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Part 1: The Path of Karma Yoga and the Four Blessings Om Śālakpūrjī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Om Āditya Deśvara Mahādeva Kī Jai, Sudīpa Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃsvāmī Śrī Mādhavānanda, Pūrjī Sadgurudeva Bhagavān Kī Jai, Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṃsvāmī Śrī Maheśvarānanda, Pūrjī Gurudeva Kī Jai. Sada Śiva Svara Rambhām Śaṅkarāchārya Madhyamām Asmatāchārya Paryantām Vande Guru Paramparām. Gurur Brahma Gurur Viṣṇu Gurur Devo Maheśvarā. Gurur Sākṣātpara Brahma Tasmai Śrī Guruvinamahām. Salutations to the Cosmic Self. Salutations to Śrī Alak Purujya Siddhāpīṭ Paramparā. Madanat Pranam Svabhilavit Guru Dev, His Holiness Vishwaguru Mahāmṛdeśwar Maheśwarānand Purījī. Aum Namo Nārāyaṇa to all the sannyāsīs present here. Hari Om and good evening to all of you who are present here, and good morning, afternoon, and night to those of you who are watching through the webcast. How are you all? You’re clapping from happiness, or you’re clapping because, "Why am I again stuck here?" Just reminding, not Swamijī, you don’t need to be so serious. Even if Swāmījī is here, you should still not be serious, because you should be all happy and jolly with him, no? If we say our happiness is his, then our sadness is also his, right? All emotions are valid. As we all know how Gurudev is taking in emotions, that also means that when we come to him, he feels all the energies. That’s why we all try to be happy. What is there to be upset about? Our own mind. Nothing else is bothering us, don’t worry. The past is past; we can’t change it, forget it. The future, who knows? None of us. Gurudev knows; that is why he is Trikāla Darśī. What is Trikāla Darśī? Past, present, and future. So the only one who knows everything is Him. So let the future be with him. It’s in safe hands. What do we focus on? The present. That we are all here sitting in the beautiful oasis of Strelky Ashram with beautiful, fresh energy. All of you have eaten dinner? Pūjā is done. Now we have proper satsaṅg, no? Today you can’t say, "Oh, the satsaṅg is going too long, we are hungry." I mean, we are hungry, but you are late, so no problem. Very happy to be again back in Europe, here in Strelky, with all of you. Today is the beginning, the first day. Not too much talking, but I will still talk, don’t worry. Today I would also like to welcome my dear friend from India, Anubhav Dubey, and his wife. He’s an entrepreneur and a businessman from India. My good friend who was traveling, they just got married recently, so congratulations. They were in Czech, and nowadays, the new generation is on all social media, so I found out that they were here. I asked them if they could come here and experience one day with us, and see and live the ashram life, and taste the beautiful nectar of this ashram. So welcome. I think first I will let him speak, and then I will continue. (Namaste, Hari Om. There is a small introduction about me. I’m an entrepreneur. I started a small company without telling my parents. Now it’s a little huge, a couple of million dollar company. So when we started this company, I was quite young. Still, I’m young, but at that time, I was even younger than this. So when we started, I was 21. I am from a very middle-class family, where parents always tell you to just focus on your studies. But somehow I cracked this, and I moved towards entrepreneurship, started this company way back in 2016, almost a decade back. Since we started, lots of trouble—I will not go into that, what the difficulties have been through. But apart from the difficulty, it went like a fairy tale. It was like a fairy tale to me. It was a proud moment for me that I started with my own will, without taking my parents’ money, and it’s huge now. We are approximately 600 outlets in India, in Dubai, Muscat, Nepal. We recently opened in Calgary, Canada, and we are opening very soon in Paris, so it was going smoothly. And because of this social media web, we became the social media celebrity types. With a couple of million followers on the platform, I am the eighth strongest profile on LinkedIn in India. Millions of people started capturing photos, taking selfies, wherever we go. And wherever we go, people take photos and shoot us. People took the selfies; it was, everything was going so perfect, like a perfect fairy tale. But suddenly something happened, which I never imagined in my life: I have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I don’t know how it happened; there is no reason behind it. It just happened