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Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī, sanātana dharma kī, Dev Purīṣa Mahādeva kī, Mahāprabhū Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī, Madhvanānjī Bhagavān kī, Alak Purījī Mahādeva kī, Satya sanātana dharma kī, Jai. Today is one of the best days. Every day is a good day, but today is a better day. We are all here, working—all our students and bhaktas in Jordan and in other countries, many countries. All bhaktas are looking forward to these lectures from our yoga students or bhaktas. The language is more or less English for the whole world, but of course there are many countries with their own languages, so we cannot give in all. But now people are more or less learning and adopting English. Of course, the best language among many is the German language, then the British language. So, German language first and more, but I don't want to say anything against others; they are all good. Every country has its own good qualities and good language, and they teach their children accordingly. There are many yogas now around the whole world, and many, many yogīs. When there are yogīs, they are very spiritual, and they don't all know the same language and words; they have to do what they will do. So this is not the only one. There are many, many techniques, many, many things, and many good gurus, very great gurus, with many students or disciples. For us, that is called Yoga in Daily Life, in India and around the whole world. I wish, and I give my deep respect to all other gurus and their disciples. I am very happy that we have different kinds of ashram names; that is how it has to be. We cannot speak all languages, but somehow we come together. So thank you very much. Today our Yogī, what is his name? Swami Premanandajī. Prema. What is prema? Prema means happiness, joy, peace, everything. Prema means we are one. We are very good together. So, prema. Premananda. Or Nanda. O Nanda, Bhagavān Śrī Mahāprabhujī gave him this name. Mahāprabhujī has given him a very beautiful name. Our Swami has done very much work for many, many years with me. He and Holy Gurujī liked him very much. I was in other countries, but he was with Holy Gurujī. I was driving Holy Gurujī's cars, and he has done very good work. He is also a very hard-working person. He will know, yes. He is our Gurubhāī, our brother. Today I said he should give a lecture in one language, but he should give it in two languages—a little bit in his language, so English and some in German, but mostly like this. So, Premanandajī, please, thank you very much. Pranam, Vishwaguruji. My adoration to our Guru Paramparā, Sayalak Puchi Siddharpit, our Guruji lineage. As Guruji made an introduction, I think it is very significant for everybody that the name we have been given, either by birth or by our Guruji, always has a meaning. It has a sense, it has a value, and I think it's important for everybody to understand that meaning and to see what it translates to in our life. It's not only the name that we get, but the underlying value. We know that every country has a different language, deeply rooted in the history and soil of that country. Humans are the sprouts of that soil. Every language has different significance. Like German: when you understand German, when you know the meaning, you can understand why Germany produced so many philosophers who tremendously influenced the thinking of humanity and different philosophical schools. Whereas English also had many philosophers, but it had a different impact on the world. In India, when we greet each other, we say "Hari Om." Hari means God. Om means the original vibration of this universe. In German, when we see each other, we say "Grüß Gott"—it means "I greet God in you." So wherever you go, you will find different ways of greeting, different languages, different ways of communication. In some languages, they are very transparent and incredibly colorful. For one emotion, you may have ten different names because of the subtle feelings underlying it that give birth to that discrimination. Yesterday, we had a very nice satsaṅg with Umar Burī. I remember one thing she said. She said, "Everybody wants to have, have..." It came into my mind: yes, it's exactly that. When we want to have, it is heaven for us because we think heaven is what we have, what makes us happy. Yesterday, I was always thinking: look, what is actually the most important thing for us to have, or what we are blessed with? I was looking around. Is there anything here that is really so important? I was thinking this and that, and then something came to my mind. Yes, there is something most important for all of us—maybe the most important possession, the most valuable object we have. And that's our body. Now, just imagine sitting in this room, looking around. You see all the objects here. Is there anything you see that we did not do or has not been created to serve our body? Is there anything you find