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The day before yesterday, we were speaking about āsanas. Let's now consider a complete technique of yoga. You know that yoga has many branches: Jñāna Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Rāja Yoga, and so on. But what does a practical way of yoga look like? What are the practices, and what kind of benefit do we get? As practitioners of yoga, we should have knowledge about this—many of you know this already, and many have mastered or practiced it, while many others do not know. First, when you want to begin with yoga, consider that all of you sitting here were not born practicing yoga. You try practicing yoga—are you not bored? You are bored. Your children might be different; perhaps those children are yogīs from birth. But let's speak about ourselves. What made you come and practice yoga? You did not know me before, and you did not know what yoga is. So how did you come to yoga? Some read books, some read in newspapers or saw it on television, and someone heard from someone else. But still, what was your decision? You heard that yoga is a healthy way to health, a way to get rid of stress, to realize inner peace, to be happy and satisfied with your body and mind, to feel physically and mentally free, and a good treatment for certain diseases. Something inspired you. You were looking for something, and that's why you came. I believe that you got it—if not 100%, then at least you got your satisfaction. The rest of what you want will come in time. It is said that the first thing we should think of is one thing. There is one motor, and that motor runs with petrol. Now, if you put water inside, do you think that the water will run the motor? Or if it's a steamboat that runs with steam and you put petrol inside, do you think it will function? Similarly, we should know this motor. Our whole body is one motor. What kind of substances does this body need to move or work healthily and properly? Definitely, this motor is not made to drink one liter of alcohol every day. So, what kind of nourishment we are taking is the first thing to consider in our life. One philosopher, I think it was a Greek philosopher, said: do we live for eating, or are we eating for living? Those who eat consciously, healthily, and in proper quantity are eating for living. The rest of us are living for eating. When one eats unconsciously and unhealthily, it means your body becomes that kind of motor which is destroying the food. There are two kinds of motors: one is consuming and one is producing. Too much eating contains a lot of food, but it doesn't produce that much energy. It does produce a lot of things, and that is disease—a lot of diseases. You know, modern civilization has one disease against which all are fighting: it's cancer. Now nearly every third person is dying because of cancer. It is believed that stress causes many diseases, but I think pollution and the nourishment we are taking also have a very big effect on the cause of this disease. So, in yoga, three things are very important to begin with: Āchār, Vichār, and Vihār. Āchār means your habits and your behavior. Vichār means thinking, your way of thinking—vichār je način razmišljanja, gondolkodás pozitív. Vihār is the atmosphere, the environment. In what kind of environment you are growing, what kind of friends you have—if you are all the time with friends who are abusing drugs, then be sure one day you will also begin to abuse drugs. If you are with sports people, then you will begin sports. So, it's very important in which circumstances and with whom you are living, and what kind of feedback you always have. It is very important with whom you hang out, in which environment you live, and what your reaction is in return. Āchār, Vichār, and Vihār should first be harmonized. Then comes Āhār, which means diet or nourishment. Food has a very, very big influence on our body, mind, and consciousness. If you don't believe it, then, for example, take a little tablet for diarrhea—for or against? You can think, "What I eat doesn't affect my body." You can think as much as you like; the tablet will show its effect. So, you see, this is a small example of how food influences our body. You are taking in the tablet you ingested. What we eat and drink has an influence on our body, mind, and consciousness. Now you are ready for practicing yoga. You have corrected, harmonized, and purified your Āchār, Vichār, Vihār, and Āhār. Before beginning with yoga, you should know for what purpose you want to do it. That aim should be in your mind. A champion who wants to be the world champion in swimming knows that he wants to become the champion, and he begins his training. So, in yoga, the first practices are āsanas, the postures I spoke about yesterday. These are dynamic movements, stretching, and postures. These three techniques should be in your physical exercises: dynamic movements, stretching, and postures. In the postures, we have to take care that the next posture is always a counter-posture. If you are bending forward, then the next posture should be bending backward. The slower you perform the postures, the more effective they will be. The slower you do the exercise, the more effective it will be; the faster you do it, the less effective it will be. The second is Prāṇāyāma. Prāṇa and Vyāya; Vyāya means exercise. Prāṇa is the life force, and we gain the maximum quantity of our life force energy through breathing. Breathing influences our body, our mind, and our consciousness. There are three kinds of Prāṇāyāma: they are called inhalation, exhalation, and retention—that's all. Rechak, Pūrak, and Kumbhak. In these three techniques—a kind of Prāṇāyāma, breathings—there are different techniques to breathe. These are then breath techniques, what we call in yoga Nāḍī Śodhana Prāṇāyāma, Sūrya Bhedī Prāṇāyāma, Chandra Bhedī Prāṇāyāma—these names you know. Bhasṭrikā Prāṇāyāma, Kapālabhāti Prāṇāyāma, Ujjāyī Prāṇāyāma—these are all different names of the techniques. Breath gives us extra strength for our body. If you have to lift a heavy weight, then you inhale and retain the breath inside, and then you lift it. If you do it the other way—exhale and retain the breath outside, and then lift the weight—it will not be so easy. Practicing Prāṇāyāma is one of the best techniques to get rid of stress, to develop concentration, and to calm down the nervous system. Yogīs say that breathing is more important than nourishment. The third is called Mudrās. Mudrās are also a kind of posture; the different kinds of mudrās have different effects on your body, on your mind, and also on the outer world. Mudrā means formulating some kind of sign through the body—to give a certain sign to the body. If you make a smiling mudrā, it doesn't matter who is who; you slightly smile and say, "Good day." "Hello, sir." The person is happy; you are happy; you create a happy atmosphere. Instead of saying this, you look at the sir and show your tongue. What kind of atmosphere will it create? Your tongue is not bad; your tongue is beautiful. It's clean, but in our education, in human society, to show the tongue is a little bit offensive. Other people will think you are crazy. So, the mudrās, our attitude in this world, affect our senses and the outer world. Mudrās also mean indication, and indication is a language. If you say to somebody like this, it means bye-bye. And if you tell someone like this, then it means please come. Every mudrā has its influence. So, in practicing the āsanas, there are also some mudrās. You can call them āsanas also; you need not call them mudrās. Yoga Mudrā is also an āsana. Yoga Mudrā is very helpful for the person who is very nervous, has depression, or is scared about something, as it can calm the person down very much. Yoga Mudrā helps those who are depressed or afraid. Then come the Bandhas. Bandha means to hold the energy, to keep the energy. You breathe in, and now you hold the breath in. It means you stop the breath; the energy doesn't flow away. And then you lift something. So, temporarily, you give the energy in, and that energy will support your inner energy center to produce more energy. Or if something is stopped or pressed, then the dormant energy will awaken. These are the four techniques: āsanas, Prāṇāyāmas, Mudrās, and Bandhas. This is what you are doing physically. Then comes the mental exercise. That is, first is relaxation. Then is concentration. Then come the Kriyās. Then comes Kriyā, and then comes meditation. Recording location: Hungary, Vep, Summer seminar