to be an autoimmune disease, so it happened. So when I was diagnosed with it, I was so, so scared, because I had never heard of these kinds of things in my life. My parents were in shock. I was in shock. Because of tension, I started losing my hearing. I thought that I had to prick my fingers multiple times to check my blood glucose. And I have to take the insulin in my belly or in my, you know, arm to keep myself alive. This is the only way you can live, you know, in type 1 diabetes, so I was very much in tension. To measure the sugar, to inject the insulin into the stomach or into the shoulder. It was simply difficult. Life with this disease is difficult, so I stopped going to my office, and at that time I was in severe depression. I was thinking, like, what to do and how to overcome this. But I guess what helped me to come out is Karmayoga. That’s what I was talking with Avdhūt Purī. Karmayoga is basically, I was in severe depression, right? So one day, 100 days, almost 100 days, I have not been to my office. And so I stopped working because of the disease, and I sent him to the office, and I fell into deep depression. And what actually helped me was karma yoga. That’s why I met my avatar Purīm, because for about 100 days I wasn’t able to go to work. I wasn’t able to go to the office. At that time, but Kermyuk, that Kermyuk is, for me, when I stepped out of my home, of my depression, I started walking again. I started walking, I started going to my office again. At that time, things started changing. Now you can see that I got married, but by starting Karma Yoga, by going on the path of Karma Yoga, all of this changed. There is one thing which can make you happy, make you feel better, and make you heal, and that is Karma Yoga. One fine day, my friend and I were traveling somewhere in the airport. We met, fortunately, Swamiji and Avatarjī, at that time. You know something? The energies matched. You know, we had planned everything. The entire Europe was planned, and finally, I got a message from Avatar Purī that you have to be here, and I changed everything. I have planned according to him, and now I am sitting here in front of you, so thanks to Avatār Purī, thanks to Swāmījī. And at the end, what is the result, the outcome of the karma yoga, is that my diabetes and my sugar H, B, A, and C result is better than my doctor’s. Glucose, and I’m happily married now, and my parents are so happy, and I’m traveling and walking day and night again. And at last, I just want to thank you guys, because since I entered this ashram, I’ve seen all the beautiful smiles, and all the people are lovely. It gives me amazing, welcoming energy. Thanks to you guys. Thank you, Avatār Purījī, for giving me this opportunity to be here. Thank you so much. Hari Om.) As we are on the topic of Karma Yoga. There are four types of Yoga: it’s like four different creeks or rivers coming to the same, uniting in the same ocean. It’s all uniting and coming to the same path. The best part of being disciples of Gurudeva is that we are experiencing all four. Jñāna yoga, we are reading the scriptures of Gurudeva, reading all other scriptures, any type of knowledge which we are gaining. Rāja Yoga, our whole meditation, everything that we are doing, trying to be. And Karma Yoga, which we all love, no? Because that is how we are burning things, but nothing is big or small. If we are doing any type of seva, it should be done without any expectations, with selfless service. When we do something and we are looking around, like, "Who is watching? Where are the cameras? What’s going on?" then that is not true seva. It doesn’t matter if we are doing Guru Sevā, if we are doing Sevā Gurudev, or if we are sweeping the floors or cleaning the toilets or anything. The results only come when it’s done without any expectations. I know it’s hard because we all have expectations from something. Expectations from ourselves, expectations from life, expectations from friends and family. There’s always expectations, but when it’s done without any expectations, then the fruit is always sweet. Kāma, kródha, mada, lobha, ahaṅkāra. This will be our constant rope, which is pulling us down in our spiritual path. We will progress a lot. We will climb so many spiritual stairs, and then we get angry, and all is gone. It is said that we can do a hundred mālās. But one swear word and all of that is gone. But when we fall down, what do we do? Stand up. Get up. If we stay seated or lying down and give up, that is not an option. What comes, goes. We are born, and we will die. So if happiness comes, that should also go. If sadness