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The Rakṣābandhan ceremony comes once a year. Where is the need for it? This is a very good question. Rakṣābandhan began at a time when people did not trust each other. There was no security, especially for women. In our modern terms, we may say Rakṣābandhan is about security. This need developed slowly as humans tried to secure their borders. Kings had their territory within their kingdom, and that was the border of their land. Yet, several centuries ago, in the beginning, it was known as Rāmrājya. Rāmrājya means the kingdom of God, where all humans were free to travel and free to choose their place to live. But it is in nature that all remain together as a family. No one would like to leave their family, friends, or society. So, people did not have an interest in going to different parts of the world; they were happy. They had enough to eat and enough for their everyday needs. There was no question of organic production because, at that time, there was no question of pollution—except one, which is mental pollution, the pollution of the human mind. There was a time when people respected each other and all were happy. That is known as Rāmrājya. Then greed appeared in the minds of people—so-called clever people, or those with physical strength. They built a group, and one became the leader, declared as a king. They tried to secure or seal the land known as their kingdom. But at that time also, humans were happier and free to come and go. It was the pride of a king that in his kingdom so many people were there, the population was so big. If someone left a kingdom and immigrated to another, it was a shame for that king, a sign he was not capable of looking after his people. If someone left the village for another, the whole village was unhappy and requested the person to please return. That mutual love, respect, and security they had. Slowly, one system developed that is called nīti, ethical principles. Nīti was created by ṛṣis. The ṛṣis gave rules and regulations for human society to look after their villagers, after humans, and to look after nature. They may make a hut anywhere they want, but they are not allowed to cut any trees and not to kill the animals—though at that time also, still, some humans were hunting and eating meat, not all. That nīti is such a higher education and varṇa vyavasthā, management of the society. The great saints gave these responsibilities to someone who was spiritually capable, a person of good reputation in society. They gave the responsibility to them. "Tak to mi dali odpovědnost, teď se budeš starat o lidi na tomto království." These people were declared as kings. King means rājā. So, rājā nīti. Nīti is created by ṛṣis, and rājā is the king. Now, rājanīti literally for us means politics. Every system of politics is designed for the well-being of humans, protection of the environment, protection of other creatures, and so on. Unfortunately, the greed of humans increased. So, they created borders and security. Now, this border and security is called Rakṣā Bandhan. Bandhan means tie. So, you have your border of your country. Sometimes humans didn't trust other humans; they even sealed the border with iron threads. There were not only iron threads but also walls, high big walls, like you have between China and India. That is a security wall to show this is my territory. Also, now in this last century and the beginning of this century, we see also, to protect themselves, they began to make a wall in Israel. So, humans are afraid of others. Similarly, it began with the women. The wars were always, from the beginning of creation, between these two forces: āsurī and daivī śakti, the negative force and the positive. You see, you saw, and you will see more. For example, what we see in the evening video program. So, always humans have been fighting for power. Where one person is greedy and would like to have this power, hundreds of thousands, millions of people have to suffer and give their life for the sake of that person's contentment. Likewise, when the wars were there, mostly or always, only the men had a right to go to the war. It was not sure if a soldier would come back. Even now, where civil wars are going on, or from time to time two countries have a crisis, we don't know if our young men as soldiers will come home. Only God knows, and God protects all of them, no matter from which border, which country, or from which side they are fighting. Millions of children remain without a father, which means also millions of widows; families broke, and anger and hate awoke in people's minds. Therefore, there is always a question of security. We are concerned about security, and we know day by day not only the life of other creatures and vegetation, but also human life is threatened. We never know when something can happen or explode; only God protects us, and God protects others, and best is that God protects their intellect. Therefore, it is said in the mantra: all should live in happiness and all should achieve divine consciousness or mokṣa. Śubhaṁ karoti kalyāṇam, ārogyaṁ dhana-sampadā. Ārogya