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Use your common sense!

Discern the true Guru's word from personal or misinterpreted statements. A teaching given to one individual in a specific context is not a universal command for all. Many use the phrase "Guru Vākya" to enforce personal wishes or to blackmail others, which is a misuse. Common sense and vivekā, or discernment, are essential. Seek knowledge from authentic sources and think critically, as false information is easily propagated. Personal guidance from the guru is for the recipient alone and not for public decree. Authentic practice purifies the atmosphere and mind, but one must understand the reason behind an instruction, such as avoiding chemical-laden incense. The ego resists the guru's proximity, yet surrender allows the divine to flow through the individual.

"To whom did Sai Baba say this, and in which context?"

"God has given every soul a very particular way to give to this world. When you find out what it is, you will be very happy."

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

There was a very good question, a little long, but I think the answer is very short. Today, something not just similar, but the very same topic came to me. The question was about Guru Vākya. Which Guru Vākya? There are so many Guru Vākyas. Especially if you are a young disciple or of a young age, you might have a problem with all these Guru Vākyas we hear from Viśwa Gurujī. In short, that was the question. I read from one man who was the main organizer and president of a Sai Baba organization. At one point, he was completely frustrated with people constantly saying, "Guruvākya, Bābā said, Bābā said." Once, I got a book—it was about Sai Baba—from a friend's page. I read it and felt something was wrong inside because on one page it said one thing, on another something completely different, and on a third page a third variation. It was not consistent. Somehow, feeling a duty to read it since I had received it, I finished it. In the end, I realized that nothing in it was what Sāī Bābā really said. A person had received it from meditation, came to Sāī Bābā, and asked, "Is this book okay?" Sāī Bābā said... and that man insisted. "Do you have similar things in this?" Not with a printed book, but... Swāmījī told me this. That man, the president, finally said, "Yes, okay. But to whom did Sai Baba say this, and in which context?" That is very important. If you are passing near the car of Viśwa Gurujī and somebody asks a question, and you hear the answer, that answer is for that person. For that person, it is Guru Vākya. For you, maybe it is not. And, of course, when you get something directly from your Gurudev, it is for you. And you will not tell everybody, "Yes, yes, Swāmījī told this, and we must all do this." You know the story about agarbattīs? Now, somehow, agarbattī is prohibited in yoga and daily life. Why? Why is it prohibited? You must use your common sense. What did Swāmījī say about this? Modern agarbattī mostly contains a lot of chemicals, a lot of artificial smell. Real agarbattī is expensive. Because of that, in ancient times, when Swāmījī was young and started with Gurujī, Gurujī was cutting the agarbattī into three pieces because the real one was expensive. If you try to buy real agarbattī without chemicals inside, pure, it is expensive—approximately one box, I don't know how much. At one point, before realizing this, I saw that I really liked agarbattī from my young age. Then I realized I don't use it anymore. You know, when you pass through the airport duty-free shop, that smell—everything is the same. Or when you pass near a Lush shop, everywhere in the world Lush has the same smell, a little too much. I joke that modern agarbattī is like an old lady's perfume. I don't use it. I tried to find some good ones; they are expensive but really good. I also cut them into three. We use bad quality here; it's even worse than when we go into a coffee shop—though now there's no smoking in coffee shops—but like in some club with a lot of smoke. The smoke goes directly into Swāmījī's eyes and nose. Of course, he said, "No agarbattī." But why do you use agarbattī? Because agarbattī changes the atmosphere. Why does it change the atmosphere? Because all of us have our own chemistry. If you have time and are curious, I think National Geographic made a very good documentary about the senses. Try to see the one about smell. You will feel, you will see that every emotion, every state of your mind has a different chemistry. That chemistry goes into your sweating. What does that mean? You may see an aura, but you may also smell an aura. Thank God we don't smell auras. Poor dogs and other animals. But if you have some problem with your mūlādhāra cakra, if it is too active, you smell the aura, and that is a disaster. That smell does not exist for others, but for you it remains in your nose for days, mostly bad. Because of that, you will read in books and hear from Swāmījī that the place where the Kāṭhū Āśram is has a special smell. Because the Abba Maṇḍal of Mahāprabhujī in the ashram is going around, and you feel it—you feel it as a smell, a nice smell. Mahāprabhujī kisugárzását ott érezni lehet szag, illat formájában is. That agarbattī purifies your thoughts. A short experiment: they took the sweat of students before an exam, purified it from the smell but kept the chemistry. They took a few people, like guinea pigs, put that chemistry—that essence of sweat—directly in their noses, showed them the most relaxing picture on a screen, and measured what happened in the body. Everybody was stressed. Because of that, we say, "A dog smells your fear." Agarbattī purifies the atmosphere and also purifies your thoughts. Also, using a candle—the worst thing you can do for your health—is using a modern scented candle. Inside is paraffin, similar to what? Take that: your car is running, and you smell it. In Kali Yuga, there