comes, that should also pass. But most of the time, our brain makes it more crazy for us. When the happy moments come, then we are not enjoying those. We are more worried and thinking about when something bad will happen and when something will mess up in life. But when bad moments come, then we are not thinking, "Oh, now this will also pass, and good moments will come." We will go more deeply into the bad moments. Why? Because we don’t like peace. Inner peace, we all want, but we try all other things. But all the tools we have, all the tools which we need for our spiritual growth, Gurudev has given us. Out of 8.4 million creatures, we are born as humans, and that is for some sense. Gurudev used to tell me, which means this human life is very precious; do not waste it. After going through all the snakes and scorpions and the fish and all creatures, finally we were born as human beings. And that’s why we all are using our vivekā and joining satsaṅg, not kusaṅga. As I many times say, we didn’t find Gurudev, but Gurudev found all of us. All his life traveling, today we were discussing with Anubhav and telling him about how Swāmījī started everything and how it was, and this is the beauty of Gurudev. That he found all of us in all different parts of the world. And what did he do? He united us all. And that’s why we are all sitting here as one beautiful, big family in Strelka, all together. Some people say, "Oh, I have my parents and my brothers and sisters, or five people in my family. I can say I have such a big family." And that is the beauty of Gurudeva: no religion, no ethnicity, no looking at who is what, what you are doing, or what anyone is doing. Everyone, we all are one. That’s why Holī Gurujī always said, that boat which is crossing us from this shore of Māyā and taking us to the ultimate truth. But it’s our choice if we are going to jump in that boat, or we are going to try to swim that ocean and drown. At the end of the day, it’s always our choice. Holi Gurujī said four types of kṛpās. How many of you remember the four kṛpās? The first kripa is the deva kripa. Which means the kripa, or the blessings, of the gods and goddesses. Why so? Because we are born as human beings. And as we are born as human beings, we are born for a cause. The second Kṛpā is Śāstra Kṛpā, which means the blessings of the scriptures. Any type of knowledge which we gain in our school, college, any type of books, Gītā, Rāmāyaṇa, Yoga and the Life book, any book that we read, that knowledge which is going within us, that is the Kṛpā of the Śāstra. The third Kripa is the most important Kripa, which we always speak about, which is Guru Kripa. And what do we say? Guru Kṛpā Hi Kevalam. When Gurudev’s kṛpā is there, when Gurudev’s blessing is there, then we disciples are in ultimate bliss. But Holy Gurujī said the fourth kripa is the most important kripa, which means the blessings of ourselves. Because the Guru is the one who is showing us the path. Guru, from darkness to light, He is the one who is bringing us on that right path. But He is not going to take your hand and drag you somewhere. That’s why we have to walk that path by ourselves, with the guidance and the blessings of Gurū Dev. And that’s why we have Viveka, which helps us to make the right decision. In your holidays, we have many options. We can go to the Adriatic coast and go and sit nicely on the beach and get nicely tanned. I don’t need to because I’m already brown. We get permanent tanning in Jādan. Forty-five, fifty degrees, nice. Or there are other options, going for partying, sightseeing, this, that. But our Viveka said that we want satsaṅg, the gathering of truth, satsaṅg. Satsaṅg doesn’t need to be this gathering which we are having here. Anywhere where there is truth and where there is the gathering of truth, where there are spiritual talks, nice talks, that is satsaṅg. It doesn’t matter if it’s at your home or here in the āśram. But when satsaṅg is like this, with a beautiful, big, large family, then it becomes much more energetic because the energy of Gurudev is always flowing in the ashram. And you know why we are focused so much on karma yoga? Ashram, you know what that means? "A" means come, "śram" means do work. That’s why we have karma yoga. It really means, "A" means come in Hindi, and "shram" means work. So it makes total sense to work in a dash. Why? Because that burns our ego, all this what we were talking about, kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, that all burns by doing service, but selfless. Whatever we do, that all will come back. If we do something nice, something good will