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Part 1: A Holy Place and the Blessings of a Living Teacher This is a beautiful place, and especially because God is present here. Everything we need is available, and it has been shaped into a sacred place that remains so all the time. When we come here, the water flows only to this side; on the other side, everything is different. The water does not flow there, nor does it enter that area. In this way, the place offers every kind of help for us. That is why we can go outside and see the flowers and all of nature. Perhaps you already knew this, or you knew that everything here exists solely for us—that this is one of the best places. Truly, there are only two such places. One is right here, and the other is at a hard, far distance. In the whole world, there are only these two—this one and that other one. I have been here for many years, and everything was very clean and very nice. We could go anywhere, sleep anywhere—someone sleeps there, someone here—there was no disturbance. The water would come from there, flow here, and then go down. It was very clean. But after some time, something was done deep inside, and now it is not good. Still, we will clean it very nicely again, I tell you. And from here, people from so many countries come and sit—this is that holy place. Whatever it is, being here, you will feel that we receive a great deal of energy. And all our friends, all of us—how they always speak and do many things—we are very happy that you are here. You know, our holy Gurudev, my Gurujī and Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar, visited this place twice. Here was her spot, where she used to sit. Right here in the middle stood a very big tree. Gurujī would sit here very nicely, and in that place there was only that single, very special tree. Then something happened, and it broke like this. After that, we said we wanted to have two or three trees here, but they did not want many trees. Only one will be planted. And we will again bring a holy tree from here—a sacred tree. All of us will gather at this spot, as we always do. You know that we used to walk around it, round and round. Many years ago this was broken; otherwise, people would still be going round it even now. In the morning, they come here and circumambulate this place. Of course, everything is ours—we belong to it, it belongs to us—but it exists with the government’s help. When the government says nothing, not taking anything else, only for this one tree, many are involved. We have so many people, and they sleep here and there—sleeping on that side, on this side, on all sides. They do not want to look back to any other place, not to a hospital or any other kind of situation. Spirituality resides here. And do you know where you have come from? From which places? From faraway lands. For instance, from Australia. How far is it from Australia to here? And yet it has reached Australia, America, everywhere. How did it spread so far? It is because of this earth, because of what is here. Our Mahāprabhujī was here. You have a picture from our… and we can show you our holy Gurujī’s. So all of us are just as we are—not possessing many good things, yet we are always very happy. You will stay here. If someone has problems or something, things will work out. Many people come to me and say, “Swāmījī, I cannot go there like this.” And I say, no, no, it will happen. I simply think of the Mahāprabhujīs in our area. When people come here, they tell not only me—I am filled with motion, emotion—they say how deeply it touches them when they arrive. So we will do something, okay? And we can do something here. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Devpurī Samādheva Kī Jai, Mahāprabhujī Kī Jai, Satya Sanātana Dharma Kī Jai. And look, in this āśrama where I have come, I have been with you many times—many times. Here in India, in Rajasthan, you came and built my mandir, right? Yes, you built a very big mandir, a very wonderful one. Mr. Amarji thinks it is a great mandir. His Gurujī has a big mandir there, and Svāmījī was also present, and they are like brothers. Very good. Amarjit and his master have a large temple in India, and Swāmījī was invited there as a brother. It has been two or three days since you’ve been here. We share much love—it is very good. We are all your brothers, and you are our brothers. Swamiji said that Mr. Amarji sees him like a brother, and indeed we are all his brothers and sisters; we are one family. He is at home here. Yes, it has been a long time. I am really happy that I could find Swamiji in my teenage years. It is truly a great blessing to find a Guru while you are still young. It is never too late, but it is best when you are not yet completely formed. The reason I began searching was this: one day I woke up after a good time with my friends and realized that, yes, this is all enjoyable, but at the end there is the inevitable—we die. Everything ends. Being brought up, as many of us are in Eastern countries, in a family that is quite materialistic, that seemed to be the end of it. So I wanted to understand: is there something beyond? Is there something that truly transcends the inevitable? I began to search for it. Actually, I made a bet with myself that I would dedicate my life to this, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense. I went into a library and started reading, looking for someone who might already know. After some searching, I realized I needed a teacher—someone who had walked that path and could show me the way. Because if the goal is reachable, someone must have reached it already. I was looking for a credible person: not for words, not for paper, Bibles, or scriptures, but for someone real. Not just one who speaks about it, not just one who holds a certificate or writes about it, but