TV Channel

You should practice systematically at least once, from the first step to the last. Master that. It is not enough that you practiced headstand for three months and now consider it mastered. To perform the posture and to practice are two different things. Performing postures is only learning how to do them. Practice is mastering them and doing them lifelong. You know that, and you have perhaps heard or read, that yoga is so much appreciated now, especially in health departments. It is the best prevention as well as therapy. If you or I have some physical problems, it is our own mistake, because we do not practice, to be honest. We neglect it, and that is why we have to take so many tablets every day. Sometimes it is too late. Something which is damaged is hard to repair again. But why did it happen? You neglected, we neglected. There was a beautiful field, and a farmer grew nice sunflowers there, and they were beautiful. They were just right, and the farmer went on holiday, somewhere on the coast of Magdala, Borskobalu. There he fell into some circumstances, computational sores. He said, "When I come, I will harvest my crops." He enjoyed a one-month holiday. On the other side, the birds enjoyed the sunflower field. When he came back, the farmer held his head and said, "My God, all the crops are eaten. I wasted all my money on holidays, and now nothing remains for me here." He was so sad, and there Kabīr Dās said, "O my mind, you did not guard, you did not take care, that is why the birds have eaten your crops. Now crying while holding your head does not help. They ate and they flew away." Similarly, this body is a field, and we have beautiful flowers inside, and everything inside, but we became so careless, and we are not aware of this. We are healthy, young, strong, movable, beautiful, and that is all. We think, "I do not need this. I will practice tomorrow, or in the evening." Or in the evening someone calls you, "Do you want to go with me to the cinema?" You say, "Okay." We are healthy and we do not think about this. Or we keep ourselves so busy that we have no time to do it. But that is not an excuse; it is our mistake. We should accept it, our mistake. We were and we are careless. Otherwise, yoga, if you have yoga, you must be rich, physically healthy, and mentally healthy. We have here many disciples who are examples for us. One of our elderly disciples, a long-year disciple, is Viṣṇupurī from Zagreb. Ten years ago, they diagnosed that he had lung cancer or had some tumor. They had to operate, and he asked me what to do. I said, "Operate." That definitely damaged some part of his lungs. But he kept on practicing in such a way, disciplined and correctly, that his lungs are healthier and more capable than the lungs of many of us here. He practiced very carefully, very seriously, so that his senses are now so good, so capable, that they are better than many others. So, knowledge is good, but still, that is theory. We can talk a lot about food: which food is healthy, which food is not healthy. "That is not good to eat, and this is not good to eat. That kind of food is very tasty and very delicious," and so on. We only talk, but we eat only this now. So your stomach will not be full. You have to eat something. So all knowledge and all talking is theory. Information is good, very good, but still not enough. We have to put it into practice. We need to eat physically, we need to feel physically, we need to move physically. We are here existing as physical beings. To keep this physical being movable, capable, and healthier is yoga. Yoga serves to keep our body active, healthy, and happy. After achieving a certain level in your practices, then you should decide. Which exercise you would like to do, and which you would like to keep out. There was a question from Gajanan yesterday. About Ujjāyī Prāṇāyāma, for one round he needs many minutes. But it is not written how many minutes you should breathe in. It is written the breathing is like in deep sleep. It means fifty percent longer than normal breath. But if you breathe in for one minute and out for one minute, then five rounds will take time, and of course, the whole day you will be out of practice. There is an individual program. An individual program you can only make when you have mastered everything, then you can decide which and how long you want to do it. So, in this way you should understand what is written in the books. They have written after nearly every exercise, relax a little. Now, many understand that after every āsana, one exercise, you must lie down and relax. At least you should relax one minute or two minutes. So when you do 40 minutes of exercises, 20 minutes you are relaxing, or 30 minutes. Therefore, first learn under a teacher, and then you design your own program according to your time and your capacity. When we do the prāṇāyāma, Nāḍī Śodhana, 20 rounds, one finishes in four minutes, four rounds. Not even four minutes, they do like this. And we have one Vienna practitioner, Yogananda, he inhales 80 seconds and he exhales 180 seconds. And all who are sitting there, again we try, and again we try, it's boring for others. That's why an individual program is different than a general program. Books are not written for individuals. Books are written generally, that's the option for all, the flesh. So, it is written in the book, clearly, very important is the counter-pose. If you bend forward, then you should bend backward. Always contrapose. And mostly all exercises that we have, they are contraposes, so we know that Sukhā Vajrāsana, Matsyāsana, Ākāśī Mudrā, these are the contrapose for the Sarvāṅgāsana and for the Viparītakaraṇī Mudrā and for the Jālandhara Bandha. One father sent his son with a car to the city to go and bring medicine. So, he went to the chemist and got the medicine. Meanwhile, the mother called the chemist's shop, "Please tell my son he should bring one litre of milk." So he came home with medicine only. And the mother asked, "Where is the milk?" "Father gave me the car only to go and bring the medicine." So first I bring the medicine. And now I go to bring the milk, so we shall use our logic, that's part of yoga. So you have to design, create your own program after mastering or finishing eight levels. You have to plan, you have to create your own program after you have completed all the exercises. And it is written for many different diseases which posture is good. Maybe it is not good for something or for someone. Here you shall try individually. Otherwise, the "Yoga in Daily Life" book has become a handbook for many yoga teachers. In many countries, even we don't know them, who are teaching yoga, and they are now proudly using the book. So, what I want to tell you is this, tomorrow begin seriously to practice. Throughout the whole year. Thank you very much, you are welcome, thank you very much. Recording location: Hungary, Vep, Summer seminar