happen. If we do something bad, something bad will happen. What is written in our destiny will happen, but the only one who can change the destiny is a Gurudev. Remember the story from last year about the changing of the destiny? No, very good. I can say it again. Don’t worry. The continuation of stories, that won’t end. That you will get all the time. Part 2: The Power of the Guru's Grace This is what I love, and I love to share what I love. When I used to sit in lectures in college, they could get boring. But if a topic is explained with a good, related story, it makes more sense and is easier to understand. That’s how I understand best, which is why I tell these stories. Once upon a time—Bylo, nebylo—there was a king and queen. In India, every king had a Rājā Guru. Rājā means king, and Guru means guru; he was the guru of the king. In the kingdom of Strelka, there was a beautiful place called Mahāprabhū Dīpas, where there was a guru named Viśvagurujī. One day, Gurudev was sitting outside his cottage in his āśrama, which was at the corner of the palace garden. He saw a very beautiful goddess, an Apsarā lady, passing by from his āśrama and heading towards the king’s palace. He asked, "Oh Devī, who are you?" She said, "I am the Vidhātā." The Vidhātā is the one who writes our destiny. "Where are you going?" She said, "The king is going to have children today, twins, and I am going to write their destiny." Gurudev said, "I am the guru of the king, so please write something nice and good." When someone tells us what we should do, what arises? Ego. Very good. Why? "It’s me, I know everything. Why do you tell me what to do? I don’t care who you are. My job is to write destiny. I will write what I want." Gurudev said, "It is just my request," and she went on her way. Later, she was returning. Gurudev was obviously waiting. What was the result? She said, "Poor family. There will be a war. The king will die. The queen will be kidnapped. The kids will be orphaned. One kid will not even have enough money. The whole day he will work so hard, carrying things on a horse, delivering goods, but he won’t be able to earn enough to survive. The other son will go hunting every day for food but won’t be able to get more than one thing a day." Gurujī said, "No, no, not good. Please change it." "No, no, don’t waste my time. I have many babies getting born around the world. I have to go." Gurujī said, "Don’t do something that you will regret." And she said, "Čauky, bye-bye." As it was written in destiny, it happened. The next morning, the king came first with a packet of sweets. He offered it to Gurudev and said, "Gurudev, I have two children, twins." But Gurudev wasn’t excited. He said, "I have very important work. I have to go up to the mountains, and I’ll come back later." The king understood that something not so good was coming, because if something auspicious like having a child happened and Gurudev was leaving the city, it wasn’t a good sign. After Gurudev left, the war happened. Both children were found in a basket on the boundary of the castle. A potter, who makes pots, found the kids there, took them, and took care of them. When they grew up, as written in their destiny, one went hunting every morning. The whole day, he wouldn’t manage to get anything and would come back with just something small. The other son transported goods on the back of a horse every day from one place to another, but he could never earn enough money to sustain his family. Some time passed, and Gurudev finally came back. The villagers greeted him and said, "Oh Gurudev, look what happened. Your disciple, the king, was killed, and the heirs, who were supposed to be princes, are now suffering and having a very bad life." Gurudev went to that family. They greeted him, because in India, it doesn’t matter who—even if a random sādhu in orange comes, they greet him. He told them, "I was your parents’ guru. Your father was the king of this kingdom, and I was his guru." They said, "If you were our father’s guru, then you were our guru also. Please instruct us on what we should do." That is why it is said, "Guru, our gyāra," which means we should not try to think and find the logic behind what Gurudev tells us; we just follow. Because we don’t see what is coming, what is going to happen, but He does, and He knows what is right and wrong for us. Sometimes he will tell us to do something that makes absolutely zero sense, and we will think, "Why in the world did he say this?" But later we realize why he said it and why it was good for us. Gurudev told the first son, "In your destiny, it is written that you