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Part 1: The Four Yogas and the Four Kṛpās Om Śālak Purījī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Mādhavīdev Deśwar Mahādeva Kī Jai, Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃswāmī Śrī Mādhavānanda Purījī Sadgurudeva Bhagavān Kī Jai, Viśwaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśwar Paramahaṃswāmī Śrī Maheśvara Nanda Purījī Gurudeva Kī Jai, Sadāśiva Samārambham Śaṅkarācārya Madhyamam Asmadācārya Paryantam Vande Guru Paramparām, Gurur Brahmā, Gurur Viṣṇu, Gurur Devo Maheśvara, Gurur Sākṣāt Para Brahma, Tasmai Śrī Gurave Namaḥ. Salutations to the Cosmic Self. Salutations to Śrī Alakhpurījī, Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā. Pozdrav, Śrī Alakhpurījī, Siddha Pīṭh Paramparā. May I not pronounce your name, beloved Gurudev. His Holiness, Viśvagurū Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Maheśvarānanda Purījī. May I not pronounce your name, beloved Gurudev. His Holiness, Viśvagurū Mahāmaṇḍaleśvarānanda Purījī. Oṁ Namaḥ 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?” Yes, no, happy, sad, good. Just reminding you, you don’t need to be so serious. And just for your information, even if Swāmījī is here, you should still not be serious, because you should be all happy and jolly with him, no? If our happiness is His, then our sadness is also His, right? All the emotions are valid. And as we all know how Gurudev is taking in emotions, that also means that when we are coming to Him, He feels all the energies. Future, who knows? None of us know—Gurudev, that’s why He is Trikāla Darśī. What does Trikāla Darśī mean? It’s interactive, I’m not just going to talk; I’m trying to see if you guys remember. Exactly: past, present, and future. So the only one who knows everything is Him. Not present. With beautiful, fresh energy, right? Good. All of you have eaten dinner? So, pīr 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. I’m very happy to be back again in Europe, here in Strilky with all of you. And today is the beginning. First day, not too much talking, but I will still talk, don’t worry. But today I would also like to welcome my dear friend from India, Anupam Dube, and his wife. He is an entrepreneur and a businessman from India, and my good friend who was traveling. They just got married recently, so congratulations. And they were in Czech, and nowadays, with the new generation and social media, I found out that they were here. So I asked them if they could come here and experience one day with us, and see and live the āśram life, and taste the beautiful nectar of this āśram. So welcome. Please ask. 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. I started my small company without my parents knowing it. And from that small company, it’s now a multi‑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. And 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. And since we started, lots of trouble—I will not go into that, what are the difficulties I’ve been through—but apart from the difficulty, it went like, you know, a fairy tale. It was a proud moment for me that I started on my own, you know, by my own will, without taking my parents’ money, and it’s huge now. We are approximately 600 outlets in India, in Dubai, Muscat, Nepal, and recently opened in Calgary, Canada. We are opening very soon in Paris. So it was going smoothly. And thanks to these social networks, we are now living, or we are present, on social networks, and wherever we go, people take photos and shoot us. My parents were just focusing on the business, because it was giving money, it was giving fame, it was, you know, attracting people to take selfies. Everything was going so perfect, like a perfect fairy tale. 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, with type 1 diabetes. So, I was very much in tension. And my parents were shocked, I was shocked, because you know how it is, I had to constantly measure the sugar, inject the insulin into the stomach or into the shoulder, and it was just hard, it’s hard, so life with this disease. What helped me to come out is Karmayoga. That’s what I was talking with Avatarpurījī. 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 there were lots of things I was hearing, that type 1 diabetics do not survive the way other normal people survive. And there are a lot of difficulties in getting married. Fortunately, we are married now. So there was a lot of up and down going on at that time. But Karma Yoga, that Karma Yoga for me is when I stepped out of my home, out of my depression, I started walking again, I started going to my office again. At that time, things started changing. And believe me, I have stage fright. I do not speak much on stage. Whenever I step onto any stage, I just start fearing. But why do I speak this very confidently? Because I’ve been through one phase where I needed to tell people about it: that even if you go through something which you cannot change, there’s one thing which can make you happy, make you feel better, and make you heal, and that is Karma Yoga. So there is one thing that will lead to this change, and that is Karma Yoga. I have planned according to him, and now I’m sitting here in front of you. So, thanks to Avatārapurījī, thanks to Swāmījī. And at the end, what is the result of