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Teerath

The Guru's abode contains all sacred places. A story illustrates this. Two men undertook a pilgrimage to the Gaṅgā. A swāmī instructed them to lodge only where someone had been to the river. They followed this discipline for months. Nearing the river, they stayed with a sādhu without asking the required question. They learned he had never been to the Gaṅgā and were devastated, believing their vow broken. That night, three goddesses—Gaṅgā, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī—appeared. They explained they come to that ashram nightly to perform seva, to purify themselves of the sins absorbed from bathers. The pilgrims realized the holy place comes to the saint. They attained darśan without bathing. All holy places reside where a holy person lives. Service with pure intention is the greatest dharma.

"Where the Gurudev is living, there all 68 holy places are living."

"We come to the sun, the ashram, to do seva. That we can purify from those sins, from those impurities, to become pure and go back to take again the sin of others."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Guru Charaṇambe atsat firat hain. Therefore, where the Gurudev is living, there all 68 holy places are living. There is one story. It was a long time ago; holy Gurujī told it. It comes to my mind now. You see, when I was a small boy and I had to sit and listen to Gurujī’s satsaṅgas, I was with him since I was 12 years old. And you know what was my best topic? Gurujī was giving satsaṅgas, and I was doing like this. But then Gurujī began to tell some stories, and I was sitting, listening to them. And the stories remain still now. All stories that you have heard from your grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, friends—all stories remain in your subconscious. Other things you may forget. So, it’s a story about two people who wanted to go on a pilgrimage. From a place called Kachavad in the western part of India near the ocean, they decided to go to have a bath in the holy Gaṅgā. One day, one swāmī came to their village and was giving satsaṅg. They asked him, "Swāmījī, please bless us. We are going to the Ganges, and it will take a long time because we have to walk. It is mostly jungle, no trains, only horses, but the horse wouldn’t survive so long." So those two men decided to go. It was a few months’ journey, both sides. Swamiji said, "Do you want to go to bathe in the water, or do you want to have a darśan of Gaṅgā?" They said, "We want to have darśan of Gaṅgā and take baths." So he said, "Then follow one discipline. If you will follow this discipline, then be sure that you will see Holy Gaṅgā, Mother Gaṅgā." "Oh, Swami, what? What should we do?" "This is not a difficult one. In any village, wherever you go and you want to stay overnight in that village or city, stay only in that house where someone has been to the Gaṅgā. If not, if you don’t find someone, then better go away from that village or stay somewhere outside of the village." So in every village, when they came, they introduced themselves to various people and asked, "This is our saṅkalpa, and we would like to fulfill this. Is there anyone who has been to the Ganges?" So they found it. And there were some villages where there was nobody who had gone to the Ganges, so it took them four months to come to the Ganges. Now they were only about one kilometer or two kilometers far from the Ganges. It was already afternoon, five o’clock, and they were tired. So there was one hut of a sādhu, and they decided to stay with him. And they thought, "What is stupid about asking him if he had been to Gaṅgā?" They decided he had nothing to do; every day, going to the Ganges and having a holy bath. So without asking, they went there and stayed there. He gave them food, and after about nine o’clock in the evening, Swamiji was sitting there giving some satsaṅg to them. One of them asked, "Swāmījī, how far is the Gaṅgā from here?" So he said, "What’s that? Holy Gaṅgā. What do you want to do with that?" He said, "Holy river, where you can bathe." "I have a very nice water well. You can take the water and bathe." "Do you want to bathe?" "No, we want to go to the Ganges. Do you know how far it is?" He said, "I don’t know. I have never been there in my life." What a disappointment. Four months we were following hard discipline. And now, because of the sādhu, we trusted him. And he doesn’t even know where the Gaṅgā is. Both of them said, "Well, what to do? Our saṅkalpa is broken. Our anuṣṭhāna is broken this time." They were so disappointed. Anyhow, they slept. There were two huts. In one hut, he went in to sleep. In the other hut, he told them they could sleep there. Now they were so disappointed and so sad, they couldn’t sleep. And about twelve o’clock at night, three black cows came. Jakmile vstoupili na ten pozemek āśramu, V srdce. If he is a tāntrik or he is a magician, what will happen to us? And one came and began to sweep the ashram. The other was cleaning some pots that remained in the kitchen. And the third one was doing seva, giving water to the flowers. And they became white. Now they thought, "It must be some magic." And they came towards the hut where the two men were. So they said, "Please don’t do anything to us. We have done nothing. We only ate here, and we will pay the money tomorrow. We don’t know who you are, and it was our great mistake, perhaps, to come here." So one of them said, "No, brothers, no, no, no. You have done no mistake. It’s good that you came here. You are lucky." So they said, "What do you mean?" They said, "All three ladies were standing there nicely, in white dresses, and said, ’I am the Gaṅgā, she is Yamunā, and this other one is Sarasvatī. We are three sisters. In the daytime, worldly people come and bathe in us. They put their sins on us. We purify their sins. But where will we purify our sins?’ Therefore, we come to the sun, the ashram, to do seva. That we can purify from those sins, from those impurities, to become pure and go back to take again the sin of others." They said, "Thank you. We believe in that sādhu who told us. Do you want to have a darśan of Gaṅgā or only want to bathe in the water? Now we need not to go to the water." Next morning, both of them went to Swāmījī and prayed and said, "Sorry, we did not know who you are, but now we realize that even the holy place comes to you to become holy." So he said, "You are going to the Ganges now, bathing, no?" He said, "No. We bathed already. The whole night we had darśan. And we had more darśan than one could imagine. And Gaṅgā is longing for your darśan. How lucky we are that we have your darśan." And they turned back home. Therefore, it is said in this bhajan, "Guru Charaṇam may accept Tīratha He with Purāṇa Gāthe." So, where the holy person is living, all pilgrims are there. That’s it. So you need the bhāva to know what it is, and the sevā. Seva bhāva. So nothing is greater than the seva. Seva dharma is the greatest dharma of all dharmas. And seva dharma doesn’t need any argument. Where help is needed, argument is not needed. Therefore, all holy incarnations, saints, or gods, what you call them, they come to help us as a seva. But you can only do all this when you should have the antaḥkaraṇa pure, the pure antaḥkaraṇa. That’s it. So, that is to understand the story and the bhajan: "Guru charaṇamayat śarīrat hevo vedu prāṇagat." So, when you have been in Kumbh Melā—you know, many of you were there, and Gurujī came to Ilābhad where he was also not healthy, but he didn’t go to bathe in the Gaṅgā. Gurujī said that he is bathing every day in the Gaṅgā in the lotus feet of Mahāprabhujī. That’s it. He is who made the Gaṅgā. On je. A jinak Mahāprabhujī ho odsunete bokem.

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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