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Gurur Brahmā, Gurur Viṣṇu, Gurur Devo Maheśvara, Gurur Sākṣāt Param Brahma, Tasmai Śrī Guruve Namaḥ. Dhyāna-mūlaṁ gurur-mūrtiḥ, pūjā-mūlaṁ gurur-padaṁ, mantra-mūlaṁ gurur-vākyaṁ, mokṣa-mūlaṁ gurur-kṛpā. Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ... Good evening to all devotees of Śrī Gurudev, spiritual seekers, practitioners of various paths, as well as those engaged in yoga and daily life—to all bhaktas here in this hall and around the world. Brothers and sisters, good evening from Vienna, Austria, from Gurujī’s āśram. Today’s subject is beautiful, and I believe everyone will appreciate it. Many times, bhaktas and practitioners have asked me questions indirectly related to this theme. They ask what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. This subject is known as Mānasik Pūjā. Mānasik Pūjā means a mental ceremony or service to one’s Iṣṭadevatā. All of you know what Iṣṭadevatā means, and those who do not will understand now. The Iṣṭadevatā is your personal God. It does not matter which God, which form of God, which incarnation of God, or which Gurudev you believe in. When you are at a great distance, or when the Divine Incarnation is not physically with us, that which we believe in is our Iṣṭadevatā—be it Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, Hanumānjī, Gaṇeśajī, Jesus, Buddha, or Mahāprabhujī. As many of you know from the Guru Gītā, Mānasik Pūjā is a very beautiful part of meditation. At that time, we are in our vision or imagination, with our concentration, with our selfless thinking, with the bhāva, with the feeling of performing service or ceremony. That is a beautiful part of meditation. Many people ask questions: how to meditate, what to imagine, what not to imagine, what kind of guidance we have on our spiritual path, how to ask questions, how to serve God, and so on. Some advise meditating on empty space, a sunrise, a full moon, beautiful starry skies, beautiful flowers, a beach, a lake, an ocean, a forest, or a meadow—meaning some beautiful symbol where you just sit and feel one with nature. But that, too, after some time, becomes lonely. You sit there, but suddenly you feel an emptiness within. Every day, when you observe that same symbol of the landscape or ocean, you sit there observing, but suddenly you feel empty. You do nothing. And if we change many symbols or many things, then our vṛttis become too disturbed, and our inner attention, our inner self, does not know which subject to focus on. Therefore, the best solution is Mānasik Pūjā. When you perform Mānasik Pūjā, the mental ceremony, you emerge from your meditation full of strength, energy, love, and clarity. It is like when a pandit, a pujārī, or a priest—depending on the language—enters the temple where the altar is, closes the curtain of the altar to perform pūjā, change the deity’s dress, and make everything nice with decoration and so on. Then, the curtain opens. Everyone is standing with folded hands. They greet the pujārī, paṇḍit, or priest. And they also see how beautiful God’s monument, God’s statue, or God is. A devotee does not see the stone statue as a stone statue; they see reality. When the ceremony is done, the inauguration is complete. Consider a sculptor who is making a statue of a particular deity, a holy saint, or a god from a big stone. On this big rock, the raw material, he sits on it with his shoes and carves. But when he is finished, nicely done, then on a particular constellation, with a particular pūjā, that statue is kept for 24 hours in grains—wheat or rice. The next morning, it is washed with certain amṛta, pañca amṛta, Gaṅgā water. Then, on that very auspicious constellation, it is established on that altar, on that podium. Then pūjā is performed. That time signifies prāṇa pratiṣṭhā. Prāṇa means life. Pratiṣṭhā means stabilisation or inauguration. Now, there is a reality, like life, prāṇa. At that time, there is a culture: he bows down, he prostrates in front of the statue. Though before, he was sitting with a hammer and working on it, now it is on the altar, and he sees it is not his work anymore. Who is here? It is someone else. Like a mother, after certain months, gives a beautiful child or baby into our hands. You know what it means when a baby is born? It does not matter if it is a human’s baby or an animal’s baby. Out of nothing, just the work of Mother Nature or God—whatever we call it—in the womb of the mother, suddenly hands, legs, head, eyes—a beauty emerges. Similarly, on that altar, the statue is no longer a stone statue; there is life within it. A bhakta must have that kind of feeling. Otherwise, if you see all the statues and make prayer obligatory and perform pūjā, then you have not understood; you have not realized. When you come into the temple, ashram, or to the altar, you should know that the Iṣṭadevatā is sitting there. You greet, and He is accepting your greeting. At that time, your prayers, your requests—everything is heard directly. You are standing in that God’s house. That is called