the outcome of the Karma Yoga? It is that my diabetes and my sugar, HbA1c, 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. Śrī Śrī... Thank you, everyone, because since I entered this āśram, I’ve seen all the beautiful smiles; all the people are lovely. It gives me amazing, welcoming energy. Thanks to you guys. Thank you, Avatārpuri Jī, for giving me this opportunity to be here. Thank you so much. Hari Om. As we are anyhow on the topic of Karma Yoga, there are four types of yoga. It’s like four different creeks or rivers coming together, uniting in the same ocean. It’s all uniting and coming to the same path. And the best part of being disciples of Gurudeva, thanks to the fact that we are students of Gurudeva, is that we can live and experience all four. It is not that this one is better or that one is better. Bhakti Yoga we are doing now, we have kīrtans, bhajans. In Jñāna Yoga, we are reading the scriptures of Gurudeva and all other scriptures. Jñāna Yoga is what we study; we listen to the Guru’s words, we read the holy books, and through them we gain wisdom. Raja Yoga is 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. But if we are doing any type of sevā, 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 sevā. 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 are always expectations. But when it’s done without any expectations, then the fruit is always sweet. And the main five things which are pulling us down in our spiritual journey are: kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, ahaṅkāra. So all these five things: jealousy, envy, anger. 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 it’s all gone. It’s said that we can do a hundred mālās, but once we’re angry, 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? We are born, and we will die. So if happiness comes, that shall also go. If sadness comes, that shall also pass. But most of the time, our brain makes it more crazy for us. We go deeper in the bad moments. Why? Proč? 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: 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 viveka and joining satsaṅg, not kusaṅga. As I have said many times, we did not find Gurudeva, but Gurudeva 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 Gurudeva, 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 Strilky, all together. Some people say, “Oh, I have my parents and my brothers and sisters,” or, “I have 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 Holy Gurujī always said, “All in one, one in all.” Gurudev is there, he is 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. Holy Gurujī said there are four types of kṛpās. How many of you remember the four kṛpās? So the first kṛpā is deva kṛpā. Which means the kṛpā, 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 Left Book, any book that we read, that knowledge which is going within us, that is the kṛpā of the śāstra. The third kṛpā is the most important kṛpā, which we always speak about: guru kṛpā. And what do we say? Guru kṛpā he 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 kṛpā is the most important kṛpā, which is kuḍkī kṛpā—which means the blessings of our self. 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’s 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 Gurudev. And that’s why we have viveka. 45–50 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 āśram. And you know why we are focused so much on Karma Yoga? Āśram, you know what that means? Āśram, do you know what Āśram means? “Ā” means come, “āśram” means do work. “Ā” means come, “āśram” means do work. That’s why we have Karma Yoga. That’s why we have Karma Yoga. It really means, “Ā” means “come” in Hindi, and “āśram” means “do work.” So it makes total sense to work in the āśram. Part 2: The Guru’s Grace: Burning Ego and Changing Destiny Why? Because that burns our ego. All those forces we were speaking about—kāma, krodha, mada, lobha—all of that gets burned through service, but selfless service. And why? Whatever we do comes back to us. 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 destiny is… Remember the story from last year about changing destiny? No? Very good, I can tell it again. Don’t worry—these are stories that never end; you will receive them all the time. Because this is what I love, and I love to share what I love. When I used to sit in lectures, I’d think, “Finally, I’m done with college!” But when the professor was giving lectures, it all got boring, you know. Yet if a topic is explained with a nice story, it makes so much more sense and is easier to understand. That’s how I understand things best, so that’s why I weave these stories. Once upon a time there was a king and a queen. In India, every king had a Rājā Guru. Rājā means king and Guru means guru—so the king’s guru was called the Rājā Guru. In the kingdom of Strilky, there was a beautiful place called Mahāprabhujīp Āśram, where a guru named Viśvagurujī resided. One day, Gurudev was sitting outside his cottage and saw a very beautiful goddess, an Apsarā lady, passing through his āśram—because his āśram stood at the corner of the empire. She was heading towards the king’s palace. He asked, “O Devī, who are you?” She replied, “I am the Vidhātā.” Vidhātā is the one who writes our destiny. “Where are you going?” “The king is going to