TV Channel

Part 1: The 99 Club: Satsaṅga, Kṛpā, and the Quest for More Oṁ Śalāk Purījī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Deva Deva Deva... Viśva Mahādeva Kī Jai, Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭa Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Śrī Madhavānanda Purī Jī Sadgurudeva Bhagavān Kī Jai, Vishvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Śrī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī Gurudeva Kī Jai, Sadāśiva samārambhaṁ Śaṅkarācārya madhyamām | Asmadācārya paryantaṁ vande guru paramparām || Gurur Brahmā Gurur Viṣṇu Gurur Devo Maheśvaraḥ | Gurur sākṣāt Parabrahma tasmai Śrī Gurave namaḥ || Man-nātha Śrī Jagannātha Mad-guru Śrī Jagad-guru. Māmatmā Sarvabhūtātmā Tasmē Śrī Guruvē Namaḥ. Salutations to the Cosmic Self. Salutations to Śrī Alakhpurījī, Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā. I humbly bow to my beloved Guru Dev, His Holiness Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Śrī Swami Maheśvarānanda. Om Namah Narayan to all the sannyāsīs, Om Namah Narayan všem sannyasinům, and Hari Om and good evening to all of you who are present here and who are watching through Swamiji TV. I hope you all had a nice day. Today we will briefly touch on the topic of positivity and negativity. In our spiritual terms, you can call it Satsaṅga or kusaṅga—the gathering of satya, the truth, and the company of spiritually driven people. Wherever we look, we will always find a positive side and a negative side in everything. However, before trying to find faults in others, we should first see how faulty we are within ourselves. For example, imagine we are driving and someone is overspeeding. This is a beautiful example Swamījī gave a few years back, which I remembered. That person overtakes you and almost touches your car. No matter how deep a sādhanā we may have practiced for many years, at that exact moment some choice words may come out of our mouth, and then all that spiritual poise is gone. Then, further ahead, you see a police officer stopping that car and you feel happy: “Oh, finally he’s caught!” But then you see the officer open the window, talk, and let him go. You stop and ask the officer, “Why didn’t you arrest him?” The officer replies, “Because his wife in the back was delivering a baby, and they were rushing to the hospital.” So we really cannot judge a book by its cover. Until we know the full story, we should not look for the bad points. There was a nice young boy named Śaṅkar. He was very positive and always in his own zone—not for reasons you might think, but because of spirituality. When he walked around the village of Strilky, everyone was happy with him. Yet, just as there is a positive side, there is also a negative side. Many people were jealous and wondered how he could always be so cheerful. They thought, “Everyone has some problems; how can he have none?” Some people, not the jealous group, went to him and said, “Oh, Śaṅkar, many in the village are saying negative things about you—that you are always in your own head, that you might be mentally sick.” Śaṅkar replied, “What a beautiful atmosphere in the ashram. The birds are chirping in the morning. Wonderful satsaṅgs are taking place, Viśvagurujī is blessing us, and we have beautiful bhajans.” They said, “Didn’t you hear what we asked? People are speaking badly of you, and you talk of birds and satsaṅg?” He said, “I am enjoying the satsaṅg, this blissful place. I like the birds, nature, and the people around me.” The atmosphere we choose can deeply affect our mental state. If we sit in a beautiful atmosphere where everyone sings bhajans and holds uplifting satsaṅg, our inner development progresses on that path. Alternatively, if during satsaṅg we go to the neighboring village for sightseeing or a pub, that is the path we choose. Ultimately, it is our own decision what to do with our lives. I have mentioned this before, but I will mention it again: Gurujī used to say there are four types of Kṛpā. The first is Dev kṛpā, the blessings of the devatās, the gods. Out of the 8.4 million creatures, we were blessed to be born in a human body—that is the grace of the devatās. The second kṛpā is the kṛpā of the parents and teachers. When you have the blessings of your Gurudeva, the śiṣya, the disciple, always dwells in ānanda, a state of bliss and happiness. But the most important kṛpā is kuḍkī kṛpā, your own grace. Why? Because the Guru can show you the path, tell you this is right or wrong, but He will not force you. It is our own decisions, our own individual way. That is why our own individual kṛpā is so necessary. It is we who choose whether to go and enjoy the bhajans or a party. And Gurudeva always says, “Here, I give you another chance.” It does not matter how many times we mess up; it is never too late. You can always come back and say, “Gurū Dev, I did this, but now I want the right path.” That is why saints are known to be so merciful. Most of us have made mistakes. But whenever we come to Guru Dev and touch His feet, He takes our bad karmas and touches our head with His hands, giving us positive energy and blessings. In the Vedas and Purāṇas it is said: if you do not have time to visit all the holy places of the world, go and surrender to Gurudeva, and you will receive the same or even greater blessings than from all pilgrimages. So it is our choice which path we take. Once upon a time, a king was riding through his kingdom in his chariot. These are a few short stories I want to share today—many examples with the same message. As he traveled, he saw a farmer family: the farmer, his wife, and their children. It was very hot, the sun beating straight onto the field. There was one beautiful tree. After working hard for half the day, the farmer took a break. His wife and children came and brought lunch. Not everyone is equally fortunate. The king ate from golden plates with every imaginable dish, in a huge palace with a table that seated twenty or thirty people. Yet many nights the king sat alone eating while servants came and went. But that day, the farmer and his wife took a chapati—an Indian bread—in their hands; they had no plate. No vegetables, nothing—just onion on dry chapati and water. Yet they were all laughing and talking happily. The king asked his secretary, “How can they be so happy? He works in the hot sun and eats dry chapatis.” The secretary said, “Your Highness, the farmer is not part of the 99 Club.” The king asked, “What is the 99 Club?” The secretary replied, “Give me 99 golden coins.” The king handed over a bag of 99 coins. The secretary told him he