one who has truly gone through it, who has realized it. And Swāmījī was here for us, for everyone. Why is such a teacher necessary? Because it is not enough simply to read about realization in a book or study it through yoga and Āyurveda. One has to digest it. There is an interesting mantra in the scriptures that I really like, because the yogic scriptures are sometimes quite direct and even funny. They are not only about flowers; they can be very blunt. One beautiful Sanskrit śloka, just a line, says: Aśvattho mahān vṛkṣaḥ kākaviṣṭasamudbhavaḥ. This means that the banyan tree, that enormous tree, actually originates from a tiny seed even smaller than a mustard seed, and it can survive anywhere—on the highest rock where nothing else grows. But if you simply put that seed in the earth, it will not sprout. The śloka explains that it grows through the crows, the birds: they eat the seed, digest it, and then drop it. A humorous statement, but what it means is that the seed must be digested before it can become that great tree. Similarly, we need someone who has walked the path, who has understood and digested it, and can give that to us so the tree can grow. That is how I came to Swamiji, and there was a funny part to it, too. My mother had pointed me to Yoga in Daily Life—at that time, it was the only yoga available in Hungary. There was nothing else; you could literally open the phone book and look up “yoga,” and there it was. I had already formed an idea of what my guru should look like and what he should know. So, poor Jagadīś Purī, who was the teacher in that center—after my first Sarvahitā Āsanas, I asked him, “Do you have a guru?” “Yes.” “Would he be able to take me beyond bodily understanding?” “Yes.” “But could he really show this to me?” “No.” I must have looked completely crazy. But then, just three weeks later, we were at a yoga camp. Nobody had told us Swamiji would come, because at that time it was risky—the communists at the border could refuse entry, and they often denied visas. In 1989, suddenly it worked. We were standing there talking with some yoga friends, and a car stopped just half a meter from where I stood. People jumped out, opened the door, Swamiji stepped out, and he looked into my eyes. In that moment, I knew I had found what I was searching for. His simple glance went so deep into me—deeper than I had ever dared to look into myself. Some of you who are here were also present at that time, like Ekta. We lived in tents—large tents—and even the satsaṅg was held in a large tent. It was raining heavily, torrentially. We had no way to go to our tents. Someone must have told Swamiji, because many people went to him saying, “How can we get to our tents?” I did not see it myself, but then Swamiji took the drum and said, “Okay, we’ll stop the rain now.” He started singing a mantra: Oṁ Śrī Dīp Purījī Śaṅkara, Mahādeva Śivāya. He began singing this, and suddenly you could hear the rain stop. And then Swamiji said, “Now you have five minutes to get to your tents.” I remember running to the tents, zipping the door, and then the rain started again and continued the whole night. That, and all my other stupid questions, were answered that week. Swamiji introduced a practice—some of you who were there might remember—where 160 to 200 people were crying on the field, some recalling their prior lives. It was very intense; I don’t need to elaborate. But all my ancestors, I connected with. Since then, this journey has been even crazier than I was. So I really thank you, Swamiji, for every minute you give us. It is simply incredible. Thank you. And yes, I could tell more stories. I have been blessed. Swamiji visited me when we lived in Dubai with the family. I do not know why I was allowed to serve him in that way. We had been in Nepal before, and everyone came together under quite severe circumstances, and it was so beautiful. Part 2: The Power of Grace: Yoga’s Role in Healing and Athletic Success Yoga philosophy is very straightforward: either this or nothing. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Mahāprabhujī expressed it in a bhajan: “You’ve forgotten yourself—what a calamity.” He gives many examples: a child looking in a mirror believes he sees another child; a lion gazes into a well, sees his own reflection, and, mistaking it for another lion, perishes in confusion. With the help of our Guru Dev, find out what your true form is. Then you will understand what this world is, who you are, and where God dwells. Between the water in a pot and the ocean, there is no difference. Swami Deep says that, in the same way, the Guru is one with Brahman. Many of our great disciples are present with us in many countries and engaged in many endeavors. One of them, who has helped many people become sports champions, will now share his experiences. He will tell us beautifully about everyone and everything—not just a little. So let us hear. The disciple then speaks: Praṇām Swāmījī. Thank you for the opportunity. It is my privilege to speak about the success that has come through a special field of life: sports and athletics. I am deeply grateful to be a part of this. But first, a short introduction. I met Swāmījī thirty years ago. I was looking for a leader, a good trainer who could guide me. He came to Debrecen around this time of year, together with Kulījī Kothārī. We held a lecture at the university and then had satsaṅg. Within a few months, I became a disciple and received mantra dīkṣā. Gradually, my whole family got involved. It spread quite a lot, because in Debrecen we established an āśram that belongs to the Yoga in Daily Life society. And it grew internationally: this year my sister had the opportunity to host Swāmījī in Sweden for the inauguration of the first Yoga in Daily Life āśram there. Before I speak about the successes with athletes, there is an