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Let us come to the point of practicing yoga. Many of you, when you came to yoga, had some imagination of what you came to practice. Many of you have realized this, many are on the way, and many have stopped practicing. Yoga is very, very old. For me, yoga is as old as the universe, because yoga means to keep a balance in the entire universe—among all visible and invisible elements, among all stars, planets, and the five elements. At the same time, balance here means between body, mind, consciousness, memory, intellect, emotion, and so on. It means that all functions in the body—the thousands of functions going on—need to be in balance. At the same time, there must be balance in family life and social life; it means all harmony in social life, family life, the harmony among the planets, and balanced harmony in our five elements. This harmony only comes if there is balance. This balance you can also understand in our social life as tolerance. Where there is mutual understanding and tolerance, then there is harmony. If not, then even between husband and wife, or parents and children, there is no harmony, because life is not in balance. If husband and wife have one opinion lifelong—not for one or two days—then you get power in heaven. So, where there is harmony, there is balance, and where there is balance, there is harmony. When these two principles are there, then what we call the union, the unity, the union of the individual to the universal one. The individual soul merges with the universal soul, or individual consciousness merges with the cosmic consciousness. So where there is balance and harmony, there is unity. There is oneness, and that’s the final aim of practicing yoga. Now, we all, creatures on this planet, and all souls which are in the astral plane, either around our planet or on other planets—it’s not that only life is on this planet. The biological system here is different, and therefore we appear here, we call it physically, out of these five elements. There are different things. The soul passed away. Where did the soul go? So when this life finishes, it does not mean that everything is finished. Feeling, memory, and awareness of being an individual are there. So, it means in the entire universe, the endless universe, in some forms, there are creatures, there are beings. And these all are originated from one cosmic consciousness, coming from that universal one. Now, the aim of every individual, whether they are nirguṇa or saguṇa, is to become one with the Universal One. Until this is not realized, each individual has to go through pleasant or unpleasant situations on this planet or on the other planets. We were one with the Universal One, but we lost that oneness, and we fell into the dvaita, duality. So we came from the pūrṇa, but we feel empty. So, the practice of yoga means those exercises, practices, are a technique for reunion. We had a union, but we separated, and now we would like to join again. So, how to join again? We are a part of the universal one, but we don’t want to be a part; we would like to be one with it. And so, the practicing of yoga means reunion. To realize that union of the individual, now, there are two forces. One is negative and one is positive, or we call it Āsurī Śakti and Daivī Śakti. Āsurī Śakti are the negative forces which divide us, which trouble us, and Daivī Śakti unites us, protects us, and gives happiness. Every creature, either in physical form or in astral form, day and night, is searching for that happiness. Whatever you are doing, you are searching for happiness. But the happiness which we think, that is limited. So when I speak about disappointment, it means not that some person is disappointing you. For example, you buy a very nice set for skiing: dress, shoes, socks, gloves, a cap, and nice skis. And now you would like to go for skiing this winter, but there’s no snow. Now you are disappointed, so there was no person who disappointed you. We may call it light, we may call it universal one, or we may call it divine, and so on. Finally, it is only one. And so this is the prime aim of the practice of yoga. And it’s a pity that many humans ignore this. But one day they will be sorry for that. As soon as you are young, you don’t mind, and you think, "I don’t need this, and I don’t need that." But the time will come when you will feel and you will see: the best time of my life I lost in ignorance. Now, what to do? Do I still have a chance? Yes. It is never too late. Just begin. Don’t think now is too late. Who knows? Suddenly, you will be liberated. You never know. Don’t give up until the last breath of life. Don’t give up hope. Whenever you wake up, begin from that time. Because it is said, every step will be counted. It’s easier for us to cover the distance as long as we are more healthy, capable, and movable. There is one point or one word called dependence. And there are many different kinds