means healthy. May all live healthy. Humans, animals, oceans, water, air, and the entire planet may be healthy. Śubhaṁ karoti kalyāṇam, ārogyaṁ dhana-sampadā, and may the humans have enough of what they need. Dhana means prosperity, dhana means wealth, dhana means material needs. May God give everyone what they need so they don't fight, they don't steal. But the greed of the human went so far: when you have a hundred dollars, you would like to have two hundred, and when you have two hundred, you would like to have thousands, and when you have thousands, you would like to have hundreds of thousands and millions and billions. The so-called most wealthy or richest person of this world is not happy, not relaxed, always living in fear. How many alarms, how many dogs, and so on; are they happy? So, it is said that money will never make you happy. Money will not make you happy; happiness will come from health and harmony in society and family. That's what Jesus said also when people were playing with gold in front of the temples. So, he indicates: what you believe, this gold is like a god. But this is a wrong god. Don't believe in this wrong god. Believe what I tell you. I am the way to the Father. That means indicating towards these material things, the money. Money is the main reason why people are fighting. So, śubhaṁ karoti kalyāṇam ārogyaṁ dhana sampadā. Sampadā means harmony. Sampadā means harmony, that we all live in harmony. Where there is jealousy, hate, anger, greed, there cannot be harmony. But when one is content, there is automatically harmony there. In these mantras: "Dhanasampadā, Śatru buddhi vināśāya." That's a very important sentence. "Śatru" means the enemy. "Buddhi" means the intellect, "vināśāya" means to destroy. Oh Lord, remove those thoughts of the enemies who would like to take revenge or harm someone emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, politically, spiritually, and so on. Such buddhi, oh Lord, take away from us. And when such buddhi is gone, then we don't have a śatru, meaning enemy; we have only friends, mitra. And mitra means friends. "Śatru buddhi vināśāya dīpa jyotir namastu te." I adore, my salutation to that divine flame, divine light. Of dīpa, the light. And for us, it's Mahāprabhujī, because Mahāprabhujī is carrying the name of Dīpa. Therefore, we know that ages and ages there was always fighting and fighting. What did they get out of it? Let's say someone was fighting for this land where we are sitting, the Czech Republic. How many kings were killed? How many people were killed? Where are they now? The winner, where are they now? The loser, where are they now? Did they take a little hundred grams of the earth with them? No, nothing. Nothing, and nothing, and nothing will go with you. Then why are you fighting? So, there was, time to time, injustice. Injustice towards children, injustice to some families. And unfortunately, injustice towards women. In such a critical situation, for the sake of protection of our mothers and sisters, they made new rules, new laws, and made people aware that we should respect and love them. In no wars were the women allowed to go for fighting. There was a time, when wars were going on, that time there were no guns and no bombs. They were fighting with their arms. If a woman would go between the battlefield, they all would stand up and throw their weapons down. That was power and respect towards women. That's it. Unfortunately, that's also lost. And so, in certain situations, they made one beautiful thought: to see in everyone as your sister. In India, when we see an elderly woman, it doesn't matter who she is or where she comes from, even if we see her for the first time, we will call her Māṭājī. If she is about 20 or 25 years older than you, it doesn't matter who. Our culture will always tell you, you are not allowed to say, "Hey, lady." My God, mother. When you say mother, then it is said that your words you should keep and see in her as your own mother. And you will never do something wrong to your mother. And mother, she will have love awake in her heart towards you, her child. A mother can never be a bad mother, except some individual cases if she is mentally, unfortunately, not healthy. Otherwise, "Mātā bhāvati na kumātā," in nature always, the feminine power has a feeling of protection, the love. And if you see someone who is about your age or 10 years younger than you, or maybe 15 years younger, we will call her sister. We will call her sister, and sister means your own sister. You will never do bad things to your sister. You will never cheat your sister. But now people have forgotten. Now people don't see her. Ma'am, miss. Miss. He misses that wisdom. And when they are younger than you, 20 years and so on, you have the right to say, "My child, my daughter, my son." Yes, you will automatically say, "My son, don't do wrong things." It means you see the young kids as your own child. And when you see your own child, these young kids, you will never do wrong things to them. There is a big problem now that children are abused, misused. If this consciousness will be in people's