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Mrityormā amṛtam gamaya. Oṁ tryambakaṁ yajāmahe sugandhiṁ puṣṭi-vardhanam। Urvārukamiva bandhanān mṛtyormukṣīya mā'mṛtāt॥ Oṁ tryambakaṁ yajāmahe sugandhiṁ puṣṭi-vardhanam। Ūrvarūkam yavandhana mṛtyor mokṣir mā amṛtā। Oṁ dhryambhakam yajāmahe sukandhi-puṣṭin-vardhanam। Ūrvārukam ye vandana mṛtyor mokṣir mā amṛtā। Nāhaṁ kartā prabhu, dīpa kartā mahā prabhu, dīpa kartāhi kevalam. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ... He leads us from the unreality to the reality, leads us from the darkness to the light, and leads us from death to immortality. From our hearts, we greet the three-eyed one, Lord Śiva. May there be health, happiness, good fragrance, and harmony everywhere in the whole of nature, in all living beings, and also in ourselves. With this mantra and this thought, we begin to practice the sixth Haṭha Yoga Kriyā, the sixth purification technique. It is called Trāṭak. Trāṭak means gazing on one point, concentration on one point. It is the purification of our sight, of our eyes, using either the light of a candle prepared in front of us, or by gazing upon the rising sun when it is still red and not yet shining brightly, or on the sunset. Trāṭak should never be practiced in the direct sun, as it can harm your eyes very much. You can do it on the full moon, or we can also do it on one black spot, one black point. It depends. The practice of Trāṭak meditation is very, very good, as we said, for the eyesight—to purify the eyes, to make the eyes stronger again, to strengthen the eye's light, the power of vision. It is practiced at one arm’s length between the eyes and the flame, or candle, or gazing point. This one-arm length is the best training for the eyes if you are short- or far-sighted. It strengthens the eyes again. Those people who have glasses or use glasses for reading or working should try to practice Trāṭak. It is very, very good for children, even together with their parents, to practice Trāṭak with one candle in the night, perhaps when they have issues with bed-wetting. Practicing Trāṭak is helpful and aids their concentration. Also, when we work all day and come home from the office, we cannot relax; we cannot calm down our thoughts. We are full of stress or nervousness and can’t get rid of certain thoughts or vṛttis. If we practice Trāṭak before going to sleep—and this takes only 10 to 15 minutes; we need not sit long and meditate anyway—it helps. The vrittis are here; you can’t calm down, you can’t concentrate. Then it helps to train the thoughts, the mind, to focus on one point, to get rid of all these small, small vrittis which come here and there. It brings the thoughts to focus on one point; it means one-pointedness. It also focuses our minds and our thoughts, and it leads to meditation. So, Trāṭak is not relaxation; it is not meditation. It is concentration. And to concentrate on one point even for one minute is nearly impossible, but Trāṭak helps. To learn and to train our eyes and our mind to become focused on one point—this we do with the light. Trāṭak is done. It would be good if you find one peaceful place, either when you are alone at home, or you withdraw yourself into a peaceful room where there is no telephone, where there are no animals, no people; you are alone. Or practice together in your yoga class. But there should be no disturbances from outside. There should be no flies or mosquitoes or something like this. It is not good because it is harmful. It can be shocking if your telephone rings or something; it is not good. You prepare your place; there should be no draft around you. Close the windows. Keep your body warm. Use your nice yoga dress, a loose dress made of natural material. You can have long sleeves so that you don’t feel cold, and it’s very good because when you are practicing your meditation, your āsanas, your concentration, it keeps the energy which you build up; it keeps the bio-energy within yourself. If you have too tight a dress, or no dress, or tiny dresses which we sometimes see in yoga magazines or videos, this is not proper dress. This is just for show, but it’s not helpful at all. You get tension here and there, and you feel uncomfortable. You feel not free. So, we can use our nice yoga dress and cover ourselves. Also, if you are too tired, it’s not good to practice Trāṭak because you can fall asleep. Some people, when they fall asleep, go forward, and it can burn your hair or your eyebrows. It’s not good to fall asleep, and it can happen, so be sure that you can stay awake for 10-15 minutes. Trāṭak is done differently. Some people like to have the candle to the side of the eye; it could be. But we have to gaze into the light, and when the eyes are opened too wide, they start to burn very much. The best height for Trāṭak is the height of the heart, the heart center and heart chakra, because Trāṭak opens the heart. It opens the heart center. It opens the heart chakra, the Anāhata Cakra. Because when we use the outside light in Saguṇa form—the flame—we practice with this visible light to learn to gaze at our inner light, our inner flame. And this opens the heart. And then, the Rāmāyaṇa always says, when we see the inner flame once, what more do we want to see? The inner heart. We practice Trāṭak also for people who have dry eyes, where there is no eye liquid. It helps again so that the eye liquid starts to produce, and the eyes can calm down and relax. And also, inwardly, you feel very, very good. For musicians and composers, Trāṭak is like a blessing. We hear many, many different sounds in our body. There are 101 