, others milked them, some cleaned, some cooked, and some led satsaṅg. Everyone performed their tasks. Many ṛṣis of that era would give lectures morning and evening. There was a village about fifty kilometers away. A man from this village had a young son, about ten or fourteen years old. From childhood, the boy pleaded with his father: "Father, please, I wish to go to a ṛṣi, to God, to Swāmījī—whatever you call it. I will go to an āśram." The father brought his son to the ṛṣi. The ṛṣi said, "Take your child home. Let him grow a little older, then bring him back." But the boy insisted, "Every day, I will go to Gurudev. I will go to Gurudev." Now, why did this child feel so compelled from within? He thought: "I wish to do nothing but bhajan, satsaṅg, and Śiva. That is all. I do not wish to marry or do anything else. All this is merely of the body, our external appearance. There must be something greater." He recognized that the ṛṣi or guru is also a great being. Consider a glass or a pot. If it is whole, it is one way. You can assess yourself: if you possess that inner purity, if you are connected to the ātmā, the soul in your heart, then you are like a whole vessel. But if something inside is broken, it is like a broken pot. The water may be the same, but is the container broken or complete? When there is only an outer surface with nothing genuine within, it is empty. So Gurujī was always testing. Just as you come here to be tested, the test arrived for this boy. The boy said, "Father, please, may I go to Gurujī?" The father asked Gurujī, and Gurujī replied, "What will you undertake? It is very, very hard." The boy said, "Gurujī, anything. I will do it." The father was somewhat saddened, but the child went. Immediately, the guru instructed him: "Take my cows, go, and bring them back in the evening." So he went and returned, went and returned. Yet, in the āśram, Gurujī gave him nothing to eat. He simply said, "Take care of the cows for one month." After some time, Gurujī asked, "I did not give you food. What are you eating?" The boy replied, "Gurudev, I drink milk from the cows." Gurujī said, "Why? That is not right. This milk is for the āśram and for the calves. Do not take it." Then the boy went to the village—not the city, the village—and brought a large shawl. He offered it to Gurujī. Gurujī said, "Okay, thank you. Put it here and go to the cows." After a few days, Gurujī asked again, "What are you eating? I gave you no food. What are you doing?" The boy said, "Gurudev, I go for bikṣā (alms)." Gurujī questioned, "You take from them a second time? These are poor people. You take this? This is not good." The boy promised, "Okay, Gurudev, I will not do this again." Some time later, Gurujī inquired once more, "What do you eat?" The boy began, "Gurudev, I do not—" but Gurujī interjected, "Do not tell me milk." The boy then explained, "When the calf is drinking, a little foam comes out. That I eat." Gurujī said, "You are not that good. Why? The calves leave it for you? Do not take even that." All the other disciples pleaded, "Gurujī, please do not do this. Please, this boy..." Gurujī responded, "You do not know. I wish to know if he is a real disciple. He will either stand firm before you, or he will run away. No. Ne (No)." The boy declared again, "Gurujī, I do not milk, I do not take from the calves, I do not take bikṣā, I take nothing." Gurujī asked, "Then what?" The boy said, "Gurujī, I take the leaves of the trees." Gurujī replied, "You take the leaves of the trees? The trees have just sprouted, and you are breaking them all." The boy said, "Gurudev, I will not do it." Now, what did he do? He took some kind of dry leaves or something. One day, there was very heavy rain. They had land, and water was flowing away. The water should not drain out, but it was escaping. Gurujī said to his devotees at night, "The water will drain out, and then we will have no more water. Please, can you go and block the water?" One disciple said, "Gurujī, water will come tomorrow. Now we are tired. I am sleeping." And so on. Suddenly, the child heard what Gurujī said. He asked, "Gurujī, may I go and block the water?" Gurujī said, "You will not do it. I will do it." But what happened? The boy went to where the water was flowing out, putting sand to block it, but it kept coming and going. So this boy remained there, lying where the water was draining, using his body to stem the flow. It was very cold, but he lay there, and earth covered him as the water dropped. In the morning, the cows returned alone. The disciples asked, "Where is this boy, Gurujī? He has gone away. Gurujī, you have tortured this disciple so much." They said, "No, my disciple cannot be like that." Gurujī said, "No, that is not true. My student is not like that." He went to the site and asked the boy, "Why did you fall down? I told you not to." The boy said, "Gurujī, because I was preserving your water." Gurujī said, "Okay, good. Go with the cows, hurry home." The boy thought, "Will I not also go?" One day, he was eating some leaves—dead leaves that can cause blindness—and he became blind. In the evening, he was walking behind the cows, blind. There was a dry water tank, about three to five meters deep, with no water, and he fell into it. The cows returned without him. The disciples asked, "Where are the cows? The cows are here. Where is my Abhimanyu?" (His name was Abhimanyu). Everyone said, "Gurujī, you are torturing him so. We do not