here? We can say, "Yes, the body is important because we have it, and we are this without the body." But it has a very significant impact on us because it's not only that we have a body, but that we so much identify with it. "I have a body," "I have a hand." We don't say, "I am the body." We have it. It's a kind of possession. So then comes up: What is that 'I' actually? What am I? Who possesses? Who is that "I"? My dress is for my body. This pen is somehow useful for my body because I have to write something. Without a body, I cannot do so. The pen has been created. The fan cools down. The light is to see better. The bed is to be comfortable. The mic is so you can hear me. The significance of that body is that we are actually very much attached to it—attached in so many ways, in good ways and not good ways, in a helpful way or in a less helpful way. We are attached. It creates attachment. Attachment, per se, is not a bad thing. Attachment becomes a little bit of a burden when we suffer through it. This has been dealt with in many books, scriptures, philosophical ways, and different religions. But if you look at the body, you will realize it's a very fragile object. It's an instrument, and it is that instrument which has been used from the beginning through yoga to achieve something much more, which is inside the body. What is behind the body, what is governing the body, what is controlling the body—the body itself is only an instrument. We have this nice picture from the Bhagavad Gītā about the five horses and the wagon, where the driver sits on it, and the passenger sits in the back. This is a kind of synonym for our body. What's going on there? Our body is governed by our senses. You know all these five senses: karma indriyas and jñāna indriyas. But these indriyas act as instruments, either outside or inside, so that we can acknowledge the outside, acknowledge objects, and do something in this world to create something. Senses of action and senses of knowledge. Now I have to switch over to German because it becomes very complicated now, and Germans love very complicated sentences and language. And these ten senses, the five Kāma Indriyas and five Jñāna Indriyas—this philosophy is already very old and is actually nothing new in psychology; it has existed for one or two hundred years. But if we look back on history, and specifically on the history within India, dann können wir sehen, dass dieses Topic bereits seit tausenden Jahren von großen Sehern, von Heiligen behandelt wurde und in verschiedenen Schriften analysiert und auch als Lehrbuch herausgegeben wurde. And the most important of them, what is also for us very important, is Patañjali. Patañjali Yoga. Patañjali Yoga Sūtras. There, we already can see what he was doing, how he was acting, and how he was dealing with this topic. And it is still valid. Maybe he was one of the first and greatest psychologists in this world, besides Freud, of course. And Freud is also Austrian, of course, and he spoke German. And there was Adler, and there was Jung—so all are Germans, Austrians, Swiss, and they all speak German. So how come? We are there together now. We know that Patañjali, in his Yoga Sūtras, proclaimed one way of yoga that is called Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, the eight-folded way. You know all about that because most of you are yoga teachers and are acquainted with the topics. You have this yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, meditation, samādhi, dhāraṇā, and so on. There are different aspects of all these eight-folded aspects. What was important for Patañjali was that he wanted to show us a way to deal with all these aspects of life that are connected to our body, to our senses, and how we can make the best out of it. We get to know what is behind our body and how we best deal with it. I mentioned before that symbolic picture of the five horses—but equally, the five senses—the reins to the driver (what is the mind), the driver itself (what is the intellect), the wagon (what is our body), and inside, who is sitting, the passenger (it is the ātmā, the soul, or however you want to name it). The most important part of the whole picture is actually the driver. It's not because I'm also a driver; some of you are also drivers. But all of you who drive cars or whatever know that it needs something to learn first, something to invest energy, and something to be alert, to be aware. The more we drive, the more we practice, the more it becomes habitual and the more skills we get. So basically, who is sitting there on the wagon, on the carriage? He is the driver, and he symbolically stands for the intellect—the intellect who is the messenger between the body, our senses, and our inner senses. We know that humans are not alone in this world. There are many other entities and a lot of different types of animals. Humans are part of this creation, this development, this evolution—so are animals. But basically, what distinguishes us from