different sounds. And there is only one other sound, which is the sound of the soul. We practice and try to hear at least once these sounds: the sound of the heart and the sound of the soul. So, we start to light our ghee bhaṭṭī. The ghee, we know, is made from butter. We cook the butter for about 20 minutes, and then we get the best form; the best fat out of the butter is the ghee. It is completely neutral, completely clean, purified butter. We use this with some piece of cotton. We make a patty, a little ball and a little dot, and then pour the liquid ghee on it. Then we have a very nice ghee pāṭhī, which is the best practice for Trāṭak and purification of the eyes, because this light from the ghee pāṭhī is very, very pure. In Ayurveda, they also use ghee for purification of the eyes, for strengthening the eyes—the ghee bath for the eyes. And we also use the ghee to look into the flame which is made out of ghee. You can use your candle if you don’t have ghee, if you don’t know about it. Many candles are made out of animal products. If you find a candle made out of palm fat with pure natural plant oil, it is good. But take care that your candle, your light, is not smoking too much. There are many, many candles that smoke very much, and this is not helpful; it is disturbing. So, we light now our candle to show in a practical way the Trāṭak. When we see the light, the flame, you prepare your table or your posture for the light at an arm’s length in front of you, in the middle between both your eyes. When you put up your thumb, the flame is below or under your thumb. The flame has three different colors. Near the dot, it is a little bit dark. In the middle, it is very light, very shiny. And up is again a little bit darker. So when we practice, we look at the middle flame, at the top of the middle flame. We keep our eyes not wide open and gazing like this, also not like this. Just normal looking at the flame. For beginners, half a minute is enough—30 seconds. The burning of the eyes or the running of the tears is the sign that for you now it is enough. Close your eyes. You have reached your limit; you need to close them. In that way, three times we open our eyes and look inside when the eyes are closed after half a minute. Looking into the flame, you also see in the far distance in front of you one light point. Try to keep your physical eyes down. You look downwards, in the direction of your nose or nostrils, and inside you look to this flame. Observe the flame. Don’t try to catch it or hold it or run behind it if it’s moving or turning; just observe. After one or two minutes, again you open your eyes, look into the flame, and take it inside. Take this light, this flame, inside. This light is the symbol of the highest Self, as we have in the mantra: "Oṁ dīp cūḍā para brahma dīp." This light is the light of the highest Self in Saguṇa form and helps us to realize the Nirguṇa form, the invisible light. So we start: close your eyes, relax the eyes, relax yourself. Keep your body without movement, and especially when you have your eyes open, don’t move your body—not even a little finger, or eyelids, or eyeball. Keep your body completely relaxed: your stomach, your elbows, your shoulders. Relax your chewing muscles, your neck muscles. And especially relax your eyebrow center. Don’t put too much tension there; no wrinkle in the middle of the eyes, no tension between the eyebrows. Now we open our eyes and look at the flame. If the flame is too much moving, then try with your mind to keep it stable. Keep your eyeballs and your eyelids steady. Close your eyes, please, and look to the inner flame. Observe the color, the form. Take this light into the heart. Open your heart. Open your heart. For the second round, we open our eyes. Try to connect completely. Become one with your flame. Become one with the light. No other thoughts, no vṛttis; one point, focusing on the flame. If you don’t see anything, if you don’t see a point or flame, then it may be that your thoughts are still going here and there. If you use reading glasses, you can use them for lenses. After some time of practicing, you can dry it out. Get ready for the third and last round. Please open your eyes, and no movement. Close your eyes. The mantra always goes with the inside breath. One deep inhale and exhale. One deep. Śa. Śa. Trāṭak. Concentration of the Haṭha Yoga. It is also very good and helpful. But those who have a kind of schizophrenia, a kind of depression, mental imbalance, please don’t practice. In that way, it is better to practice Yoga Nidrā, the deep relaxation technique according to Yoga and daily life, and calm down with simple prāṇāyāma techniques. Also, Trāṭak, of course, you cannot do during the daylight. You need darkness around you so that you can see the flame, the light. During the day, you can concentrate on one point. If you practice in a group or in your yoga class, try to sit one after the other so that your friend doesn’t see the light from you, like our dear Madhu is sitting. We are sitting here together; she is sitting nearly behind or beside. So from your view, from your eyesight, you should not see the flame, the light from your friend or practicing colleague. Or you sit one after the other behind, or two persons can gaze on one flame; that is also possible. But please take care that you don’t burn the other one when you sit behind or at the backside. So with these wishes, with this kind of thoughts or experiences which we learn from our Swāmījī, we say for this evening, Hari Om. Have a nice evening or morning or day. Again, these greetings come from Śrī.