the cosmic God’s house, the cosmic court. That is the supreme court; the judge of the supreme court is Gurudev, sitting there, who will give the judgment of your good and bad karmas. He can order forgiveness; He can remove the karmas. In a similar way, let us go to a different example. You go to a flower shop. The person working there takes each flower and makes a beautiful arrangement with great care. You bring this bouquet of flowers in a pot, very nicely arranged. It would take time for us to do it like that, and again, it might not turn out as well. But that person is practiced and has feelings for which color, which flower to use. What we call decoration is always an expression of beauty, and that beauty is the imagination of your inner self. If you have no such feelings, imagination, or acceptance, you cannot do it. When you bring something nice for your wife for Christmas or her birthday, you go from one shop to another and ask the people, "Can you make nice packing? Can you do nice packing?" You bring nice decoration because... When you have a birthday and come home from the office, your wife does not go from one shop to another because, mostly, ladies have such beauty and decoration within themselves. She decorates and prepares a nice meal. It is a profession; it is a feeling. When you come home, you find, "Oh, how beautiful." The dining table is nicely set with some flowers. Mother knows, wife knows, sister knows, father knows, brother knows, husband knows. But if there is no love, you come home and say, "You know, my birthday is today." She says, "Yes, all the best for you." That is also a response. Then you say, "Yes, I know, but you are too old to congratulate, but still, happy birthday." She does not say, "All the best." "All the best" means all the time good things. But inside, she does not truly wish. Therefore, she said, "Yes, happy birthday." So, you see the love, respect, and feelings. When you go to the tailor and give the cloth, the tailor makes a dress for you with love and great attention, so that it is nicely cut, your body feels good, and you look beautiful. Or you go to the hairdresser. The hairdresser takes our hair, such a jungle, and suddenly within half an hour or 15-20 minutes, she or he makes it so nice; you look different. And you know how often you look in the mirror—yes, even while driving a car. Men do like this. That is a beauty, an expression. When you can make someone happy through your talents, that happiness comes back to you. When you arrange your flat, choose colors, windows, you try to make nice decoration. Why? Because you feel pleasant there. You feel relaxed. You feel happy. And when you are not happy, you always change your furniture from one corner to another. In Sikandera Ghase, for 12 years I slept in a room that was 5 meters long but only 2.3 meters wide. How many times did I put the bed here and there, thinking it would look nice here or there? One day I said, "You know, it does not matter how it will be; it will not look nice. You think it is nice, then it is nice." So when you act from the heart, then similarly in meditation, according to your tradition and your imaginations and expectations, you explore your love—meaning your devotion. And when there is love, there is devotion, then there are no questions in it. There is no demand. It is just from itself. As we say in German, it means that inside, it is clear. My self understands that. One day, Holy Gurujī and I were sitting in Jadana Ashram, or Jaipur Ashram—my memory is also a little old. We spoke many times about this. Holy Gurujī was doing his meditation, and I was talking outside to someone. Afterwards, Śrī Gurujī was a little strict. I will not tell you what he did. He pulled my ear—that is why I am hiding this ear under the cloth. I said, "What were you doing?" He said, "I was in Kathu." I said, "Why didn’t you take me to Kathu? How did you go so quickly?" Gurujī explained that he was doing his mānasik sevā to Mātā Prabhujī. This is his strength, his nourishment, and the day when he feels content that he has done Gurudev’s sevā. So I said, "How is that? What are you doing?" Gurujī explained, and that was a technique for me and for us. You can do this for Hanumānjī, Gaṇeśjī, Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, or any God you believe in, in church or temple. It is your connection to Gurudev, or even to your husband. You know, the husband likes when the wife has devotion to him. And the wife is doubly happy when the husband has devotion to her. This is called a ratio; here, devotion means respect. Devote your activities, your energies, your respect. That is devotion. And when there is no devotion, then devotion is growing. The opposite to devotion is devotion. We come now to the Iṣṭadevatā. Imagine that you are in the service of your Iṣṭadevatā. You wake up and sit in meditation with folded hands. There is a beautiful picture of Holy Gurujī doing his Mānasik Pūjā in Khattu Ashram, in his room, on the veranda. I think someone made a video or a nice photo. You could see the