TV Channel

Now, what is the main thing for all of us who are sitting here? It is to continue our practices. For many, it is not easy to continue. This includes many yoga teachers; they are teaching, they think it is their obligation, and they don’t practice. That is very sad. Many, many yoga teachers themselves don't practice, busy with different things. So, what is more important for us is continuity. Beginning anything in life is easier. To build a house is easy, but it is very hard to maintain it. Similarly, your spiritual sādhanā, or your physical sādhanā, needs a lot of inner effort. We know that it doesn’t matter what you are doing, whether just for physical health or spiritual development—both need practice, and practice with a very harmonious relation to your practices. If you lose your aim, it means you lost your motivation. If you are aware of your aim, there will be motivation. An ill person knows he wants to become healthy and goes to search for a doctor. It doesn’t matter how—walking, by car, by bus, by train—because that is the aim: to come to the doctor. Similarly, our aim is to achieve higher consciousness, and that needs constant motivation. Imagine there is a water well. Many don’t know what a water well is because when you have water at home, you turn a little piece of iron and water comes. But all the time it was not like that. In many countries now they have electric pumps, but in old times they used to take water from the well with a bucket and string. Now, this bucket is your sādhanā. That will bring water to quench your thirst. Between the water bucket and yourself is a string, and that rope is motivation, is willpower. You pull water out from 20 meters deep. Before you could reach the bucket to your hand, the bucket was still at 18 meters; it already came out. Only two meters were left, and the rope broke. What happened? The bucket will fall into the water well, and the water will also fall in. Now you are standing there with this 20-meter-long rope, which broke near the bucket. No water. This illustrates that our aim is to get that water through the bucket of our sādhanā, and that sādhanā needs positive thinking. You are doing your prayer and mantra, but inwardly you have negative thinking. It means your rope is very frazzled; it’s rotten, and it will break. So it depends on you whether you will be successful or not in whatever you are searching. You will only find it if the intensity of your search remains as it was in the beginning. You know, that’s why Gurujī said in one bhajan: "O Lord, day by day, my love should increase." And what is happening with you? Day by day, your love is decreasing. How will you achieve your goal? When the love is gone, everything is gone. Then comes disharmony in life—either with a partner, or children, or colleagues, or neighbors, or in your study, or in your profession. When you lose this love, then it’s finished. It is dying day by day, and when it’s dying day by day, it is very cruel. The cruelty is within you, not outside. Your negative thinking towards your aim is very bad. You should not have this thinking. But when you think selfishly to fulfill some material desires and wishes, and after some time when they are not fulfilled, then you are in doubt. Doubt is the first bacterium which will slowly, slowly kill your motivation. The bacteria are so fine, you don’t even see them in the air. They are so small, but these small bacteria can pull down or throw down a mighty elephant. There is one bacterium you need to see with a magnified glass, and there is an elephant you can touch and see with closed eyes. So how can this very tiny bacterium pull down the elephant to the ground? Your love is like a mighty mountain for an elephant. But your negative thinking—you are questioning why and how and when, and "if not, then finished"—these are our negative questions. That’s why it is very important to have continuity of our sādhanā. There was one yogī. Like you, sitting under a tree and meditating, having a mālā in his hand. After two hours of meditation, he suddenly got restlessness inside. Disappointment. A midlife crisis—a spiritual midlife crisis. "Oh God," he thought. "Now I have been practicing for 40 years. I didn’t get even one little spark of light, of enlightenment. I didn’t even see the small toes of God. I think everything is senseless. I wish I could at least have enjoyed the material life. No, yama and niyama: 'Don’t do this, don’t do that.' I did my mālā and sat here with nothing." These are the thoughts which come. Many people then give up meditation and practicing mantras. They begin with alcohol. They begin to eat meat again. They begin to quarrel with family members. This is not good. So that man who was sitting near the tree said, "More than half of my life is gone, and I didn’t achieve anything. I finished practice." He put the mālā down and began to think: "How many years I lost, but even if I give up, I can’t become young again. You can’t go back. And it has no