would show the results after six months. That night, the secretary placed the bag of 99 coins outside the farmer’s door. In the morning, the farmer found it and was astonished. “God is graceful to me! I am blessed. Let me count them.” He started counting: one, two, three, four, five… After counting, he reached 99. He said, “I think I made a mistake; let me count again.” He woke up without coffee, so his brain wasn’t fully working. He counted again—99. He called his wife—in India we call the wife the home minister. Swamiji once said that if all the women of the universe unite, they can convert Kali Yuga back to Satya Yuga in an instant. That is the power of Śakti. The wife came. She counted—99. They both said, “Why did that stupid person put 99? He should have put 100; 100 sounds better.” So the farmer decided to work much harder, day and night, to earn that one missing golden coin. After some days, his wife wondered what to do with her husband. “We already have 99 coins; we can live much more happily, yet he is running after one coin.” She took two coins from the bag and went shopping. In the evening, the husband returned. Before dinner, before anything, his priority used to be family, happiness, joy. Now it was golden coins. He counted: 97. He started shouting, “Someone stole my two coins! Who? Who?” The wife said, “I was fed up. I took two coins and went shopping. I bought vegetables and groceries for two months so we can eat more than dry chapati and onion.” The husband said, “Don’t you see I am working so hard every day to earn that one gold coin?” The wife replied, “Don’t you see how I struggle all day? And you took two coins and went shopping?” (Here the husband’s and wife’s words tangle, but the message is clear: obsession with the missing one had robbed them of their peace.) With that, the secretary had shown the king: the farmer, once happy, was now trapped in the 99 Club. Part 2: The Pitfalls of Māyā and the Power of Contentment The wife defended herself, saying, “I took those coins only for our own stomachs, for our family. I never spent them on others, nor did I ever do it for myself.” But the quarrels only grew. Not every day, yet every few days, she would secretly take one coin after another. So when people claim money can buy happiness, it is not so true. Later, the secretary brought the king near the farmer’s house. They stood with their chariot under a tree, about ten meters away. For half an hour straight, they heard the couple shouting at each other. Then the secretary remarked, “This is the 99 Club.” We should therefore be grateful for what we have in our lives—grateful that we have clothes to wear, a roof above our heads, and a bed to sleep on. Days will come when we might possess millions, and days will come when we might not even have ten euros. Still, we should try to remain satisfied and content with whatever we have. What helps us achieve that? When we have the grace of Gurū Dev, everything becomes attainable in life. With the blessings of Gurū Dev, we are happy with one chapātī, one burek, one pizza, or anything at all. There was a person who kept postponing: “Well, not tomorrow—maybe the day after tomorrow.” In Hindi, a saying captures this: “What you can do right now, do not postpone it to tomorrow. What you want to do tomorrow, do it today. And what you want to do today, do it right now.” And so, the elder brother woke up at four in the morning and began to meditate. He sat still, yet from time to time he would open one eye to check whether his younger brother had woken up. After finishing his meditation, he went straight to his father and started shouting: “He didn’t wake up! I was meditating, and this is not fair! You should have woken him!” The father replied, “If the fruit of your meditation is jealousy and anger, it is better that you continue sleeping.” Instead of trying to find something wrong with others, we should try to find what is wrong within ourselves. The neighbor’s garden always appears greener—this is the nature of Māyā. The universe is full of Māyā. We walk on foot, and when we see our neighbor with a cycle, we think, “Oh, I wish I had a cycle.” When we finally own a cycle and our neighbor rides a motorcycle, we think, “Oh, I wish I had a motorcycle.” Then it shifts from car to motorcycle, from private jet to economy class—the options are endless. This is the Māyā Jāl, the net, the spider’s web of Māyā. It is very easy to get stuck in that net, and no matter how hard you try, it is difficult to escape. Yet it would have been much easier if, instead of lamenting that the neighbor has a cycle while we walk, we had thought of those unfortunate souls who, perhaps disabled, cannot even walk. Then we would be grateful that at least we can walk. Rather than focusing on the negative—“he has a cycle”—we can see the positive: “I am grateful that I can walk.” If we are wrong and the other person has done nothing, yet we blame them, all the sin falls upon us. Even if they did commit some wrong, when we point a finger, half the sin comes to us. And when we point one finger at others, three fingers are pointing back at ourselves. A king once invited brahmins to eat, saying, “Please come and partake of the food.” They had an open kitchen. As an eagle flew overhead, a dead snake fell from its beak straight into the food, making it poisonous. The brahmins who ate began to fall sick. Above, the divine bookkeeper—the God who records good and bad karmas—watched and deliberated: “Whose fault is this? The king’s? No, for his intentions were pure; he only wished to feed the people. The cook’s? It was not his mistake; the snake fell from above. The snake’s? The snake was already dead. The eagle’s? He, too, did not do it purposely; it slipped from his mouth unintentionally.” Just then, more brahmins were approaching the kingdom, and a woman among them called out, “Do not go there! The king is trying to poison and kill all of you!” Then the bookkeeper said, “Very well—it is her fault, because she is blaming him.” It is much easier to fall into kusaṅga than to attend satsaṅg. For the kusaṅgīs, satsaṅg feels boring; they find it far more enjoyable to party, dance, and revel in a club. In everything, you can search for the negative side—but it is far better for us to choose another way. Once upon a time, a saint sat meditating near a beautiful lake. Every day, while he meditated, swans would gather around him. A hunter tried daily to capture those swans, hoping to sell them to the zoo, but he never succeeded. Noticing how the swans flocked to the mahātmājī, he thought, “Let me go and speak with him.”