movements of Gurujī’s eyebrows and lips very gently, with a very fine smile, contentment, and happiness. It is a very beautiful, very, very beautiful mudrā photo. When Gurujī was 80 years old, can you imagine that for nearly 40 minutes he was doing this pūjā? That photo, we should get it. You should have it. We should have it. We can make it available to all bhaktas through our webcast. You will get it. Let me tell you the techniques of how Gurujī did it. What I do is not for 40 minutes; I do it very quickly. Gurujī tells me, "You are always in a hurry; you have no time." He always asked me, "We should write this book, and you should do this." I said, "Yes, next year," and then next year. Gurujī always said, "When will be your next year?" Always programs, programs. Gurujī had many programs, but he always found the time. He was very disciplined. I asked Gurujī, "A bhajan would be good." And in two hours, the bhajan was already there. Gurujī wrote it. He asked me to write one letter, and it took one month. After a month, Gurujī said, "Did you write the letter?" I said, "No, I had no time." So, Gurujī is coming in Brahmamuhūrta to Mahāprabhujī’s room and sees Mahāprabhujī sitting in meditation. Gurujī stands there with folded hands, having darśan. Mahāprabhujī speaks; He blesses him. Gurujī bows down to Him. Then Mahāprabhujī stands up to go to the bathroom. Before He goes, Gurujī goes and prepares the water buckets. At that time, there was no water tap that you could just open. He prepares warm and cold towels, clean towels, a small wooden table for sitting. Now he imagines that Mahāprabhujī is sitting in the meditation position. Then He stretches His legs to get up to go to the bathroom, and before that, Gurujī goes and checks, cleans everything. As He stands up, Gurujī holds Mahāprabhujī’s hand. He holds Gurujī’s hand, walks to the bathroom, and sits there. Gurujī pours the water and washes His back and body, gives Him a towel, and they come back. Gurujī performs Caraṇa Pūjā, applies Tilaka, offers a Mālā. Mahāprabhujī is sitting in divine form. Then Gurujī does prayer—the whole prayer while in Mānasik Pūjā. He imagines himself doing āratī, offering agarbattīs, ringing the bell—everything. His physical form is sitting with folded hands, and his astral form, the imaginary form, is acting. After that, he prepares warm milk because Mahāprabhujī did not drink milk, coffee, or tea—just milk with a little saffron inside, one glass of milk. After that, Mahāprabhujī receives bhaktas, sitting near Gurujī. Mahāprabhujī gives satsaṅg, and Gurujī goes and cleans, washes the laundry of Mahāprabhujī, cleans the bathrooms, the rooms, sweeps the terrace and verandah—everything. Afterwards, he sits there. Mahāprabhujī calls him and gives him prasāda, satsaṅg, and instructions for the day—upadeśa, mantra. This mantra means like this; in the Upaniṣad it is written about ātmā and so on. So, 15 minutes of upadeśa. Upadeśa means giving instructions, pūjās. Upadeśa means instructions—it is beautiful. Now, for this much time, mentally you are together. You are with it, and then you also receive prasāda. The day goes like this till evening—what to eat, doing caraṇa-sevā, then blessings and rest. There, you make praṇām and take permission to go to rest. This is a beautiful Mānasik Pūjā. Now, what you believe must not—I am not asking you to do it for Mahāprabhujī or Devapurījī or Kṛṣṇa, Buddha, or any other. You should have your own Iṣṭadevatā, and that is within you, within your heart. Therefore it is said: "Tell, Lord, merciful one, bestow thy mercy upon me with satsaṅg." And also it says: "Tere dāsan ke dās ham hove." All bhaktas who were sitting there, Gurujī was giving them chai, this, that—sevā. "Tere dāsan ke dās ham hove." So, do the sevā. Do not wait for him to do it or her to do it. This is his duty, and this duty—"I have no time to do the duty and this." O Lord, accept my sevā. When I serve your devotees, for me there are no other people. Your devotees, for me, are yourself. That is it. The devotee represents Gurudev, like your ambassador represents your president. The messenger, who is your messenger, is your representative. With such consciousness, pūjā, prāṇa, energy flows, and then you can end your meditation. So, how does the Mānasik Pūjā proceed? Let us say you had no chance to serve Kṛṣṇa. You had no chance to serve Rāma, or you did not see Hanumānjī. Maybe He was different than now. We have statues and pictures. Who knows how Kṛṣṇa looked? Everyone makes beautiful decoration, and this and that, and Rādhā is beside Him. Nowhere is Rādhā mentioned in our śāstras—nowhere. The name came afterwards. People created it. The faithful one of Kṛṣṇa was Rukmaṇī, and they have already put Rukmaṇī to one side. But let us say, did you see Rādhā? Here, Rādhā does not mean that female body or a woman. Rādhā means that devotion. So where God is, there is devotion. That is why Rādhā cannot exist without Kṛṣṇa, and without Kṛṣṇa, without Rādhā, Kṛṣṇa is incomplete. Kṛṣṇa is half. Because it is His glory, His mercy, that