minds, that this child is my own child, we'll never do this, except when it's him. There are many problems with tourists going to different countries, abusing small children. Why does this happen? Because education is missing in those people's minds. They are closed and become individualistic. When they don't trust others, they are your enemy. Your neighbors, no, it doesn't matter. It's not my coffee, it's her coffee, his coffee. That's why things are happening like this. So you have a relation; there's one woman, you have a relation of mother, you have a relation of sister, you have a relation of the daughter. It means the other side too. She has a relation of the child, relation of the brother, or relation of the father. Also, girls to girls, they also say the same thing. The elderly person, mother; the equal age, sister; and the small one, daughter. Such a way of thinking, such a culture, unites society. And this we have to teach. We have to make it clear in children's minds. Then you will have no problems, and you will find a good wife or good husband, and there will be no question of divorce. Yeah, there are many boys or many girls, and they would like to marry, but he or she is not sure inside if this person will not get divorced after three years. And the person, how many times has this person experienced disappointments, the pain? Where is the security? Today we need family security. We need security for our kids. In such a critical situation, there was a very clever woman, and the king wanted to rape her. And she took this rākhī, it faded in her hand, and she tied it on his hand and said, "This is the Rakṣā Bandhan." This is the security knot. It means you are my brother and I am your sister. Your brother's duty is always to protect the sister, and he did. And that time, this festival—it's not a religion, it's not some culture—but it is for the well-being of the feminine power in the world. And so, I'm happy that today again we had the opportunity to be here in our Strilky Āshram and have this beautiful celebration of this day on Full Moon Day, dedicated to the sisters. And sisters were very lucky today because we had two Full Moons; it was a double festival. Rakṣā Bandhan, who forgot yesterday can do today. And if you are not with your sister physically, you can phone her. Now we have many possibilities. So you can phone your sister today. My dear sister, if she's elder than you, then say, "My respect, praṇām to you." If she's younger than you, "I bless you today for this Rakṣābandhan. I hope you are well, you are healthy, everything is okay. If I can do anything, please let me know anytime. I'm your brother." That's it. You know, to be a sister of a brother is a source of pride for the sister. When someone comes, there's one sister here, only one brother, and there are two sisters. And if some other people attack these girls, they will say, "Hey, I have a brother who has big muscles, you know, so he is a protection for his sister," and the brother will say proudly, "I am the lucky one, I have two sisters, three sisters." There are some families that have six sisters and the seventh one is one brother, and can you imagine, this one brother is the luckiest, because he's spoiled by six sisters. So the brother is proud to have a sister. And the sister is proud to have a brother. And they respect and protect each other. And this festival, which we begin to do also, is not a kind of what you will call maybe religion or this, but the morals and ethical protection for both sides, for men and for women. That's beautiful. And it's not only that today you remember her, not only once a year. Also on Guru Pūrṇimā, Dīvālī, Holī, Śivarātri, Christmas, birthdays, all the special occasions, you should remember your sister and your brother. One day, if he doesn't phone you on your birthday, the next day you should tell him, "Do you know what was yesterday? How do you know that you don't know? My birthday, yes, sorry, sorry, ... all the best." So it doesn't matter, always remind him or her to have a pure relation. A pure relation will create what we call brotherhood. There is one sentence, what's called brotherhood, and this brotherhood is missing. If there will be brotherhood, there will be no war, there will be no wars, because we see others as our own family members, as a brother. But unfortunately, nowadays, even brothers and brothers are fighting for a little money and for something. When the parents die, two brothers are going to the lawyers and court, saying, "That's my property, and this must, I want that much, and I want this." What is that? The best brother will say, "OK, you can have what you want, all." The other will say, "No, no, that's not nice of me. No, please, you take what you like." How nice it is. Because this house of the parents, land of the parents, money of the parents, jewelry of the parents, and so on, all will remain here. You will die also one day, and your children will die. Very often there are cases where brothers and sisters fight for the heritage of the parents, and 95% of all this money goes to the lawyers. Why not? Because the lawyers