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This blessing is coming again from the Czech Republic, from Střelky Ashram. It is a pity we could not sit outside today because it is raining and cool. Otherwise, you would have a little view of the ashram's nature garden. But rain is also a blessing. Vegetation needs rain. Meditation is a very ancient subject. There are two different kinds of meditation. One is called active meditation. In active meditation, karma yoga is included. God Kṛṣṇa said, "Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam." Through the practice of karma yoga, you will be successful in your yoga practice. You have to be active in a different way. There was one master who used to make a beautiful hut in the Himalayas. When the hut was finished, he would dismantle it again and build the same hut in another place. Every year, he used to make about six to eight new huts, gathering all the material. When people used to come to him, they would ask, "Swāmījī, what can we do? Do you have any advice for us? We are not successful; we are stuck somewhere—in meditation, spiritual life, social life, and business life." He used to advise them, "Be active. Don't be lazy. Work. Look, I am making one hut. Within twenty days it is beautifully finished. I lived ten days in this hut, and at the same time I was preparing another place where I will make a new one. And again, within ten, twenty days, or one month, a new hut is already there." So that is saṃsāra. What is created will be destroyed. Who is born will go. Similarly, you have to do karma in this world. This planet has different names. First, it is called Mṛti Loka, the mortal world, where those who are born will die, and those who have died will come back. No one is permanently here in physical form. Whatever is visible, one day will be destroyed. So, Mṛti Loka. Secondly, it is called a living planet. Life is here on this planet because all these five elements are active. Life on this planet: the air means the oxygen, inside the water the warmth, the fire, the earth, and of course the space. So on our planet, there are so many creatures living. Once they made a picture, an X-ray of the Earth, and just half a square meter where you are standing. They saw in the soil how many millions of creatures are there. Our eyes cannot see, but there is life. So, the entire planet is a living planet. It is a home for so many creatures. It is a mistake. It is wrong if human belief is that this planet is only for us humans. Humans are not that much of a population, as the other population is existing here. Even the ants have more population than your city where you are living. Mosquitoes have a larger population, you know. This is wrong thinking of humans. They think it belongs to us only because God gave humans intellect, and through the power of intellect, the humans try to govern this planet and try to destroy the planet. There are two kinds of worlds existing here. One is the God-made world, which is perfect, and the second is the man-made world, which is imperfect. Now we see the man-made world and the God-made world are both not in harmony. We humans do things selfishly for our own comfort. We made millions of kilometers of highways, and we destroyed millions of square kilometers of earth because of making these concrete highways. This is only one example we made for our selfishness. We did not think of the wildlife. We did not think of the other creatures. We did not think of the birds. We did not think of the vegetation and everything. So man has become a destructive factor on this planet. Therefore, men should learn to work and learn to have little needs. That is why the great sage Patañjali, living before Christ—1500 or more than that, very clearly—he put in the Rāja Yoga principles, yama and niyama. And in this yama and niyama, it is also said, "Thou shall not collect, thou shall not take away, don't steal." Now, stealing, when we say, "Don't steal something," this means not only from humans. Again, it is limited to the humans. We all focus on the humans, humanitarian projects, humans, humans... and in the humans, they forget the women's—no. Very, very rare projects were there for animals. Thanks to God, in the last two decades, human consciousness awoke towards the animals, love for animals, and they made now some kind of law, not complete, but at least better than nothing. But in Vedic culture, in Vedic teaching, there was always, always protection for the animals. No hunting was allowed. No killing was allowed. Even the green trees were protected. If you would have cut a green tree, it was a criminal act. Unnecessarily, do not destroy this. Work with your hands in your fields, and Mother Nature will give you everything. People were happy where they were, and there was no little problem. Now, wife is working in London, and husband is working in New York. Now, don't know what husband is doing in New York, and wife don't—no, no—don't know what wife is doing in London. How is she feeling? If she's happy, if she's crying, if she's having a hard time, if her neighbors are nasty to her, where is your family? Family is gone. So it was designed, world, that you should be happy where you are. Thou shall not steal from Mother Nature unnecessarily. We didn't steal only; we began to destroy and kill. We had a plan. All farmers in old times, they had a beautiful construction of the house, and inside the house there was a big yard, and this big yard was for milky animals. Every house had one or two nice animals. They had the horse for working in the field. We call that inner yard; it is called Gavadi in our language, called Gavadi. This is a dialect, but Gavadi means go body, the place for the cow inside the house. So you had enough land. You had a very nice house, then about a thousand square meters. You had an inner yard, and then again you had some house and everything. How happy they were! Now, a thousand square meters—how many humans are fighting to live on that? So, anyhow, work. So, the man-made world and God-made world are not in harmony, and that is why the result is already here. Mahāprabhujī said, "Don't go against nature; otherwise, nature will take its revenge, and you have to suffer the consequences." So the biggest threat to the world is what we call climate change, global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, fire storms, drought, flood, illnesses—so many illnesses in the body. Why? This is the reaction from