have children today, twins, and I am on my way to…” Gurudev said, “I am the guru of the king; please write something nice and good.” When someone tells us what we should do, what arises? Ego. Ego comes. “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 left. Later, as she was returning, Gurudev was obviously waiting. “What was the result?” he asked. She announced, “Poor family. There will be a war. The king will die. The queen will be kidnapped. The children will become orphans. One child will not even be born. He will never have enough money; the whole day he will labour, carrying goods on a horse, delivering things, but he won’t be able to earn enough even to survive. The other son will go hunting every day for food, but won’t manage to get more than one thing a day.” Gurudev said, “No, no—not good, please change it.” “No, don’t waste my time. I have countless babies being born all over the world; I have to go.” Gurujī replied, “Do not do something that you will regret.” And she said, “Chowki, bye-bye.” As it was written, so it happened. The next morning the king arrived with a packet of sweets and offered it to Gurudev, saying, “Gurudev, I have two children—twins!” But Gurudev was not excited. He said, “I have very important work; I have to go up into the mountains and will return later.” The king understood that something not so good was approaching, because if an auspicious event like having a child had occurred and Gurudev was leaving the city, it was not a good sign. After Gurudev left, the war came. Both children were found in a basket at the boundary of the castle, and a potter who makes pots discovered them there and took them in. He cared for them. As they grew up, just as written in their destiny, one son went hunting every morning the whole day but returned with barely anything. The other son transported goods on the back of a horse from one place to another the whole day, yet could never earn enough to sustain his family. Some time passed, and Gurudev finally came back. The villagers greeted him: “Oh Gurudev, look what happened! Your disciple, the king, was killed, and the heirs who were meant to be princes are now suffering and living a very bad life.” Then Gurudev went to that family, and they greeted him—because in India it doesn’t matter who; even if a random sādhu in orange robes comes, people greet. 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 are our guru also. Please instruct us on what we should do.” That is why it is said, “Guru Āgyā Avijāranīya,” which means we should not try to think and find the logic behind what Gurudev tells us; we simply follow. Because we do not see what is coming or what will 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 is good for us. Gurudev told the first son, “In your destiny it is written that you will go every day, take goods on a horse, but you will not earn much. Yet it is written that you will be transporting goods with a horse. So, you know, there are always loopholes.” He said, “In the morning, sell the horse. The Vidhātā will have to give you another horse to do your work—otherwise how will it be fulfilled? Then sell that one as well.” And this continued. To the second son he said, “Go hunting, and in the morning when you leave, do not try to hunt anything; just wait for the golden deer. Vidhātā will have to give you a deer before sunset, because it is written you will come home with one thing.” That is why firm determination is so important in our lives—one decision, dedication towards what we are doing. Every day he went out, he did not hunt anything, and before sunset she had to supply him with a golden deer because he had to come back home with something. If he was not even aiming at anything else, Vidhātā had no choice. Every day, by selling that golden deer and by selling the horses, they became prosperous and well. One fine day, Vidhātā came running to Gurudeva and cried, “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 keep me busy providing them deer and horses every single day.” “Then write what they deserve.” So finally the current ruler who was governing that empire had two girls; the sons married them and regained their kingdom. Guru Charaṇom Me Āl Sathā Dī Ratha Hai. In the Vedas and in the Purāṇas, it is said that all pilgrimages reside in the lotus feet of Gurudeva. We all go to the four Dhāms: Badrināth, Kedārnāth, Yamunotrī, and Gangotrī. We visit all twelve Jyotirliṅgas. That is why Guru Dev created Jadan, Strilky, all these beautiful āśrams where everything is present. We do not need to go anywhere when we have Guru Dev. Rāma and Kṛṣṇa—we sing every day in our prayers—Lord Rāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa were incarnations of Lord Viṣṇu, and even they had to have Gurus, because without a Guru, life does not function. Even to learn ABCD or anything, we were taught by our parents, taught in schools, taught in colleges. Anyone who imparts any kind of knowledge is a guru—parents, teachers, friends, brothers, younger or older, it doesn’t matter. From wherever we can gain any type of knowledge, we should receive it. And to help us cross this ocean, the spider web of Māyā, we have our Śrī Satguru Dev. In India we say that a single dip in the holy Gaṅgā dissolves all our sins. Once upon a time, two paṇḍits left