important personal story. In 2010, I had a very serious problem: a cyst was discovered in my brain, and I had to undergo an urgent operation. I believe it could—should—have been the end of my life. Already six months before, I felt my energies gradually draining away. I wasn’t aware of the cyst at the time, but I felt tense every day, under stress without any reason. Then suddenly, one evening I was in the hospital, and the very next morning I was operated on. I can tell you: without Gurū Dev’s blessing, I would not be here now. For two years prior, he had given me so much karma yoga that I was overloaded—I could hardly bear it. I kept pushing, going on and on. That overload may have been the real cause of what happened, but it was also through that karma yoga that I received the blessing to survive. I took pills, vitamins, this and that, but they were no real help. Finally, I realized it was my turn to do something by myself, not rely on outer support; I needed to act, even though my energies were depleted. I got the idea from Vivek Purījī Mahārāj. During his own difficult period, he practiced core prāṇāyāma and heart prāṇāyāma every day, and he said it was tremendously uplifting, rebuilding his energies. So I began to practice Prāṇāyāma: Nāḍī Śodhana, first at level three and then slowly moving up to level four. It became my top priority because I felt it was exactly what I needed. Within two weeks, I felt that I was starting to come out of the depletion. I continued for three years, one hour daily, and had many profound experiences with our prāṇāyāma practice. In one of those years, I met a girl—the first athlete I worked with. She was a professional swimmer (she has since stopped). We worked together for a full year in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics. Alongside her pool and gym training, we incorporated nice stretching from the Yoga in Daily Life āsanas, deep relaxation, special breath exercises, and sometimes some yogic wisdom about life and how things work. She trained heavily, thoroughly, and regularly—as one must for the Olympic Games. And she won the Olympic gold medal. That sounds wonderful and it is, but before that success she had only achieved second and third places in her career. At one point, in a kind of meditation, I asked Mahāprabhujī, “Please, she is this silver girl. I know she has some blocks in her destiny, in her face. Please, just remove them for this occasion.” I don’t believe she could have managed it without that—without this, she would not have won. The following year I had the chance to work with a special tennis athlete. He was a deaf player—he could not hear. His trainer came to me because we still hadn’t found a way to help him give his best. I taught him āsanas, prāṇāyāma, relaxation—everything. But at a certain point I realized that his main path was prāṇāyāma. We found a special prāṇāyāma exercise for him, and with it he could direct his concentration and significantly boost his energy system. During matches, minute by minute, he could gain an edge over his opponent. That year he won the gold medal in the Deaflympics, without losing a single set. In the next Deaflympics, he fell ill and couldn’t manage his competition properly, but at the latest Games—when he was already quite old for the sport, thirty-seven—he managed to win the silver medal, with help from my mother in his preparation. After the competition, he told me that in every match he used that same prāṇāyāma we had designed eight years earlier. I’m a little bit annoyed with the Czechs, because the gold was won by a young, strong Czech player. Two years ago I had the good fortune to work with another athlete, a young canoeist (now twenty-three). He won the gold medal in the canoe pair marathon at the European Championship—a long-distance event, and a continental title that carries great weight. This year he changed his distance from the marathon to 2000 meters, which is quite a shift because your muscles are conditioned differently. Despite that, he collected the bronze medal at the World Championships. And there was one more, though not an Olympic sport: a lady who competed in the first Hungarian hexathlon—a TV show. We did a little preparation with her beforehand: breathing exercises, relaxation, mental focus, and concentration. It wasn’t straightforward for her, but she managed to win the competition. I look at all these successes and feel that my own experiences with yoga and meditation are quite limited. Yet I am certain that without Swāmījī’s blessing and Mahāprabhujī’s invisible support from behind, none of this would have happened. I never consulted Swāmījī about which exercises to give to this or that athlete, but somehow I always felt that support. We are a big yoga family, gathered here in the place where Holy Gurujī once was and where Swāmījī is now—and we hope Swāmījī will be here for many years. For us, it is crystal clear: here we find something truly unbelievable, something beyond expression. As Nirañjan Purī said, it rains, we stop the rain—everything is possible. For us, this is evident and confirmed by experience. But for the world, presenting gold medals and sports successes through yoga is really necessary—it shows what yoga can do. If I may say something beyond sports: today at lunch I spoke with Madhujī from Zagreb, who now lives in Sydney. She shared amazing, almost unbelievable experiences with people suffering from chronic diseases—how yoga practice helps them. Sometimes the physical body remains painful and doesn’t function properly, yet inside these people are quite okay. Chronic disease isn’t like breaking an arm, which heals in four to six weeks; it means years of suffering that eats up your energy and your mental state. But through yoga, you find an inner composure. I believe the world truly needs yoga in its life.