is only one god, and that is money, gold. They put the worst perfume inside and sell a nice atmospheric candle with a smell that is killing you. Because of that, if you use such a candle, a wax and artificial one... there is a really pure smell inside, or the best is nothing. If you know this, you know how to recognize what is Guruvākya and what is something said in a moment without this context. All this explanation is good for understanding what not to do. Also, if your guru says something to you, it is for you. But usually, I know, and everybody knows, disciples use the words "Guru Vākya" like a sword. For everything they want, they say, "Guru Vākya, Guru Vākya." That is the final proof of what they will tell you. That is blackmailing. If you say no, "Oh my God, you are not a good disciple." Because of that, you must again use common sense. Also, be aware of who is telling you the Guru Vākya. That is very important. Of course, you need to have a lot of knowledge. I must say that somehow people nowadays lose this knowledge. When you go to this little machine [phone/computer], this little machine is very dangerous. I like it because it makes life easier. But nowadays, especially in the last few months, years, these shorts, reels, videos—they are so dangerous. Because of artificial intelligence, which can completely copy a person's voice, you can make it say Elon Musk said something in Serbian, whatever you want. Nicely move everything. If that is possible, which news is real and which is fake? If we don't have knowledge and are naive, we are just bitten. "Oh yes, I see. Some alien race is in the middle of the earth. Yes, Elon Musk said this. What?" That is the illness. We just say, "Yes, yes... I see this and I share it." That is fake news. But it was always fake news. Always. "I saw witches flying. I saw a werewolf." Of course, yes. You ate a lot of this, not barley, I think, yes. And inside was a fungi which makes chemistry like LSD. In the Middle Ages, medieval times, everybody was on a psychedelic. Use your common sense. For common sense, what we say in yoga is vivekā. Try to learn, really try to learn, but from a real source. Try to think, and try to be a renaissance man or woman. Yes, that we need. If we do not become renaissance men and women now, in a few years we will just jump back into medieval times. Because of that, do not be critical, do not disbelieve, but okay, think about what you hear about Guru Vākya. It was as if there was some question to Swāmījī, and that one particular person asked it. Maybe for that person, that was the answer, not for others. But not this Guru Vākya. "I’m not happy with this, and I will not use it." But be critical, use common sense, and you will see that mostly people use Guru Vākya only of the kind that goes along with their wishes, what they want. We say in the Croatian language, "Što se...", what grandma wanted, that grandma will dream about. Somehow, miraculously, people always hear Guru Vākya that matches their wish. And if it’s not my wish, if it’s good for my ego, I will talk about it. "I must go to India, okay? I will not, but I must." Look, use common sense. Of course, what was also in that question is not connected with meat, eggs, fish, drugs, alcohol, etc. That is completely normal, without any question mark. Mostly, people sometimes have a problem with, "Yes, but Swāmījī said this. But are you sure?" To whom was this said? And in which context? When you understand this, you will not have a problem with your Gurudev. You always have a problem with the Gurudev. They say if you are too long near the fire, near the rājā, mahārājā, and near the guru, you will have a little problem. If you are too near the fire, you will burn yourself. If you are too near and too long near the king, from history you know you might lose your head. And near the guru, also, your ego will not be happy, and it will be a hard time. It’s completely normal that we have little problems. There is nothing wrong with you. It is a problem with one little, little, little part of us—that is the part of the ego, the part of the fear of losing myself. What we heard yesterday from Mother Ammājī about the flute, the bamboo: only when you are completely clean from inside can the divine play through you. Because of that, bamboo has such quality. Bad quality is making fire when it’s quarreling. But on the other hand, it’s such a nice picture, Kṛṣṇa with the flute. We need to be that flute so the divine can make nice music. Because of that, we always say, "Om Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ..." Śrī Dīpnā Bhagavān Kī Jai OM ŚĀNTI ŚĀNTI ŚĀNTI. For a moment, remain sitting. Close your eyes, try to sit straight, and bring your awareness to the Maṇipūra Cakra. Relax the abdominal muscles and feel the gentle movement of the breath around the navel center. We will chant the mantra RĀM whilst dwelling in the maṇipūra cakra as a continuous chant. When you run out of breath, just breathe in and carry on, so that the unbroken sound of the mantra will keep going. If you run out of breath, take a breath again and continue. In this way, the mantra will be unbroken. Rām, Rām. Remain in the Maṇipūra, in your navel center. We will chant OM, and from the Maṇipūra, the sound will rise up to the top of the head. Deep inhalation. OM. Now bring attention to the Anāhata Cakra, your heart center. We will chant OM ŚĀNTI, but just this OM ŚĀNTI, not ŚĀNTI, ŚĀNTI... HE. You may place one hand on the heart, or both. Just feel the resonance of this peace mantra while chanting. OM Śānti, OM Śānti, OM Śānti, OM Śānti, OM Śānti. Nāma karta pramūli karta tāṁti śāṁti. Put your palms together, rub your palms, and gently massage your face. So, Ariyom, good morning. That was just a little Nāda yoga therapy. I met someone outside briefly just before this satsaṅg, and she said, "You are the best therapist." We all are therapists, really. It is good to be aware that we