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Brahmābhyāsa, vairāgya, akhaṇḍa rahe. We are talking about abhyāsa. What is Brahmābhyāsa? Abhyāsa means practice. Brahma is the supreme one, Brahman. In the Vedas it is said, ahaṁ brahmāsmi—I am Brahman. I am the Ātmā. Myself is that divine self. I am not this body. I am the Ātmā. This abhyāsa, this kind of practice, one should do lifelong. This is our aim: to realize that Brahman. You can say that as a holy father. The holy father is not in the physical form, but as the Brahman, the God, to be one with Him. To become one with Him, that is our aim. Brahmābhyāsa vairāgya akhaṇḍa rahe. We cannot have Brahmābhyāsa unless we have vairāgya. Akhaṇḍa means unbreakable, everlasting, without any interruptions. Vairāgya means determination, detachment from everything. Whatever is existing here is temporary. Either you will be here temporarily in this physical body, or the things which we see will be temporary. Sooner or later, one day, we have to separate from these things. The reality is unchangeable, and that is Brahman. That is Supreme. Changing is this material world. The great Śaṅkarācārya said, "What is the pure Vairāgya?" Pure Vairāgya is: from here, from earth, till the Brahmaloka, all kinds of enjoyable things you sell, deny, like the dirt of a crow. You have no appetite for it. Our aim is that one: be one with God. Then there is another kind of Vairāgya that’s called Saṃsāra Vairāgya. Saṃsāra is the graveyard. When someone dies, people carry the body to the cemetery, what we call the funeral. At that time, all the people who came for the funeral thought, "My God, one day we all have to go. Nothing goes within the world. What is the sense of life? Finally, God is the ultimate one." This kind of thinking is vairāgya. But this vairāgya is only temporary. As soon as they come back from the funeral—in some countries, they go to a restaurant, get drinks and something to eat—and again the jokes begin. They forget the vairāgya. Such vairāgya is not a pure vairāgya. Such vairāgya cannot help you. You never know when such a vairāgya will change. Such a vairāgya is like a camel. You never know now which side the camel will take forward. A camel is sitting peacefully, and now you don’t know if he will roll to the left side or he will roll to the right side. Therefore, pure vairāgya, we need an akhaṇḍa vairāgya, without interruptions. I know what I want. I have decided on that, and all which supports me to achieve or realize my goal, I should do it. Brahmābhyāsa: constantly thinking, "Who am I?" Or, I am Brahman. Now, this means not that you completely neglect the world. That would not be healthy for the social life. We should not neglect life. We shall support life. We should do some good work. We have developed our intellect, we have developed our mind. So, what we call, we should be active and creative. So create nice bhajans, write nice stories, write nice books, create some spiritual work, do something, and live here for our fellow men. We will go away one day. But what do people have from us? They should have something good: good remembrance. When they remember us, they will be happy. Our remembrance, or when they will remember us, they will get inspiration. Be an example of a good yogī, a good human, a good father, a good mother, a good brother, a good sister, a good colleague, and a good friend. A good artist, a good person. And how to become good? You can become good just simply by being good. Good thinking. In your thinking, you should always think good. And good thinking is universal good thinking, not only in your favor, not selfish, but you should think of what is good for all. There was one man who came to the Master and said, "Master, I want to get self-realization. What should I do?" That Master, he had one famous sentence as his mantra. He always said, "Be good," so he tried to be good. He came next time to the master and said, "Master, what should I do?" The master said, "Be good." Now he began to be good with his wife, good to children, good to neighbors, good. To other people, he began to do good. One day he came and said, "Master, my father died." He said it’s good. He was angry. "My father died, and he said it’s good? I was angry. Master, why did you say it’s good?" He said, "It’s good, that’s why I said good." When he came next time, he said, "Master, what can I do?" "Be good." Now he tries his best to be good. Soon he got realization. He was so good. Good is good. So he came and he said, "Master, what do you say?" The Master said, "It is good." Always, he used to say, "Be good." And this time, Master said, "It is good." Then he realized that his father had a very unhappy life. He had a lot of pain; he was suffering. So his death was a kind of liberation for him. After that, when the father left this body, he was so happy. The soul finally was released from this suffering body. And he realized that it was good for his father. So he said, "Master, please excuse me." Master said, "For what?" "You remember, Master, one day you said to me, when I told you that my father died, and you said it’s good. I didn’t understand, but now I understand how good it was for my father to be released from this suffering." We are here selfish. Of course, we do love all our friends and parents and children and all. Our attachment is very strong. We think very much about them, but we shall understand the nature. We are sitting under this beautiful tree, its beautiful green leaves, but you will see in one and a half month they will begin to fall down. In winter, there will be no one leaf on the tree, and in the spring again, beautiful new leaves will come, the same size of the leaves, same design of the leaves. Same quality, same color, but it is other. So the world will remain the same; the