is reflecting. And devotion is that which has no doubt. So if Rādhā were to have a doubt, then she would not be that Rādhā whom one imagines. But who has seen this? Did you see? How are the pictures? Artists make the pictures. Do you see that Kṛṣṇa was like that? No. All these pictures you find in calendars and such are not to be put on altars. Kṛṣṇa was a Mahātma, a great soul. And all—Gopī means all female devotees, and Gopī means all male devotees. And did you see Jesus? How did He look? Do you have a real picture? No. But we have in our imagination what an artist tells, and imagination of how it could be. So for us, it is He. It is real if we see that. Now, how we can serve, how we can put our faith in it, that will reflect back to you. He does not require it. He does not need it. It is we who need it. It is we for whom that picture will manifest in our self while concentrating, concentrating. Like the story of the bee, the wasp, while listening to the nāda, becomes that wasp. So, how will you meditate? How will you imagine? How will you do your sevā pūjā? That is it. Sevā is pūjā; pūjā is sevā. That is Mānasik Pūjā. You sit; if not for one hour, at least you can do ten minutes. It will give immense peace the whole day. The whole day will be a beautiful day. Your heart will be full of pure love and devotion. And you will not be aggressive to anyone, because that love of God will reflect through you. You will understand the person. You will not be angry, you will not be aggressive, you will not be jealous, you will not be... You know, you will be like a good, nice breeze. When it is very hot, and suddenly a nice, cool breeze comes, you say, "Oh, it is very nice." Like this, your appearance will bring such life in everyone. As you heard in the lecture, satsaṅg, day before yesterday from Hamburg ashram: "Lord, please do not notice my bad qualities. You are known as equal vision one. If you wish, Lord, you can degrade me. Mere auguna chittana dharo, Lord, I have so many bad qualities, but do not notice; place in that. I am yours, I am yours." And that we explain in everyone. Not that you push someone away, do not take, "This is my sevā, this is my duty." No, give. We have to give it. And when you give some duty to others, it multiplies. It does not get less. Do not think that someone takes from your hand away. Never, never. It is good that work multiplies. Everyone gets. Once, Nārada came and said to Kṛṣṇa, "Yes, Lord. I am surprised, Kṛṣṇa, that they say you have 16,000 gopīs. How is it possible that you can be with all sixteen at once?" Kṛṣṇa said, "Go and ask them. Do not ask me." So Nārada went and knocked on one door. One gopī opened the door, and what he sees is Kṛṣṇa sitting and drinking milk there. He said, "Thank you," and closed the door. He went to the next door and knocked; the door opened. What Kṛṣṇa is doing is eating a banana. He closed the door and went to the third one. There, what Kṛṣṇa is doing—He was just sitting and looking toward Arjuna. Every room is open; Kṛṣṇa is inside. And there was, of course, no connecting door from room to room. So in every heart, in every heart, God’s light is reflecting. Maybe in a small creature, a big elephant, or a human. Everywhere is the light of God. That is called self-realization. Self means yourself. Realization is that you realize: your self, and everyone is your self. That is self-realization. Not that you say, "I am now self-realized. You are all sinners." No. If someone says, "You are all sinners," it means that one is the first one, that he or she is a sinner, that they see in you a sinner. And if we are sinners, we should not hate. Gandhiji said, "We hate the sin, but not the sinner." One sees equal vision, so God is equal to all. The father is equal to every child. The mother is equal to every child. And so His Iṣṭadevatā can be billions throughout the whole world, in every devotee’s citta and heart. Therefore, Mānasik Pūjā is beautiful, and you know your Iṣṭadevatā much better than anyone. In the whole universe, no one knows Him like you do. That is yours and God’s secret thing—not in that kind of secret, personal way, you know. It is like Mirabai, sitting beautifully in our bhajan, you know—the oneness of God, of Kṛṣṇa. So, Mānasik Pūjā. You may do 15 minutes tomorrow and try how it was. And tell me in the month of December when I come back. That should be enough for an evening webcast. Until then, I wish you all the best. And I wish that Mā Prabhujī, Devapurījī, Alagpurījī, Gurujī will appear—or any other to whom you believe. It will come. It will be. And I pray to Mā Prabhujī and our Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā to bless you with this life. Deep Dhan Bhagavān. And for the next webcast, all dear brothers and sisters, our next webcast will be in the beautiful city in Austria called Klagenfurt, in Carinthia, and we will be in Villach—another beautiful city of Austria, beautiful countryside. Austria, all in all, is very beautiful. The country where you are is also very beautiful. Bless you. Deep Nal Bhagavān.