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Vedānta is one of the highest philosophies in the world. Veda is a science, the science of the entire universe. Veda means knowledge, and within the Veda there is everything that exists in the entire universe. The Vedas instruct us to lead a life in harmony with nature and with the universe. To live in harmony with nature means not only with our trees, water, earth, birds, dogs, cows, and deer, but harmony with the whole universe. That is a little hard for us to understand. Long ago, millions of years ago, the Ṛṣis, the great seers and sages, used to lead their life according to the Vedas. The Vedas we see now in written form are perhaps about five or six thousand years old. But before that, they were transmitted verbally from master to disciple. Therefore, the master or the wise one was known as a Brahmaniṣṭha Śrotriya. Brahmaniṣṭha means knower of the Brahman. Now there are three: Brahman, Brahmā, and Brahmin. Do not get mixed up. Brahman is God, one without a second. It is everywhere in the entire universe and has no form. That is called Brahman. Brahmā is one of the aspects of the trinity: creator, protector, and liberator. The creator is Brahmā, the protector is Viṣṇu, and the liberator is Śiva. Then there is Brahmin, a human being who studies all these holy scriptures, realizes everything, and possesses knowledge. The learned one, the wise philosopher who knows everything about this, is called a Brahmin. So now: Brahman, Brahmā, and Brahmin. It will take you a few years to know these differences, but you can write them down. It is very important to speak and to know; otherwise, you will not understand it at all. Those great seers were leading life according to the universal principle, not only the natural law. They were the great wise ones and inventors of the entire science of the universe. Nowadays, what the scientists are telling us about what is in the universe—they spend billions of dollars to fly into space and come back and tell us some stories. I can tell you, all this is written very clearly in the Vedas, more clearly than what they are telling us. So why do we not study the Vedas? It will not cost you billions of dollars. Everything is written in the Vedas. Everything. Nothing, till today, is discovered by any scientist which is not written in the Vedas. To lead a life according to the Vedas is called Vedic culture. The people of this culture developed and lived on the bank of the river Sarasvatī. The Sarasvatī River flowed from the south and west part of the Himalaya, where India is. It was a huge, mighty river, and the Ṛṣis living on its banks invented all this science. Therefore, it is also called Sarasvatī culture. From this Sarasvatī culture, they came to the Indus Valley and the Hindu Kush mountains. The Hindu Kush mountains begin from the middle of Turkey, go through Turkey and Afghanistan, and come to India. Still there is the ocean and Pakistan, and it connects again into the Himalaya. The Indus Valley is between that, and from this Indus Valley comes the word "Hindu". It is said the people living on the eastern, southern part of this were these families. They moved more into India and the Himalaya, and others moved towards the west. That is why they call it the Indo-German culture. They were the inventors of the science and Vedas, leading life according to Vedic culture. What is Vedic culture? Vedic culture is that you should respect and follow the natural and cosmic law. Try to adjust your life in this universe accordingly. If you are not able to do this, then you will be punished. Punished means you will be unhappy, ill, accidents will happen, and many such things. It was the Ṛṣis who brought this science of learning, meditation, mantra, and saṃskāras. Saṃskāras means, here I would say, initiations. According to the Vedic culture, which was accepted by Hinduism—the Hindu religion is one of the oldest religions in the world—there are sixteen saṃskāras for humans described, sixteen ceremonies in your life, beginning from the first day of your birth. When a child was born, the father used to write with a silver needle or something, with honey on the tongue of the child, "Oṃ". That was the first initiation. There are many initiations: the first hair cutting, naming, marriage, and everything. Finally, the 16th one is the last funeral ceremony. There was also a time to decide to have a child. They married and came together as couples, but not in the way we nowadays say in the world, "sex". That was not it. Their motto was not physical enjoyment. Their motto was to give birth to a child which would bring light and unity with itself into the world. For that, they were father and mother. For years long they were meditating. For years long they were praying, making purifications, having sāttvic, vegetarian, balanced food, using different kinds of nice herbs according to Āyurveda, which is also a creation of the yogīs from those Ṛṣis. Āyurveda is nothing but the diet. Not only a yogī, but humans should eat only according to Āyurveda, daily with the herbs and minerals. Then you will not die so early. In that time, people were living thousands of years. The great Ṛṣi Viśvāmitra lived more than 80,000 years. For us, it is difficult to live now even 80 years. How much have we been living? Because we do not take this law of life. In Āyurveda, the herbs have a life. These plants which we take