will go every day, take goods on the horse, but you won’t earn much. But it is written that you will be transporting goods with the horse." You know, there are always loopholes. So he said, "In the morning, you sell the horse." The Vedas will have to give you another horse to do your work; otherwise, how will it work? Then sell that one also. This continued. To the second son, he said, "Go hunting, and in the morning when you go, do not try to even hunt anything. Just wait for the golden deer." The Vidhātā had said, "You will come back home with one thing before sunset." That is why what is important in our lives is one decision, dedication towards something we are doing every day. He went, didn’t hunt anything, and before sunset she had to give him a golden deer because he had to come back home with something. He wasn’t aiming at anything else, so they didn’t have a choice. Every day, by selling that golden deer and by selling the horses, they became prosperous. One fine day, the Vidhātā comes running to Gurudeva and says, "Gurudeva, please forgive me." "Why, my dear? What happened?" "Your disciples are driving me crazy. I have so much work to do. I have to go to so many places, and they are keeping me busy by providing them a deer and horses every day." "Then write what they deserved." So finally, the current ruler who was ruling that empire had two girls, so they got married to the kids, and they got the kingdom back. That is why when Gurudev tells us something, he can change everything. And that’s why we say: "Guru charaṇamayarā satyaratāhe voh Veda Purāṇame gāte hain. Guru charaṇome āl sat tīrat hain voh Veda Purāṇame gāte hain, voh Veda Purāṇame gāte hain." In the Vedas and in the Purāṇas, it is said that in the lotus feet of Gurudev, all the pilgrimages are residing. We all go to all four Dhāms: Badrināth, Kedārnāth, Yamunotrī, Gangotrī. We go to all twelve Jyotirliṅgas. That is why Gurudev created Jāḍ and Śṛṅkhalī, all these beautiful āśramas where all is present here. We don’t need to go anywhere when we have Gurudeva. Rama, Krishna, Śeṣa, Anantadeva, Śeṣabhī, Gurukṛpā—we sing this every day in our prayers. It means Lord Rāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa were incarnations of Lord Viṣṇu, and even they had to have gurus because without a guru, life is not going to function. Even to learn ABCD or anything, we were taught by our parents, we were taught in schools, we were taught in colleges. Anyone who gives us any type of knowledge is a guru: parents, teachers, friends, brothers, younger, older—it doesn’t matter. From wherever we can gain any type of knowledge, we should gain it. And to help us across this ocean, or the spider web, of Māyā, we have our Śrī Satguru Dev. In India, we say that if we have once dipped in the holy Gaṅgā, all our sins are going to be dissolved. Two pundits left from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, in the center of India, and started their journey towards Haridwar. On the way, a smart guy told them that if they wanted their trip to be fruitful and all their sins removed, it was recommended that they should only eat in houses or āśramas where someone from that household had already done Gaṅgāsnān. So their journey started. In the evening, they would knock on doors: "Can we eat food? But we have one condition: did you have a bath in the Gaṅgā?" "No." "Then sorry, we don’t eat." They continued, following this rule, only eating or sleeping where someone had dipped in the Gaṅgā. One fine day, they were a few kilometers away from the Gaṅgā. They saw an āśrama and decided to sleep and eat there. In their heads, the Gurujī living there surely must have dipped in the Gaṅgā, so they didn’t even think to ask. In India, we have a saying which means when we have an empty stomach, even the bhajan of the Lord doesn’t work. So they filled their stomachs. Why do you think you all have dinner before satsaṅg? That Jātāgni (digestive fire) inside needs something. After eating, they went for darśana of the Gurujī who lived there. They asked, "How far is the Gaṅgā River from here?" He said, "I don’t know." They were shocked. "You don’t know? That means you never went to the Gaṅgā?" "No." They thought, "Gurujī, what have we done? Our tapasyā is broken. We walked for two, three months, only eating in certain places, and this Gurujī didn’t even go to the Gaṅgā." Gurujī went back to his room, and they sat outside, shocked, thinking, "Now what?" At night, they saw a woman dressed fully in black, completely dirty, walking in the āśrama. She started sweeping, sweeping the outside of Gurudev’s cottage. Then she