have all the tools we need for our self-therapy. Maybe you can’t blow into the bamboo, but these mantras, the chants that we have, are something everyone can do. It’s good to be aware and independent in this field, because it is not really the flute or something external; it always comes from within us. It reminded me: once I heard someone—I think it was in a video of Viśva Gurujī’s lecture—a lady in Slovenia asked, "I feel stuck; something energetically inside me is not right. What should I do?" Swāmījī was quiet for a bit, and then he said, "Learn to give." The whole satsaṅg was about giving. Sometimes we may ask, "Well, what can I give?" Swāmījī, at the end, said one beautiful sentence I remember till today: "God has given every soul a very particular way to give to this world. When you find out what it is, you will be very happy." So, on one level we are all one, of course, in the deepest level of the Ātmā. But besides that, we have our personal dharma. When we find out what it is and surrender to it, then it feels good; it opens our blocks. It’s always good for everybody, not just for me. It does not need to be something big; you may already be doing it. But the way it is done perhaps matters more. It is said that man sees the action, but God sees the intention. We know this from Viśva Gurujī; perhaps everyone has a personal experience of how he can see our intentions. We can’t fool him. On the other side, an action may look a bit strange, but if the intention is pure, he appreciates that. Anyhow, I find these chants, these mantras, this loud kind of chanting, very nice, calming, and clearing practices. Today, besides this, I was thinking in the morning about one rāga I can play for you. Yesterday we had an introduction to the shakuhachi flute, to Japanese music. The other bamboo flute I know and play is the Bānsurī, the Indian bamboo flute. The music played on this instrument is Indian classical music. There are what are called rāgas in Indian classical music. Rāga means a few things; we know rāga and dveṣa. But in this context, it means the mood. It was discovered—I don’t know by whom—that the mood in nature changes, as if the planetary mind changes its mood every three hours. This music is made to bring our mind into harmony with nature’s mind. So every three hours there can be a different rāga. Some of these rāgas have paintings or stories behind them. A lot of them you can see in paintings of God Kṛṣṇa playing his bānsurī. Több ilyen festményen az Úr Kṛṣṇa látható, ahogy játszik a hangszerén. Some others, like the one I want to tell you about, have a little story behind them. This one is a rāga that relates to the story of Siddhārtha, who later became Buddha. Actually, recently I read a book about the life of Buddha, and there I found that he used to play the Bānsurī. He played the flute when he was a little boy. Anyway, you know, Swāmī Avatārapurījī was telling this story about the life of Buddha. When he was born, an astrologer was called, and he said he would be either a great king or a great monk. The king wished for him to be a great king, so he built walls around the town, and the whole town was filled only with young and healthy people. If someone got sick, they had to leave. There was only fun and everything. Siddhartha was given everything materially. The story says that one day he heard someone playing music. It was a winner with a singing. He felt something he had not felt until then: a kind of sadness or melancholic feeling, very different from all the other feelings he had experienced—what we sometimes wrongly call happiness, but it’s not the happiness we know. It is just a kind of ecstatic, emotional wave in the mind that comes and then goes. He was listening, then went to his close, good friend and consulted him: "What is this? What am I feeling?" The talk went on between them, and his friend had to reveal that outside the kingdom was a very different world. Eventually, Siddhartha escaped and saw sickness, suffering, old age, and death. A tremendous feeling of compassion woke up within him—not for himself. It was not based on fear that this is terrible and he must find a way out for himself. Maybe that would not have been enough if done for himself only. He felt compassion for all beings, that there must be a way out of this circle of birth and death. We know the rest: he managed one day. That’s a little introduction to this rāga. Talking about compassion, especially for the Anustān people, you know there is one kind of happiness that is very sweet, and I think I feed on that one: when you’re happy, when you lie down and you’re relaxed. "I’m so happy here. So please lie down and relax." You know the position—very, very comfortable. If you are sitting, you can remain sitting, no problem. Close your eyes. Take a few deep inhalations and exhalations. Let go, let go, relax. Feel your whole body. With every natural exhalation, surrender your body to the floor. With every exhalation, you’re sinking deeper and deeper. The face relaxes. Your legs are heavy, and your feet fall to the sides. Shoulders also relax. As the shoulders release tensions, observe your chest opening, expanding. That inner space within is also opening, and we may begin to feel more free, more relaxed. Go into the center of your chest, within, far away from the thinking mind. Relax, just relax, breathe. All body, your presence, your being here. A few deeper inhalations and exhalations. Slowly start to move your body. Take your time, move intuitively until you feel like stretching. After stretching, put your palms together and rub them. Share the prāṇa, the energy, with your face, with your eyes. When you are ready to see only good things all around you, open your eyes and remove your hands. Slowly, with the help of your hands, please come to sitting. Thank you. Thank you.

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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