inside, they are all looking at us and they are talking, "Why do you not utilize me? I will cure your disease." We do not understand this. This is a problem. Everything is one. A disciple comes to a master to have a mantra, ṛkṣā, and initiation, and the master gives him one duty: "Go and bring me a plant, it does not matter from where, which part of the world, the plant which is not useful at all for anything." The disciple went country to country, to the farmers and everywhere, and he asked them, "What is this plant good for? What are the good things? What are the bad things?" Everything. He wrote the manuscript, drew the picture of the plant, and wrote the name of the plant, and the good and bad of the plants. Then he came to the master and said, "Master Śrī, I think I failed. I did not pass my examination. I could not find anywhere on this planet a plant which is not good for something." The master said, "You pass the examination." His manuscripts, what he wrote, were adopted and accepted as Āyurveda—the science, the knowledge, the research. Similarly, what we call reading of the palm, face reading, palm reading, foot sole lines, this is called Samudra Śāstra in Sanskrit language. Samudra is ocean. Śāstra is philosophy. The ocean of the philosophy, or the philosophy of the ocean. When you dive, you live here near the water, maybe you did not dive so deep, but some can in some deed, and they can show us some pictures of how it was. When you go down, then the bottom of the ocean is very calm, and you see many patterns there. These are the patterns of the ocean of your consciousness and your destiny. Your destiny, your past, and your future can be read just on this palm. But we do not know anything; we say if it is good or not. Some ask why there are lines. Because you can fold your fist easily—that is all our knowledge. You ask a physiologist or doctor; they say these lines are just so that you can close properly. But there is a science in it. Maybe somebody who knows about palmistry can also tell about the line on the foot sole. There, between, and there one line goes from between the big toe and the small toes, and it goes straight till here, till your heel. My God, that is very rare in people. Mostly spiritual people, the self-realized saints, have it. When such a person enters your house, it brings good luck. When such a person comes to your business place and your shop, it brings you a lot of business and money, because this is a Lakṣmī Rekhā. Here is a Bhagya Rekhā. Bhagya means the destiny is here, and here is the Lakṣmī Rekhā, Agra Rekhā. So you can see on many saints these beautiful lines here, going here, and then here, wonderful lines on the foot soles. Many of you may have it, of course. You are also a great person, you are also a great saint. You have forgotten that you are a saint, that is it. There was one story. There was a monastery, and in the monastery a few monks were living, and these few monks were jealous of each other. The master who was leading the monastery passed away. Now among the disciples there was fighting. Unfortunately, around the world when the master goes, then all things fall apart because disciples cannot understand the master and cannot understand the mission of the master and cannot understand each other. So the monastery, nobody, none of them were cleaning, and all was dirty, and everything was just like a ruin. People were coming to the monastery, but slowly, slowly they stopped coming. No one was taking care of it, of the people. Everyone was jealous of each other. "I am the first disciple," and he said, "I am the first disciple." And another one said, "I was cleaning the master's room." And another one said, "I was cooking for the master. I was the special one." There was quarreling inside. It can happen. They are only named monk, but they are not still monk; they are like monkeys till you do not get realized. They actually were unhappy about all that happened. One day they went for a pilgrimage to see another monk who was about 170, 180 years old, a wise one. They went to see him and make praṇām, and then they were sitting near him and he was blessing. They said, "We have some problem. Our monastery, we are losing, and people do not come, and no one, none of us is taking care." He said, "Well, I cannot tell you this, but I only know one of you is the one of the greatest one." They went back, and everyone was thinking, "Probably I am that greatest one," and begins to take care of the monastery and cleaning every day, and people were coming, and they were preaching and helping and giving them soup, and the whole atmosphere became completely different. So it is difficult to understand what is here. The science of palmistry, Samudra Śāstra, is also invented by great saints. They made research work years and years. Not only this, animals also have signs. Horses have here one cakra, and if this cakra is going like this, ghamra we call, and this cakra is going other direction, it is very bad. This cakra that elephants and horses have here should not be below his eyes. So there are many, many signs on every animal and on the trees, everything. That is called Vedic science, Vedic culture. Similarly, astrology. Astrology is known as the third eye of God, Bhagavān kā Tṛtīya Netra. It is the third eye of the Lord, that is astrology. It is very important that an astrologer must be spiritual. An astrologer should not be