them is not that we have a body and they don't; they equally have a body and senses. It is that great light of intellect. And with this intellect, we can work with this world, within this world, to the outside and to the inside. In German, we say Intellekt, we don't say intelligence, we say intellect. With the intellect, we humans have an instrument at our disposal with which we deal with this world and with which we solve problems. Hauptsache, wir lösen Probleme. Das ganze Leben ist ein Problemlösen. Und wenn wir etwas gelöst haben, dann kommt ein neues dazu. Also, es ist ein nie aufhörender Fluss. Und der Intellekt alleine ist nicht so nützlich für gewisse Arbeiten, ja, für Science, für die Wissenschaft, um tägliche Dinge zu tun, sehr gut. Wenn wir aber anfangen, uns für unser inneres Leben, für unser spirituelles Leben zu interessieren, wenn wir anfangen, unseren Ruf der Seele zu hören, dann hat der Intellekt ein weiteres Geschenk für uns. Und das ist Diskriminierung. In English we say discrimination. In Sanskrit we have the word viveka. Viveka helps us to distinguish that which comes to us, to sort it out, and to see what is proper and not proper in relation to our inner development, to our inner call, to our relation to our soul, to our inner world consciousness, and so on. Therefore, the driver sits there. He must think, he must act, he must react in a proper way. But he also has to react in a more deeper way. He must have intuition; he must have understanding. Like when I am driving in India, if I would be only from the intellectual part, I would say, "My God, here in India everybody is driving on the wrong side. How is that possible?" But I have to understand what the rules are. And if there are no rules, or if there are rules, what are the rules? And sometimes rules don't apply. There are different types of rules. In India, you drive not so much with the eyes, but you drive very much with your ears and the mentality. You have to understand. So it's not only to have a proper intellectual understanding, but a deeper understanding of what intellect means. Now, let's come back to our body, because it's quite important, I think. It's so important that we do everything to please it. We know today it's very hot; we need a fan to please our body, AC to please our body, water to please our body, and so on and so on. So basically, we are very much attached to our body. This attachment is not negative. Some attachment is very good because it helps us to live a happy life, a comfortable life. But as soon as we get attached too much, then it brings us trouble. Let's say cloth. You know, we say in German, "Kleider machen Leute"—it means people make cloth and cloth creates people. Now we feel much more concerned with our dress and how we are, and how people perceive us when we are dressed nice. It's good. But maybe we get in troubles because we can get stuck easily there. Attachment is something that has to be learned to deal with. It always comes to my mind when I talk about attachment. It's like, you know, as a child, I liked to have chewing gum very much because it's sweet. You chew, you chew... okay, it's done. Now, what to do with that? You chew more, then it starts to dissolve. It's also not good. So, normally, what? I don't even know the rule in school specifically, so you put it out and stick it somewhere down. You know, already 20 more are there from the last 10 classes. But there is something very specific about the chewing gum. I don't know how it is nowadays, but at that time, when I was a small boy, I was taking it and then I wanted to stick it, but it's not so easy because it sticks also to my finger. So you try to move it, but it goes with, and then you try with the other finger, so it goes with, and so on, until you get rid of it. Half of it is on your fingers or somewhere else. So that is similar with our attachments. We try sometimes to get rid of it, but it's not so easy because they are always stuck somewhere; some residues are always there. And as you know, there is one country in the world where this specific type of attachment is very rigorously dealt with, and it is in Singapore. So if you mentally [mess] around with chewing gum, you will be in big trouble. So basically, this type of attachment is dealt with from the beginning by people knowing, "Look, when you do that, you will be in trouble. You will get punished." So, what it takes for us to understand is that when we have attachment, we don't need to go through this process of attachment, but we know already beforehand what will be the outcome. These people who know about these things are very rare. It needs maybe many lifetimes and many interesting experiences. But we say there are two persons who know that. There are two people who know that, and that is the wise one. The wise one is either a saint or a person with wisdom. The person with wisdom is very often our grandparents, who have life experience. They can tell you about things. We call a