sense to practice anymore. If I didn’t achieve anything in 40 years of practice—and I began when I was 30, now I’m 70—how long will I live now? Ten years, five years, maximum twenty years. You think I will achieve in these twenty years what I couldn’t achieve in forty years?" Doubt. Desperation. Anger toward his master. Luckily, the master was not there. And what he sees suddenly: one ant is climbing on the tree, having in its mouth a rice corn. After climbing half a meter, it lost the corn. The ant went down, searched for the corn, found it, and again began to climb. It climbed 30 centimeters and lost the corn. Again, it began to climb up. It climbed one meter—that was a very high achievement—and again lost the corn. It went down, searched, found it, and began to climb again. It climbed three meters and again lost it. Again, the ant was going down and found the corn. This time, this man tried to put the corn a little nearer to the tree to help her. She found the corn and finally climbed between two branches. There was a small hole, and she walked backwards into the hole and pulled the corn inside. The yogī who was sitting there, like you, desperate, said, "That’s it! That’s it, my God! This ant is my guru now. Never give up. Try, practice, practice, practice. Never give up. And finally, you will be able to bring your corn to the nest." So finally, you will come to your aim. The biggest obstacle is our motivation if we don’t have it. And then you go towards worldly thinking. Be sure this worldly thinking will not help you to achieve your goals. But it is this: lead your normal life and practice. Don’t stop practicing. Yesterday I came from Prague, and I was a little bit tired and went to sleep. There was a constant noise, a sound, a humming sound. This morning we found it was a water pump running. We put it off; it was peaceful, but there was no water. We started the pump again, and there was noise, but water was there. So it doesn’t matter how it is: if you want to have water, there is noise. If you don’t want noise, there is no water. This is like a story of that horseman. Now, in this civilization where people have many, many cars, many have never even seen a horse in reality, so you don’t know what it means that the horse is thirsty. So now, this sound of the pump is a good example. The problem is there. The problem is, life without problems—life is 85% boring. The best university, the school of life, is the problem. Problems are there to solve. Since humanity was created, problems began to exist, and every human is very busy working day and night. Some people have no time to eat, but still, the problem of the world is not solved. How many wars were in the past? How many humans were killed cruelly? Humans were thrown to the tigers and the lions alive. You know that? Unfortunately, religion was involved in it. The politicians, the kings, for their selfishness, they involved religion in it. "If you have a different belief, it means you don’t follow my politics." And very cruelly killed. And it’s still happening. This is not good. So many wars to correct something, to protect something, but still they are not successful. Problems are like bacteria, and you can’t block the bacteria. There is one man with a bacterium that has some influence. With this influence, he went to the airport to go to Singapore. He took the flight from Prague to London, and from London it flew to India, and from India to Singapore. When he came to Singapore, the bacterium was already there, greeting him. How? Because when he came to the airport, he brought the bacteria to the airport with his breath, and the person who got this took a flight direct to Singapore. The person who had the bacterium, the influencer, went to London, to India, and then to Singapore. So the bacteria were seven hours earlier than him in Singapore. So, the most intelligent creature is the bacterium. They know how to maintain. Therefore, the problem of life will never be solved. And this is why you should find time in between to have your sādhanā and have this love. Love is lost, everything is lost. Then you have no motivation. Okay, you practice mantra because you came here, and everyone is doing it, but you are making mantra and looking at the watch. Looking at the watch means I see there is no motivation. So we need love. Then you will see that everything is changed in your life. A dry plant gets regular water, and after a few weeks, there are new branches growing. New leaves are growing. A new life is coming out of the dying plant because of the water, light, and fertilizer. And so you need this inside: the water of love, the fertilizer of care, and the light of wisdom. This is very important for your happy life. That’s why we say yoga is harmony for body, mind, and soul. And that is possible. If you do it, then I wish you all the best and to keep your motivation. Make today a saṅkalpa: from today onwards, I will begin again my new yoga life. And do it. It will be very good for you.