greedy. Astrology should follow the physical, mental, and spiritual purities. It is a mathematic, but it is completely wrong to say it is a mathematic. In order to understand astrology, we have to use mathematics. So this is the third eye of the Lord. It took them so many years to know which planet has influence on the other planet. It is not an easy job. It is not one day's work. It is not one year. It is thousands of years of work to observe constantly the stars and planets and their energy. Now, how should we know how is the energy of Mars and Jupiter? We are sitting here. We should be good eating and good drinking, hurry home. That is our energy, that is all. But all this, because the universe is divided. One is called the entire universe, and the second is called thousands of the universe. These thousands of universes means there are thousands of sun systems. Each sun system has its own planets. Therefore, we are a special belonging to this part of this sun system. Therefore, these planets have influence on our body. Like different cells in the body, it does not matter where these organs are in the body, it has a meaning for the body. Only one ill cell, what they call nowadays cancer, one cell remains somewhere, can again create the cancer in the whole body. So one should not deny and say, "No, this is also astrology," but an astrologer should know the knowledge about astrology. Similarly, the indication of the nature. Some people believe and some do not believe, but you know, believe or not believing does not change the reality. No philosophy, no religion, no culture, no politics, and no any country can change the reality. Reality will always be reality. Therefore, the indication from the nature: when the cat is crossing the way, somebody says, "Poor cat, sometimes must cross the way." Yes, we have nothing against the cat. But the nature is giving us an indication. If it is your house cat, she is very happy and unhappy because you are going there while she is running in front of you. She comes back quickly, that is okay. So again, we have to understand indication of the trees, indication of the fish and flow of the water, the air when you are going, how the air is. Also the flow of your nostrils. When you should step out of your house, you are going. A moment, get prasāda. Marcus, give them some prasāda, some fruits. They are in a hurry. You should only step out of your house when you get up, check which nostril is flowing more, right or left, and with that leg you should put out of the house first. You will have victory. You will have a good journey. There will be no accident, nothing will happen. Do not forget this. It is just very simple. Second, when you wake up in the morning, you should get out from the bed and touch the first floor or the ground with that foot which nostril is flowing. This is called the science of Svara Yoga. That is a very beautiful and very, very good science. It is a little complicated. Everything is complicated if we do not know. But Hari Oṃ, Hari Oṃ. It is beautiful and useful. Perhaps next time we will have Nāda Yoga, Svara Yoga. When you follow Svara Yoga, you know when you will die, but you will only know when you have got realization. Otherwise, you will be nervous today if you know that you will die in five years. My God, you would sell all property. So this is a call of Vedic culture. The moon has its meaning, the sun has its meaning, full moon has its meaning. New moon has its meaning. The eleventh day of the moon has its meaning. The dark night, the no moon night, has its meaning. Everything. That is called Vedic culture, and that is also functioning in our body, and that can influence our body consciousness and environment very, very much. That is called Vedic culture, and Vedānta is coming from it. The essence of the Vedas is Vedānta. The last essence of the Vedas is Vedānta. And the last essence of the Vedānta is, in one word I can tell you, that you are the immortal one. No weapon can kill you. No elements can destroy you. Death cannot take you away. All the problems will be solved only when you will know this: who are you? Know thyself, who are you? I am not the body. I am not this mind. I am not these senses. I am not this desire. I am not these thoughts. But I am the Supreme, the Divine. That is the teaching of the Vedānta and Vedic culture. So Vedic culture is not only for Hindus. Vedic culture was not only for India; the whole planet belongs to the Vedic culture. All seasons, every month has its own meaning. For every month there is a pūjā, a ceremony for how the month is entering. Now, according to this, we are ending tomorrow, and day after tomorrow begins the new month. Every beginning of a new month is after the moon. All other calendars have no meaning; only the moon calendars have the right meaning. I am happy to be in this Vedic culture center for all Vedic studies, and so on, whatever you are doing—I do not know what you are doing—there are so many things. There is a yajña, there is chanting, there is a mantra, there is a tilak, there is pinching of the ear. This is also Vedic culture; this is for the health. I am happy that at least it has become a fashion that ladies are pinching their nose, and somebody is here and somebody is there. In Vedic, it is not on the navel, but that is it. It is a science. Wish you all the best. God bless you all. Recording location: Australia, Sydney, Australian Tour