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We should be balanced with nature

Modern life has broken our natural rhythm, diminishing our vitality. Practice, not mere theory, is essential. My grandmaster lived 135 years by following nature's rhythm, like rising and sleeping with the sun. Our consciousness, like all life, moves through unconscious, subconscious, and conscious states. We are composed of the five elements. Yet, our current way of living defies natural law. Jet travel and inverted social schedules, like eating late and sleeping late, create imbalance. Our environment is also degraded; polluted air and water affect everyone, even with practices like yoga. The Bhagavad Gītā speaks of a fundamental disorder, varṇa saṅkara, now seen in how we make things seedless and alter nature. Unnatural living and eating reduce our lifespan. To live long, one must eat less. This requires the discipline of tolerance and sacrifice, which is very hard.

"Early to bed, early to rise—further I will not say, 'makes a man so and so.'"

"If you want to live long, then eat less."

Filming location: Ahmedabad, India

We believe, and Einstein said, "A ton of theory is nothing compared with a gram of practice." That is what is missing. You and I, as your master and my master have probably been doing. My grandmaster, who lived 135 years in very good health, then took jīva samādhi. I think it is a natural way of life to follow the rhythm of nature. "Early to bed, early to rise"—further I will not say, "makes a man so and so." Many times people ask me why I wear orange cloth. In India nobody asks, but in European countries they always ask me. I think this question has been asked of me now 765 times, and 765 times I gave the answer. Anyhow, I am not going to give the answer to you now. But one of my answers is there: when the sun rises, automatically the entire nature wakes up. The consciousness wakes up. And when the sun is setting, again, the consciousness goes to sleep. We, as individual beings, are caught by the five tattvas, pañchabhūta. This pañchabhūta is made of this prakṛti, and this prakṛti is also the five elements, pañchabhūta. Our consciousness is now pendling in three levels: unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. Unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. Similarly, it doesn't matter if it is a plant or an animal or a human; their consciousness is also moving—unconscious, subconscious, conscious. But now the human way of life is changed. We do not follow the natural law, and therefore we damage our life. I sleep in India, or I have my dinner in India, sleep on an aeroplane, breakfast in Europe, and lunch in New York, and next sleep in Atlanta, you see, or in Vancouver. That is our technology. The nature of the body does not accept this jet lag. This is how we damage our life. Our life has changed entirely. Chai āp ho yā chai maiṁ hūṁ. Either she or me or he who is sitting here—except maybe, I don't know, sister, excuse me—but I am mostly hungry when it is evening 9:30 or 10 o'clock. Because now our social life is like this. When everything is done, then we are hungry. We sit down and eat, and then we go to sleep. It is 1 o'clock, maybe 2 o'clock. And we get up then at 8 o'clock or 7 o'clock or 6 o'clock. We are a little sleeping. So this is one of the things: our life is not balanced with nature. The second is the Bhagavad Gītā. Unfortunately, someone who should have spoken about the Bhagavad Gītā... and the Bhagavad Gītā is indeed one of the greatest books in the world. Today, no one is able to change it till now. Any professor, chai vo professor of the language ho, chai poet ho, chai writer ho, koi bhī ho, not even the one, uskī mātrā tak badā ne badā saktā hai. Jitnā perfect hai. The Bhagavad Gītā is also speaking about varṇa saṅkara. So varṇa saṅkara is not only about the human race, but varṇa saṅkara is everything. Everything here, varṇa saṅkara is the... jānvaro ko varṇa saṅkara kar diyā. Everything has become, everything is made seedless, and that is also harming our life. So unnatural eating, unnatural way of living has reduced our life. Even I will try to practice my yoga and prāṇāyāma and ṣaṭ-karmaneti, dhautī, basti, and all this—but I inhale this air. What is in the air? It does influence my body. It influences this water. They can boil the pesticides that are in the water already. Where is the pure water? Nowhere. Even in the Himalayas you go, there is no pure water because of the pollution in the air. So, slowly, slowly, everything is minimizing. We want to make everything mini. So life has become also less, slowly, slowly less, unless this is kāraṇa. But still, one can manage to live a long life: less eating. If you want to live long, then eat less. This is one thing. But in our Rajasthan, it is said that eating gum and eating less is not easy. You know what is gum eating? To excuse. To excuse, forgiving someone, and eating less is very hard. Tolerance and sacrifice.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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