changes are in it. That is not the same. We are born and we will die physically. Our ātmā is not born. Our ātmā will not die. Life goes on continuously. Life means life, not death. And death means death, not life. Smṛti means death, not life. So try to understand life. And what’s happening in life, good or bad, it has its sense. There was a very famous king, Bhaṭṭa. You know, these were Turkians. And he had one very clever, very intelligent secretary. His name was Birbal. One day, the Bhaṭṭa, he was training with a sword, fighting. And he injured his thigh. So he had about a 10 cm deep wound. Bleeding. So then they came and they put some remedy on it. And his secretary came to him in the evening, and in the morning to him. So Bhaṭṭa told him, "Birbal, yesterday I had an accident." He said, "What happened, Lord?" He said, "I cut my thigh with my sword. There is a deep wound on it." Birbal was silent for two seconds. And he said, "It’s good." And the king was so angry. Instead of feeling pity and saying, "Oh, I’m sorry that it happened," without expressing his sorrow, he simply said, "Good." "Get out of my house." Send him away. But he was such a good secretary; we always needed him. Somehow, after a few days, he called him back, just doing work. Bhaṭṭa was very angry. Bhaṭṭa was offended. The wound was healed. A few years passed. Bhaṭṭa forgot everything. One day, Bhaṭṭa took a few friends with him and went into the forest for hunting. Each of them were riding a horse. You see, that time was a lot of forest. Now in the world, forest is nearly destroyed. Compared with that time, forest and now we have only 25% left forest. And in some countries, only 3% is left. All the paper industries cut wood. Not furniture and burning, but mostly for the papers. I’m not against newspapers and newspaper companies. But I can tell you, when you buy a newspaper every day, it means you are supporting the destruction of the forest. Think from where the paper comes, and how much do you read the paper? You buy the newspaper, you just change the pages. And one article is interesting, "Yoga and Dead Life." Just five centimetres by three centimetres, that you read constantly. And the rest of the paper goes in the dustbin. Well, everyone was riding on horseback, and somehow all got lost. They couldn’t find the way back to each other, and Bhaṭṭa went so far. So he also lost the way. He did not know where to go back. He went very far, deep somewhere in the forest, jungle. And there they found some primitive people, and they were happy to see him. They caught him and said, "Well, today our offering will be successful. Because we have promised that deity that we will offer one human to the deity." So they caught him, they tied him to the tree, and they called their relatives. It took two, three days to call them. And then they took his dress off and washed him before offering him to some negative magic ceremonies, black magic. So the black magic priest came and made the ceremony and prayer, and after said, "Now bring him here." And they brought him, and suddenly the priest said, "No, no,... This is not a right person. He is unfit. How can you bring someone who is unfit? He is not useful." So they freed him, and they said, "Why is he unfit?" Because his body is not complete. He had a scar on his thigh, ten centimeters. He’s not a real officer, so they gave his dress back, and he took his horse. And the man told him, "Bring him out of the forest." He was so happy. "Thank you, God. Allah, thank you." He came back home, and he called Birbal. So Birbal came, and the Bhaṭṭa said, "I am sorry." He said, "For what, Lord? You say sorry? You never say sorry. What happened?" He said, "Do you remember I was so angry at you when I had a cut on my thigh? It was such a bad injury, and I told you out of pain, and you said, ’It’s good.’ Now I understand why it was good. You know, if I would have not..." This injury that time, I would have lost my life today. So we don’t know when something happens, what is good for it. And we do believe it’s God’s will. Same time, we don’t understand God’s will. But some time will come. The time will come someday, and we will understand what God’s will was. It was good. So think good, be good, and do good; speak good and hear good; eat good, sleep good, and practice good. That will make you the good. The good is the quality of God. So from the good, you take one zero away, it will become God. So the good will make the God. So, vairāgya means not to neglect the world, to accept the world, to do good things in the world. Leave the good work behind you. To be good is a practice. God Kṛṣṇa said to Arjuna, "Arjuna, you said practice, vairāgya, abhyāsa. Arjuna, you should practice Vairāgya every day. Then your moha and your suffering will disappear." Unless you have Vairāgya, the sorrows of life will not disappear, because we are too attached, and we think we cannot exist without this thing or that, and we think we will be lonely, we will be alone. When have you been together? Never. You came alone, and you will go alone. No one will go with you. Even if two die together by accident, still the soul has different destinies. They will not go together. Everyone has a different destiny in different directions, so learn to be good and do the vairāgya. There is one bhajan by Mahāprabhujī, "Vairāgya." You cannot realize without satsaṅg. Satsaṅg means someone who inspires us, who helps us, who explains to us, where we can feel in our heart the reality. Those words make clarity for us. The words spoken about the truth, so, abhyāsa. Therefore, Patañjali said, "Abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ." Through the abhyāsa practice of vairāgya, you shall control your vṛttis nirodha. Abhyāsa, abhyāsa, practice, practice, practice makes the master.