touched the dust where Gurudev kept his feet and put it on her head. Another woman came and cleaned the kitchen. Another came and started cleaning the temple. All three of them, after touching the sand or dust of the lotus feet of Gurū Dev and touching it to their heads, turned into beautiful white women. The two men said, "What have we done? We came to some guy who does black magic. Women come all dirty and turn into beautiful white women. What’s going on?" They got the courage and asked, "Devī, who are you?" "I am Gaṅgā, this is Yamunā, and this is Sarasvatī." They were shocked. The goddesses said, "All of you people come every day, take a dip in the Gaṅgā with us. That’s why we become all dirty from all your sins. Then we come to Gurudev, and just the dust of his lotus feet purifies us completely." Then they saw Lord Śiva coming, sitting on his Nandi, doing a parikramā of the guru’s hut and leaving. Then Viṣṇu, Brahmā, and so on. That is why it is said that in the lotus feet of Gurudeva, everyone—all gods, all goddesses, all pilgrimages—everything is residing there. That’s why we are all blessed to have Gurudeva as Viśva Gurujī. It is once in centuries that such a great guru is incarnated. They don’t come to this earth for themselves; they come for us. Hopefully, we are doing our job right to finally get to our ultimate goal of self-realization and get free from this circle of life and death. I hope that we will also fulfill our mission and, in the end, achieve self-realization. We will get out of the cycle of birth and death. We are stuck in the cycle. We are first in the mother’s lap, then in the cradle, then back to the mother’s lap, then back in the cradle. We grow up a bit, and then we go from home to school, home to school. We grow up a bit more, and it’s home, school, home, school. Then we go to work: home, work, home, work, home. Then it’s just work again: home, work, work, home. Then comes... before the hospital, one thing: pension. Swamījī said, "This is not pension; this is tension." Because then you start with hospital, home, hospital, home. And finally, after hospital, home, hospital, home, then what? We die. And then we think we are free? No. Death and birth, and death and birth, and death and birth. To get out of this cycle of death and birth, we need a guru to guide us. I am very happy to be here, slightly tired with jet lag, but happy to see all of you. I will be here till Guru Pūrṇimā. I will be with Gurudev for Guru Pūrṇimā and then come back. I’m leaving for India on the 8th and coming back on Saturday the 12th. One day before you’re here, we are celebrating Guru Pūrṇimā on the 13th. So either on the 13th morning I’ll surely be here, but I will try to come for the 12th evening satsaṅg also. I’ll be back on the 12th for Guru Pūrṇimā. We’ll be celebrating on the 13th here. Enjoy your stay, enjoy the beautiful time, and don’t worry. This baggage, which we all brought with us, is outside waiting for you when you leave the āśrama. Hopefully, that baggage will get lighter. The whole year we were filling that baggage with tension, stress, and emotions, but when we come here... we leave the baggage outside. This is a different world; enjoy it. Don’t worry, no one will steal that baggage; it will be waiting. But hopefully, Gurudev takes all that baggage, because happiness is His, sadness is His, then our attention is also His. That’s why we surrender at his lotus feet. Everything is yours. We are his, and he is ours. He is in our hearts, and we are in his heart. Simple finish. Have a beautiful stay. Gurudev is very good. He is healthy. Everything is fine. He is in Jāḍon, and hopefully we see him soon here also. Either now, when I go back, he will come with me, or a little bit later, we will see. As you all know, we are living in the moment. But if Gurudeva is residing in all of our hearts, and he is omnipresent, everlasting, that means he is always with us, within us, here, everywhere. Many blessings from Gurudev. Much love from me. Svasti prajābhyām paripālayantām nyāyena mārgeṇa mahīṃ mahīśāḥ go-brāhmaṇebhyaḥ śubham astu nityam lokaḥ samastaḥ sukhino bhavantu. Om Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ... Om Śālopurjī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Devādyā Devadeva Viśvamahādeva Kī Jai, Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃsvāmī Śrī Madhavānanda Purījī Sadgurudeva Bhagavān Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṃsvāmī Śrī Maheśvaraṁ Purujī Gurudeva Kī Jai, Satsanātana Dharma Kī Jai, Āj Kī Ānanda Kī Jai, Māta Pitā Gurudeva Kī Jai, Araṇamāv Parvatī Pataye Harara Mahādeva Śambho.