of difference. But to depend on someone or something is not good. But there are some things on which we must depend. We depend on our nourishment. Eating and drinking are the source of our life. There are some yogīs, maybe they don’t eat and drink. But this is not a general. It’s only like what you call, a blind hen also finds some time corn. So it’s not our aim that we don’t eat anymore and we can live just like this. So we do depend on our diet. We depend on our body. We depend on our eyes, on our ears, on our mobility, everything. As well, we depend on other people, and that can be healthy or unhealthy. And it is said, "If you are depending on someone, even in the dream, you will not be happy." And that’s why we have to free ourselves from this dependency. Try to minimize your needs. That means you will be less dependent. "Renounce and enjoy," Gandhījī said, and Gurujī said, "Enter the kingdom of the Lord through the gate of sacrifice." Sacrifice means give up, so limit your needs. Of course, what is very important for our living, we have to do it. Finally, we depend on God, and that is positive dependency. When you depend on someone who gives you knowledge, who gives you good ideas, who helps you, why not? We depend on many things. You are learning to drive a car. Now you are depending on the car driver, the master who is teaching you. That gives you knowledge. So after all this, the most terrible thing in our life is that dependency, physically. There was a day, and the same person, if you have to get a glass of water, and no one is there, it takes you a long time to move and get a glass of water. A few years ago, there was one elderly lady, about 80 or 85 or something like this, and physically she was not well, and she didn’t want to have the central heating in the room. The story is near Salzburg, and so she had one oil radiator. And living in a small room, so she felt very cold. And she sat near the radiator, and now the radiator is kept on her legs. And she was not able to get up, not able to push away. Can you imagine her legs burned? And she was shouting, screaming. No one helped her, and so she died. This is a dependency, so we can be a slave to anyone, but merciful Lord, don’t let us become dependents physically on someone where we are not able to eat and drink. What a life, and who knows how many lives we are repeating such things? So, dīn bandhu dīnānātha. Meridori, O Lord of Meekness, the string of my life is in your hand. Please move one day towards you. So, practicing yoga physically and mentally helps us to keep the body healthy, or at least movable. And it is in our hands. Still in your hands. You can do it. And in this modern world, with this technology, fast-moving, with all electronic instruments, the technology is at high speed. Means you are also on the high speed. When the aeroplane is flying with 1000 km speed, you are flying with 1000 km speed, and if it immediately stops, you will be capable of breaking all the safety belts. Even if you pull your chair out, it means your movement is with it. So in this hectic world, full of stress, competition, and challenges, yoga will save our life. To recover or maintain the stress. Immediately when you sit in meditation, like you take hundreds of kilos away from your body, from your mind. And therefore, it’s very important to practice āsanas, prāṇāyāma, meditation, and concentration, which is what we are all doing. And many of you didn’t practice at home, and many were not moving at home. You know, just to go a few streets far, we take a car. To buy bread or to visit someone. With the car, it takes 10 minutes, and parking to find takes 20 minutes. And again, we come 10 minutes by car, and parking takes us time to find. You find it far away, you walk 5 minutes again back. Now, just walking distance will be 20 minutes or 10 minutes, so for this 20 minutes, you waste one hour, but that’s city life. So we all do not move enough; for little, little things, we take transportation. So this one week here is a kāya kalab—regenerating the body, recharging the energy, and getting rid of the stress. Sitting and looking at this tree for five minutes, it is the best therapy to get rid of stress, because she has no pollution. The color of the trees is very friendly to our eyes. This air, oxygen, you can’t compare with anything. And can you imagine, in your office room, fully air conditioned, and you have your computer and you have your box, that you don’t talk to your colleague at all? They’re typing, looking, looking, looking in the box, looking, looking in the box, when you work 7 hours or 8 hours. Then, at least five hours you are looking in, and that doesn’t release your tension, that creates the tension. So when you come home, have some plant and put one candle there, put all electric lights off, oil lamp, key lamp. Some plant and sit and meditate. That will help you to recover from the stress of the day. And you will find yourself again.