wise person a person who doesn't need to make the experience anymore because he knows already the outcome. Our grandparents had so many experiences in their life, and when you come to them and talk with them, they will give you a straight answer, and we should listen to them because they know. But you know how it is. We listen, and still we do it opposite, because we have to make our experience. Without experience, we cannot progress, except we are already wise. And another wise person, the saint, will also tell you, "Look, don't go into that. Don't do that. Be careful of that," and so on, because he knows already the outcome. So we are attached to our body and the rest. We attach to our body, our comfort, and once we have our comfort, we don't know how to step down. Our nature is to keep our comfort. The easiest way to realize it is with money. Money is actually there for our food and for our comfort. When we establish food and comfort, then we can come to the next step. If food and comfort are realized, then comes health and relationship. When health and relationship are positively established, then we start to work on ourselves: fearlessness, selflessness, and so on. In the deutschen Sprache, because I have to talk something in English and German, because most of you understand German, and it doesn't make so much trouble for you, and it's good for me also, because when I take nonsense, you won't understand it. In the German language, we have a lot of words that come from the intellect. When we use these words, we address very specific situations, very specific terms, ideas. These ideas then come to us and have a very certain quality. When I say, "I will now say 'intellect,'" then each of you has a certain concept of what you understand by intellect. Wenn ich aber jetzt ein Sanskrit-Wort nehme und sage Viveka, dann hat es keinen Sinn für euch, weil niemand den Begriff versteht. Wenn ich sage Diskriminierung, Unterscheidungskraft, dann... Aber Unterscheidungskraft alleine im Deutschen hat nicht die Qualität, as he has in Sanskrit with Viveka. Because the actual word Viveka has a completely different dimension, a much larger dimension than just the word Unterscheidungskraft. So we come back to our driver on the chariot. He's sitting there. He's holding the reins in his hands. The reins coming as a symbol of the mind. So the driver, the intellect, is controlling the mind. The mind is a kind of connection between the senses and the intellect, and the driver is responsible so that the passenger in the body reaches his destiny safely. This can only be when the driver is responsible and intelligent. He's experienced; he has a lot of experience driving. He must also know how to control the senses, how to control the horses. He must know when the horses have to rest and when they can move on. This is very, very important. It's not only that you have a driver there, and he has an alcohol bottle in his left hand and something in his right hand, and he's going on, letting the horses go just to reach the aim as soon as possible. That will always result in a certain type of accident. So what is important is that we have this driver in good condition, we have the chariot in good condition—that body, which is so important to us. Through whatever it is—through good food, healthy food, exercises, proper clothes, taking care of it—and what is most important, of course, is the passenger inside. Most of us still don't know, but we know only there is a passenger. We know somebody is sitting inside, and he has to be brought from one place to another place safely. We have to take care of this. We have to establish a relation, a communication with him. This is the most important part. This we call ātmā, this we call self, this we call soul. It does not matter what name we are giving. I remember that our dear Swami Niranjanānandajī, Mama Leśvara, gave very nice satsaṅgs. He gave beautiful satsaṅgs, very strong and with a deep voice, and it was very powerful. I can't remember much actually, but one thing I definitely remember. He said, "Nothing is really important in life. Only one thing: look for the Self. Search for the self. Discover the self. Nothing else basically matters." And this self is sitting in our body. So, with this short sharing of my understanding—how important the body is, or how non-important, or how much attached we are to it, or not attached—thank you for listening, and I wish you a good evening. I hope you keep your body healthy with the practice of yoga and daily life, and by the blessings of Gurū Dev, we will know who sits in the chariot. Thank you very much. You have given immense knowledge to all of you, and especially in both languages, English and German. It's a very good voice. Thank you, and this we will keep, and it will come further. It has gone to the whole world. He was speaking, and in many, many countries they are listening. Thank you, thank you, everybody. Oṁ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ.