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There is a saying that without season, trees will not give fruit. Similarly, you have to prepare yourself for the higher techniques. You yourselves must first prepare for the higher techniques. First of all, master the āsanas. Āsana means a posture where you feel comfortable. The definition of āsana has many different definitions. First, āsana means sitting or lying where you feel comfortable. When you sleep, you make yourself very comfortable. That is called śayān āsana. That is called śayān āsana. Sleeping posture. But it is also said that sleeping does not need any posture. It is also said that for sleeping, no special posture is needed. When you are tired, you can sleep anywhere. Sometimes it is good to sleep anywhere, and sometimes it is not good to sleep anywhere. So-called micro-sleeps while driving are also very dangerous. Sleep does not search for a bed. Sleep comes. Similarly, meditation does not search for a special posture. Similarly, for meditation, no posture is needed. Meditation comes. It is also a question of how you train your body and what your habits are. There is a nice story. There was one man, called the king, and he had so many problems with sleeping. He had a lot of problems with sleeping. Sometimes the pillows were not good. Sometimes the mattress was not good, too hard or too soft. The bedsheet was not good. And the next morning he used to complain to his queen. "The whole night I could not sleep. This was not good, that was not good." Mosquitoes came. They put up a mosquito net. Birds were too loud, and so on and so on. You know, in Europe they say in German, "Prinzessin auf den Erbsen." "Prinzessin auf den Erbsen." No? Is that so? One day, the queen and the king went for a walk alone. It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. A hot day. They were coming back from the walk. But they see, what do they see? There was one shepherd. And he was cutting some branches from a thorny tree for his goats and sheep. And the goats and sheep were also resting, because it was one o'clock. And there was quite a thick branch of the tree which he cut. There was one thick branch which he cut. Many thorns. But he put his head on that branch. And one hand down. He placed his hand under the branch. The ground was not so even. Up and down, some stones. He had no pillow, so he took these three branches as a pillow and was sleeping deeply. And the goats were also relaxing. They were chewing again, like many people during the lecture who are chewing chewing gum. They try to get rid of their past karma. The queen said to the king, "Look, this man is sleeping so deep and nice on a thorny branch of the tree, with stones and sand and dust on the ground. On stones and here in the dust on the ground, goats make noise, but still he is sleeping so deep and relaxed, and you? Every night plays the theater: 'I do not like the pillow, I do not like the blanket, I do not know what this is, the room is too hot, too cold.'" The king said, "Yes, I am happy for this man that he can sleep so well," and went away. When the king came home, he told some of his people, "There and there is one shepherd. Call him. Accommodate him in the palace for 15 days. Holidays. Give him different good eating, good bath, bathtub, rose petals, petals, some aromas, different shampoos, and neem powder. Your skin will be so much thankful if you can take the neem bath. Nothing can be compared with the neem powder or with a neem bath. And if you cannot sleep well, do you have a problem? Are you taking some medicine for sleeping? Take a neem bath. Do not take medicine, and lie down. I mean not in the bathtub, in the bed. Your sleep will be what they call sound sleep." Nīm Nārāyaṇa. Nīm is known as Viṣṇu itself. Nīm is known as Viṣṇu itself. Give him good eating, give him good food, different kinds of dishes. Every time when he sleeps, new blanket, new bedsheet, soft pillow. Like in a multi-star hotel, you get your bed nice and clean, washed, and prepared every time. It is like in a multi-star hotel, where they prepare a clean, made bed for you every night. Like in those luxury hotels, where they change your bedding every day, nice and fragrant, in one word, spoil him. Spoil the bed. After ten, twenty days. After twenty or so days, the king told his people, "Give him a very hard pillow and one mattress which is a little bit uneven, used many times, and leave the window open." And now the king invites the queen to go on the roof, a flat roof, and from there there's a ventilation. He said to the queen, "Sit down, and I want to show you something. Be silent." And the queen sat down, and he wanted to show her something. The wolf was thinking, "What is my destiny and karma? What have I done?" My life changed. He was very happy. He forgot everything: his family, sheep, and goats. But tonight he got a hard pillow. The bed was a little bit moving. He went to sleep. Now he tried to change the pillow. He sat up and changed the position. He changed the mattress. Again he got up. Waking like this, he couldn't sleep. The king said to the queen, "Is that the same shepherd who was having a sound sleep on the thorny bush branch?" She said, "Yes." "But look, here he cannot sleep even." Habit. Holy Gurujī used to say, "Habit is the second nature of a man." And then that person becomes a slave of that habit. A person becomes a slave of his habits. Those who are the slave of their habits will be lifelong unhappy. Therefore, āsana means where you can keep your body for a while relaxed. Also sitting, this is called āsana. You're practicing on a mat. In Hindi, we call it āsana. In Sanskrit, we call it āsana. This is your āsana. This is your āsana. And even the bed where you sleep is an āsana. When you come to an āshram, you can ask, "In which room do I have my āsana?" And in some situations, it can be used such that your house is an āsana. So there are many, many different kinds of āsanas and definitions of the āsanas. Each posture has a physical, mental, and emotional effect on your being. It's easy to work eight hours physically. But it is not easy to sit comfortably for eight hours. In an aeroplane, we are constantly looking at the watch, still thinking, "How long is it? How long is it?" In an aeroplane, you cannot sit comfortably. Even though there are comfortable seats in the aeroplane, it cannot be said that an aeroplane does not have comfortable seats. It depends, of course, on which class you are in. But there is a good seat. It is not easy to sit. Holy Gurujī said that a worker who is working in the field for eight hours, or any kind of work, tell that person, "You will get double salary, just sit down and repeat your mantra." When you sit here and repeat your mantra. He cannot do it for eight hours. It means such rich food, everyone cannot digest. It means that such rich food cannot be digested by everyone. It is not easy to digest such rich food. Healthy, lucky, and richest are they who can enjoy any kind of food and eat as much as they can. Happy, healthy, and rich are those who can eat anything and enjoy it. And poor are they, who cannot eat everything. Therefore, habit. So you have to practice yourself for one year. Train your body at least to sit for one and a half hours without movements. Definitely. You will not get liberation because of the posture. You will not get the siddhi because of the postures. But to achieve certain experiences and a certain level of consciousness, we need the body to be motionless and conscious for a certain time. But when you sleep, also for hours you are motionless. But that will not replace meditation. There is a big difference between meditation and sleep. This is a level of consciousness. Awakened sleep and dream: suṣupti, svapna, and jāgrat. This we call it in Sanskrit. Now, you can compare your sleep with meditation. If you are aware of your sleep, then you have a double benefit: meditation and sleeping. When you go to sleep, do you know in which minute and how did you enter from the awakened state to sleep? And how do you cross that border from wakefulness to sleep? This border is very, very important. It is an immensely important border. And do you know how you enter from deep sleep into the dream locus? Do you know how you transition from deep sleep into dreaming? Do you know how you passed from deep sleep into the world of dreams? What made you in such a deep sleep? What drove you into such a deep sleep? Enter into the dreams. Enter into the dreaming. And how do you come back from the dream to the sleep? And how do you return from that dream back to deep sleep? By which means do you return from dreaming into sleep? And then go to the other dream. How did you finish the dream? How did you know this is finished? And now I begin anew. The new chapters in your dream. Does your dream cause you stress? Does your dream cause you fear, or does your dream cause you happiness? Yes, every day different dreams, does it happen without your knowing? Does it happen without your knowledge? Or do you know about it? That now you will dream. That at this moment you are dreaming. And now I will finish. Can you choose what kind of dream you will have at night? Tonight we will dream about satsaṅg. Then we don't need a webcast. So Patañjali has spoken very clearly about these levels of consciousness. Patañjali has spoken very clearly about the levels of consciousness. What we call the father of psychology, I would say, was Patañjali. Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras. Perfect. Beautiful. So, if you practice Yoga Nidrā, then you are sleeping very deeply, but consciously. You can choose your dreams, you can choose your dreams. So the techniques which you do, the first step is to observe how you go from conscious to sleep, then wake up again. Something you missed. Open your eyes. Drink a little water. And sleep again. And observe your sleep. If you do it three or four times, you will wake up in the morning very nervous. That's it. Therefore, you have to practice first. Then you come to the dream. A dream is nothing but your reality. Past lives and this life's impressions, and your intuitions or your ambitions for the future, good or bad, that you feed your subconscious with, and that turns into the form of visions, in color and form. The first technique to master your dream is that when you wake up in the morning, remember. Second, during the dream, you know that you are dreaming. And if you don't like that dream, you can change that dream or stop it. The second step is that you wake up during the dream, open your eyes, look around the room, close your eyes, and continue the dream. The next step, during the dream you wake up, perhaps open a window and close it, if you don't disturb your family members who are sleeping there, and continue the same dream from where you stopped. Another step, you wake up, take your clothes, take your shoes, walk around the house block, come back and sleep. If you have a dog, he will be very happy. The dog will go walking with you. If you have a dog, the dog will be happy that he will be able to walk with you. Sleep, and the same dream continues. And the next day, you make a Saṅkalpa. I will have tonight the same dream. Now this means you became the master of your consciousness, you became the master of your mind. You developed such a strong willpower that nothing can make you angry or unhappy. So this you can do also through Yoga Nidrā practice, Saṅkalpa Siddhi, and meditation. So practicing āsana is not only a kind of sport, but to master your life. That you can understand your body, and you can lead your body in the best way, in a healthy way. And that you can manage your body in the best and healthiest way.