study so many years, it was very hard. The examination for the lawyer is very hard. And they were studying with this consciousness that I will earn good money. So that's how we create the jobs, but not in this way. Don't fight. You are brothers and sisters. The parents left, and things remain here. There is one story. Should I tell you? There were two brothers. One was very innocent. We would say not so clever, easily manipulated. A little slow thinker. In his heart, he had never bad thoughts. And one brother was very clever. He could even take butter out of the water. Can you take butter out of the water? No. Yes, we can do in our lake. All the canalization goes there. So the parents passed away, and they divided everything in half. They were very poor, so there was one blanket left and one cow. Now the fight was for one cow and one blanket. Now, how to divide the cow? You cannot cut it in two parts. And the blanket, if you tear it in two parts, then neither you can use it nor others can use it. So the brother who was very innocent told the other one, "You decide, you are the elder one. How do you want? Is it, my dear brother? We do like this. We have one cow, yes. Well, the front part of the cow is yours, and the back part is mine. So it means you have to feed the cow, feed water, give grass, and the milk is mine, because that's the back part. And also the dung is mine, as a fertilizer." He said, "OK, my cow, I will feed." And he was taking the milk and everything. And the older brother took the milk. He said, "Brother, we have only one blanket. And what to do, how to decide?" He said, "No, you can do. About the cow, you can choose this." He knew that my brother always will say, "You do it." So he said, "Brother, please, you do what you, because you know what is good for me and what is good for you." He said, "Well, in the night, the blanket is mine, and daytime is yours. Okay, so daytime you should put the blanket in the sun, wash, clean nicely, hold it, in the evening put it in my room." Now, in the night, one brother was having the blanket when it was very cold, the other one was sleeping without a blanket when feeling very cold. One master came. So there was one master, his name was Swāmī Gyāneśwar Purī. Swāmī Gyāneśwar Purī was very clever, very peaceful, and very just to everyone. But you know, sometimes you have to be a little strict, do something which others don't like, give the lesson, not fighting, no war. So the master came to Gyāneśwar Purī, and this one disciple said, "Master, parents died, we have nothing, only parents left behind one cow and one blanket." And we have to divide half and half; the front part, my brother gave me. The whole day I have to go with the cow in the field and even bring her home. Master said, "No problem." And the blanket at night he's using; daytime only I have to take care. Master said, "No problem." Swāmī Gyāneśwar was very clever also. He said, "The front part of the cow is yours." He said, "Yes." Whenever he begins to milk the cow, you take the stick and beat her head. She will become wild; he cannot milk. And he did. The other brother said, "What are you doing, crazy?" He said, "No, it's my part of the cow; I can do what I like." Every time when he wanted to milk the cow, he was taking the crow, sewing her the red towel. Now the other brother says, "My dear brother, I'm sorry, I think I did something wrong. Half milk is yours and half milk is mine." So the brother says, "Master, what to do with the blanket?" Master said, "No problem." Swāmī Gyāneśwar Purī said, "Half an hour or ten minutes before sunset, you put the blanket in the water. Soak it in the water and put it outside. Sunset is coming; he can take his blanket. And daytime, till night, it will dry. Daytime you can use for āsanas, practicing your yoga." "It's a very good idea, Master. Thank you." So, evening before sunset, ten to fifteen minutes before, he put the blanket in the water, and the brother came to take the blanket and said, "Where is my blanket?" He said, "Here in the water." "Oh, God, what have you done?" He said, "Nothing, it's my blanket; now it's yours. When the hour's time is divided for me, I can do what I want." He said, "My dear brother, I will say to you, please don't." "I want to do this." So peace came. Therefore, we have to respect equally and love. And know that it's your brother, know that it's your sister, that's your father, that's your mother. That's your neighbors, and all humans are our brothers and sisters. We should live in harmony. Śivaṃ karoti kalyāṇam, ārogyaṃ dhana sampada, śatrubuddhi vināśāya dīpa jyotir namostute. And therefore, this Rakṣābandhan—"bandhan" means now you are bounded, you are bounded in that boundary of security that a sister put this thread around your wrist, a trait of protection. And proudly the sister will say, "I am a sister of the brother whom I am protecting." And proudly the brother will say, "I am the brother of my sister, and proudly I have the love of my sister and protect it also, and I know what I can give to my sister." Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Summer seminar