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Lagan

A spiritual discourse on the power of unwavering focus, or lagan, drawing from the devotion of Mīrābāī.

"Without this lagan, you can't achieve anything in your life. Nothing can be successful without lagan."

"If your lagan is there, someone can try a thousand things, but your lagan will not change. That's it."

Swami Anand Arun explains the concept of lagan—total concentration and love—using the example of the saint Mīrābāī's single-pointed devotion to her Gurudeva. He contrasts this with a distracted mind, emphasizing that success in any endeavor requires this focused energy. To illustrate the consequences of its lack, he shares a parable about a restless disciple who, by constantly changing masters and practices, ruins the "garden of his heart," highlighting that spiritual realization demands patient, steadfast dedication.

Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Summer seminar

Mīrā said in one of her bhajans, "Lagan." Lagan means interest, your aim, your concentration. Your entire energy is drawn in that direction. Those who study with lagan pass their examinations, become the best students, and become the best workers, or the best ones in life—those who work with lagan. Who has no lagan? Go to the French. Fighting, running, playing, coming home, television—no interest in studying. No lagan. But there are some who take it seriously, with their heart and mind, body and soul; they are the best students. So when it is your own thing, then you work with lagan, with good concentration. And when you are employed somewhere, then you are doing just your duty. Lagan—that is a very interesting, very beautiful word. So Mīrābāī said, "My lagan, my intention, my concentration, my love, my entire being, my aim is fixed there on the holy lotus feet of my Gurudeva. I don't like anything else. Jag māyā sapnāṅ kī," because this saṃsāra, this world, is an illusion, like a dream. Every night we dream. Good or bad, it doesn't matter, but as soon as we open our eyes, it's gone. It's an illusion. What was yesterday, you can't bring back today. It was an illusion. This saṃsāra is an illusion; it is not repeated again. "Jag māyā svapnen kī." Therefore, this illusion is a dream, a changing dream. This dream is changing. There is no one or nothing that can come between. It doesn't matter what happens. It can pass centuries and centuries, life and life. "O Lord, Mīrā is your servant, your devotee for many, many lives; I have always been with you, but now, when will you come and give me darśan? I can't live without you. Why have you forgotten me in this life?" So, "I don't want anything to come between in this life." If your lagan is there, someone can try a thousand things, but your lagan will not change. That's it. Or you will change for a while, but for that, you will be against Śarī for a long, long time. So who knows with what purpose God lets us wait for something? Don't think that He doesn't know. Don't think that He is delaying purposely. He is more in a hurry than you. Therefore, lagan—without this lagan, you can't achieve anything in your life. Nothing can be successful without lagan. Even your family life cannot be successful without lagan. You have to have this lagan for your family, for your studies, for your meditation, for your hobbies, for everything. And then nothing can disturb you; nothing can change you. Many things will happen, many have happened, and many are happening, but you are like a mighty Himalaya, unmovable, there ever. That's mighty. So that lagan makes you mighty and strong. Otherwise, you change everything; your vichāra is changing, and you are suffering. How often have you damaged your heart? How often have you damaged your psyche? How often have you damaged your consciousness, your feelings? What did you achieve? Nothing. There is a story. One master was living in an āshram, and one disciple came for self-realization. "Three days? No problem. You will get self-realization." "So what should I do, Master?" "Just live here. Eat, work, practice mantra." "Okay, Master, you see." Five years, six years, ten years, twenty years passed. "Master, nothing happened. I have to say this." "Yes, I know. I am also observing nothing happened. I am very careful that nothing happens." One day, some people came to the āshram and spoke about some other master. "Oh, he was touching my head, and immediately I felt something going up, and you have nothing to work, and you can in meditation see energy moving." That is how you call blackmailing. So he became angry with his master, and he left. "You came with free will; you go with your free will." He stayed with another master a few years, also working, and nothing happened. Then someone came from some other group, talking of "energy meditation and light and something like this, and you don't need to eat anything, light energy." So he went there. Two years, nothing happened. Likewise, he changed about fifteen places; nothing happened. Now he became angry, very negative, criticizing, and said, "All masters, they are lying. Nothing is true, and I must go to them and tell them they should stop this. I will do systematically, one by one, go first to that master where I was the first time." So he went there. The master said, "But if you want, I can show you the right way where the mistake was. Ten days with me, but you have to do everything, anything I ask you to do." He said, "Ten days I will survive, I will do anything you tell me, I will do for my heart, but one thing I will not do: if you ask me to die, I will not do this, I will not die." The master said, "Well, that I will also not let you do." After two days, the master told him, "I see we have a garden somewhere with water, you dig here one water well." He said, "Yes, master, good idea, I will do." So he began to dig; the whole day he was digging. He did it in two and a half meters; evening he slept well. Next morning, the master said to him, "It's very nice, looks good work, but where you are digging there is no water, dig in that corner." "Okay, master." So he went to dig there; all day was working there, he could dig only one meter and was tired, his hands blistered. Next day master came and said, "Oh, that looks nice, then enough water, but salty, undrinkable at all, it will even destroy the vegetation, so don't do that, do it there." So he dug another place. The third day master came and said, "Well, it will come a rock which is very, very hard, and it's very hard to go through, so tomorrow dig it there." So for seven days, he let him dig seven places. On the eighth day, when the master came in the morning, the disciple threw the tools. "Don't say anything." The master said, "What?" "I know why you are coming to me now, that I should dig somewhere else." "I don't understand you, Master." "My first question is this: why don't you first meditate and see where is good and near water, that I could have dug there? And now in eight days I could have brought you nice water, but you are meditating every day only little, little. I am completely exhausted, look, my hands are flooding me, and ten days are gone, and what I got? Blisters on my hands, where's my enlightenment? Where's my enlightenment?" So the master said, "Yes, go ahead, not only ten days are gone, beautiful garden destroyed, and you know how many days it will take you to make this garden again equal?" The master said, "Yes, this I want to show you, answer to your mistakes. You went so many places now, so many years, you would have continuously faithfully practiced, today you will be completely other disciple. But the garden of your heart is completely destroyed. You dig so many holes in your heart, so many times you put yourself somewhere, confidence and away, and come and go. So it is you who disappoints yourself, no one else, don't blame anybody. And it is you who don't want; if you will like this, you would have already had, but you don't like that. You change always, you have no strength to wait and go through that life circumstances, like Mīrā said, and she went through circumstances as gold, as pure. You want to have that, but gold has to get under the heat, then comes pure gold out, that's it." So it's very important, lagan. If there is a lagan, you will do everywhere. When your lagan is in class somewhere, that there are some children under the blanket, they read some stories with the battery, because parents don't allow. Or some letters they read under the lap, because lagan, feeling. Feeling lost, everything is lost; this whole game is based on the feeling. This planet is the planet of the feeling. You know, it is said in other lokas there is no feelings. Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Summer seminar

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.

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