from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, in the heart of India, and started their journey towards Haridwār. Along the way they met many people, and one clever man told them, “If you want your pilgrimage to be fruitful and all your sins to be removed, then you should—it is recommended—only eat in the houses or ashrams where someone from that household has already taken a dip in the Gaṅgā.” So their journey continued. In the evening they would knock on doors: “Can we eat food? But we have one condition: have you bathed in the Gaṅgā?” “No.” “Then sorry, we won’t eat.” They kept this discipline; they only ate and slept in places where someone in the household had dipped in the Gaṅgā. One fine day, they were just a few kilometres from the Gaṅgā. They saw an āśram and decided they would sleep and eat there. In their minds they reasoned that the Gurujī who lived in the āśram surely must have taken a dip in the Gaṅgā, so they didn’t even think to ask. In India we have a saying, “Bhuket peet na hove bhajana gopāla,” which means when the stomach is empty, even singing bhajanas for the Lord doesn’t work. Well, they filled their stomachs. (Why do you think you all have dinner before satsaṅg? Any guesses? I wonder why. So, that jāṭarāgni inside, that needs something, you know.) After filling their stomachs, they went to have darśana of the Gurujī who lived in that āśrama. They asked, “Gurujī, how far is the Gaṅgā River from here?” “I don’t know.” They exclaimed, “You don’t know? That means you have never been to the Gaṅgā?” “No.” “Gurujī, what have we done? Our tapasyā is broken! For two, three months we have been walking, only eating in such places, and this Gurujī hasn’t even taken a dip in the Gaṅgā!” Gurujī simply went back into his room. But they sat outside completely shocked. “Now what?” That night they saw a fully black-dressed, very dirty woman walking through the ashram. She took a broom and started sweeping. Another came and started cleaning the temple. And then a third came. Yet all three of them, after touching the sand or the dust of the lotus feet of Guru Dev and placing it on their heads, turned into beautiful white women. The two visitors panicked: “What have we done? We have come to some man who does black magic! Women come all dirty and turn into glowing white beautiful women—what is going on?” Gathering courage, they asked, “Devī, who are you?” She answered, “I am Gaṅgā; this is Yamunā, and this is Sarasvatī.” They were stunned. The goddesses explained, “All of you people come every day and take a dip in the Gaṅgā with us, and that is why we become so dirty from all your sins. Then we come to Gurudev, and just the dust of his lotus feet purifies us completely.” Then the visitors saw Lord Śiva seated on His Nandī, performing parikramā of the Guru’s hut, and then Viṣṇu, Brahmā, and others. That is why it is said: in the lotus feet of Guru Dev, all gods, all goddesses, all pilgrimages—everything resides. That is why we are all blessed to have Guru Deva as Viśvagurujī. Only once in centuries does such a great Guru incarnate. They do not come to this earth for themselves; they come for us. And hopefully we are doing our part rightly so that we may finally reach our ultimate goal of self-realization and become free from this cycle of life and death. We are stuck in the cycle: 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 little, and then from the cradle we go home to school, home to school, home to school. Then it is work, home, work, home. Then comes something before the hospital: pension. Swamiji said, “This is not pension; this is tension.” Because then we start with… we die. So to get out of this cycle of death and birth, we need a guru to guide us. I am very happy to be here, though slightly tired and jet-lagged. But I am happy to see all of you, and I will be here until Guru Pūrṇimā. I will be with Gurudev for Guru Pūrṇimā and then return. I am leaving for India on the 8th and coming back on Saturday the 12th, one day before you are here. We will celebrate Guru Pūrṇimā on the 13th. So on the 13th morning I will briefly be here, but I will also try to come to the 12th evening satsaṅg. Enjoy your stay, enjoy this beautiful time, and don’t worry. This baggage we all brought with us is sitting outside, waiting for you when you leave the ashram. Hopefully that baggage will get lighter. All year long we fill 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, so our tension is also His. That is 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. We are His, He is ours, we have Him in our hearts, and He has us in our hearts. I have had a beautiful stay. Gurudev is very good, he is healthy, and everything is fine. He is now in Jadan; hopefully we see him soon here also. Either when I go back he will come with me, or a little later we will see—as you all know, we are living in the moment. But if Gurudeva resides in all of our hearts, and He is omnipresent and everlasting, that means He is always with us, within us, here, everywhere. Many blessings from Gurudeva. Much love from me. Kī Jai, Viśvaguru, Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Māheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Guru Deva Kī Jai, Sat Sanātana Dharma Kī Jai, Āj Kī Ānanda Kī Jai, Māta Pitā Guru Deva Kī Jai, Haraṇaṁava Pārvati Pādaye, Harahara Mahādeva Śaṁbho.