want this. How can you do this? He has run away." Gurujī said, "My Abhimanyu will not go. Let us go. Where is he?" Someone said, "There is a boy who has fallen into the well." Gurujī said, "Let us go see." Gurujī called out, "Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu!" A small voice replied from the pit, "O Gurudev, I am here. I am so sorry because I was hungry and I ate some leaves from the bridge, and my eyes are gone. Gurudev, did the cows come or not?" Gurujī said, "Yes." Then Gurujī said, "Abhimanyu, I give you food." Abhimanyu replied, "Yes, Gurudev, but without you giving it to me, Gurudev, I will not take it." At that moment, God appeared there. It is said, "Abhimanyu, he is the God." This is a very great story. For it was God Himself undergoing this seeming torture. God does not get hungry. Is God hungry? Yet that God came there. How much of this story can you find in any books? It is said, "Abhimanyu, I will..." That is it. Such disciples are very rare, very rare. I am also not like that; perhaps you are, but it is not easy. In this way, through satsaṅg, we come together. When we come to satsaṅg, the energy of each being converges—what we call science, our energy, our Self. That is the bhajan from Abhimanyu. Do you know it? Did you read about Abhimanyu? What does it say? Abhimanyu does not leave. When God appeared before Abhimanyu, in that moment Abhimanyu was thinking: whom should he greet first, God or Gurudev? In that instant, he realized that without Gurudev, he would not see God. So he first greeted Gurudev and then God. I think that part of the story was not elaborated by Viśvagurujī because Viśvagurujī is the one who leads us to God. He is teaching us and guiding us toward God. Who enables us to see God? That is why we can say that Gurudev is even higher than God. That is why I dared to interrupt and ask: to whom should we give first? It is said: first the Guru, because I did not know God before. Why did He not come to me? But Gurudev was my God. And Abhimanyu himself became God. That was Guruvaraṁ Chalūsā... Chalūsā... Chalūsā... Chalusa, Chalusa... One more. Vivek Purījī Kī Jaya. Vivek Purījī Kī Jaya. Kī Jaya. Hari Om. In this lecture, I have given you the story. It is not a story; it is reality. That God was inside it. God Himself was seemingly suffering like that, but it means He was not truly suffering. He is God in everything, and everything is His. But it is said, the pot... once more, so day and night, day and night, and day and night. Hariḥ Swāmī Yogānandajī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Śrī Swāmī Maheśvarānandajī Sarvabhūmi Cakraguru Yogī Rāj Kī Jai, Sabarī Śrī Munī Mahātmā Om Kī Jai. That is something from Yogānanda's bhajan. That is Yogī Nānjī's bhajan. Yes, and one more also: "When I am far, I am far at a distance. What do you know?" Yes, so even I am at a distance, but I am... you know that? How is that? Yes. Yes, that is a beautiful, beautiful story, because a story is a story. The story is that there was one Swāmījī, very importantly Swāmījī, Yogānandjī's Gurujī. Yogānandjī later came to the Western countries. Many people could not come, and many were jealous. Jealousy means burning. Jealous is jealousy. This is jealousy. How long will it be? Oh my God. Yes. And then, when there is no oil in you, it will burn all this and go. So Swāmījī, Yogānandjī, was traveling to different places, mostly in Australia and America. I was in his āśram, and his book—it was that book only. But good disciples are making more and more inside. The book is big, so jealousy arises. One day, someone told his Gurujī, "Gurujī, your Swāmījī is in America, and he is enjoying, and this and that." Well, sometimes, on the edge, he also had treasures, a dresser, but he was a great... you know, he was a very learned one. Some people told his Gurujī, "Gurujī, he is only enjoying in the Western countries, and he will not come to you." So he wrote a letter to Gurujī explaining what people were saying. But Gurujī said, "But you are my child, you are mine. Do not worry. Even if I am not with you, I am always with you." How is that? Come on, finally, he said that even if I die, look into my eyes. I will be dead only when this understanding dawns. All tears come. That is a guru, and that is a disciple. Even if I am at a far distance, farther than the stars, or anything he will see, but I am thine. You all are mine. Done. If someone is outwardly thinking, "Not this and not that," and this one is outwardly burning, what is that? Jealousy. And there are two things: "jeal" is water, and "jealous" is fire. Water and fire cannot remain separate. They are together. Yes. Good. Yes. Come on, everybody, from your heart. From your heart, you should listen. I was preparing to give another lecture today. I said very much, "I will have this lecture today, with many techniques and this," but again Mahāprabhujī prompted me, "That is it, come on." My Gurudeva knows, my Lord, I will be Thine always. I may go farther than the stars, I may go farther than the stars, still my Lord, I will be Thine always, my Gurudev, be Thine. This may come, oh, this may go, oh, this may come, oh, this may go, but Lord, say, say. Svayī Yogānandajī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Svayī Maheśvarānandajī Sarvabhūm Jagat Guru Yogī Rāj Kī Jai, Sabarṣi Munī Mahātmā Om Kī Jai.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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