Mother Nature, because the human need is very bad for nature, and still we are doing it on this planet. No creature is so ill like a human. All creatures, they are very happy and healthy, and they are living with nature, and they accept. When the time comes, they die. Humans are clever. Humans have a lot of wisdom. Humans have passive facilities and possibilities. Humans understand. But still, humans are suffering so much. The most ill creature is a human. The most depressed creature is a human. The most nervous creature is a human. The most unhappy creature is a human. The most fighting creature is a human. Where is the something good point compared with the nature that humans have? Therefore, turn back to karma yoga. Learn to do something better for nature, and be healthy and happy. Gandhijī said, "Mother Nature has enough for everyone's need, but not for the greed." Ati sarvatra varjayet—too much is everywhere prohibited. So, yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam. Who is not active, who is not working actively, physically, will always be unhappy. If one thinks, "I will meditate only and sit and think of, oh God, oh God, yes, oh God." God said, "Yes, what do you want?" God gave you everything. My work is my worship. My work is a worship to you, which means correct work, protection. Then it is said, yoga agni, karma dagdhani. Through the fire of yoga, you can burn all your seeds of karma. Then you are free. So work, work, work. I see many people, after my lecture, everyone goes into their room and lies in their bed. What are they doing? I am so much surprised to look in the room, to room, everyone. How they are, you know, I don't want to show you their posture exactly how they are, but they think the Swāmījī is sitting there. Yes, he's sitting there, but looking here. This is... Everyone may be five percent people who go to the office and work. Others, all of you who are sitting here, so no one is saying, think that I am not guilty. So we are all guilty. Restlessness, no discipline. Is there some discipline? After lectures, do you follow some silence and discipline? Do you feel something? Oh, these divine words, the name of God, and satsaṅgs—how okay, but they gave me. You will not do the actions that you are doing immediately after going out of the door. And that is not the nature of a yogī. And when I tell so much, then my Austrian disciple used to say, "It's human rights, you cannot prohibit." Oh my god, again they put a human right. Don't fight for the right of the human's bite. If you understand the human values and qualities, then you will understand what human rights are. Therefore, after every meditation, after every satsaṅg, after every pūjā, or your homework, coming from your work, a little bit, feel yourself inside it. Coming from work, at home, straight going, opening the fridge, taking the alcohol bottle, putting it in a glass, drinking something, and then he said to his wife, "How are you?" She said, "Little better than you." He said, "What do you mean?" She said, "What do you have in your hand?" That is what I mean. It is a lot of difference, disturbances in the inner satisfaction. There is no contentment. Therefore, actively do something. Practice āsanas. Practice prāṇāyāma. Practice relaxation. Go and after the lecture, sit for a while with closed eyes. And digest all these beautiful words. So, 0.001%, you are all capable of digesting something. Otherwise, you all will look different. You will be so enlightened that we don't need this light. But who is following? I am observing very carefully. Who is thinking how? Whose face is hanging like this? When Swamījī is looking that side, he is looking this. And he's looking this side, his face is hanging like this. That's it. And I want to be first. I want to be first. Why? No computation. Relax. That's it. So karma means helping others, giving the place to others first. Many, many things. After that, meditation is called active meditation. Active meditation is karma yoga, karma bhūmi. Therefore, this planet is finally, it is said, karma bhūmi. Bhūmi means earth, our earth planet, and karma means the karma. Karma bhūmi—it is the field where we can cultivate our karmas. And in this field, we can cultivate thorny bushes, or we can cultivate some nice fruit trees, some nice things. There was a time in your country, doesn't matter through which field you were walking, oh, there's a lot of apples and cherries and pears and many things, all berries and then grapes. And oh, when you were walking half an hour, you had so many things to eat; you came back with a full stomach. Mother Nature gave so much, and still there was more. And now, the modern civilization, modern education, these modern engineers, what do they do? They chip all the beautiful old fruit trees. And what did they do? They planted something different. Hurry home, no animals eat that. This is a different one. He is planting a fruit tree. Another takes away the fruit tree and puts the needle tree. What do you see? Even the birds are not happy when the man, the engineer, is designing no apple tree, no cherry tree, no pears. Here will come this needle tree, here will come this other oak tree. And birds are sitting, and they said, "Oh God, what kind of engineer are you?" And little worms, they said, "Oh God, what is he doing?" All creatures are unhappy. One creature is disturbing the entire biorhythm of this planet: that's man. So, if man begins to make good karma, and meditate, and pray, our world will look different. Second, passive meditation after a successful day. Or not, successful day? What do you mean, "successful world"? That is a very interesting thing. You made a business for yourself, and it was successful. But you didn't think the other person was not successful. Others were lost, so you are not happy for that one who is lost. You are only happy for yourself. This means you are not successful in that way. But I believe still that you are successful. Yes. In what? Yes. In what kind of successful? That you earn more negative karma. So you have succeeded in loading more heaviness upon you. So, success or no success, from which side do we see? We have to think of the neighbors, we have to think of the society, we have to think of our country, we have to think of the whole world. And we have to think of the entire planet. Then, this is what we call the global crisis. It will not happen. There was never a global crisis in the old times, except one problem. Yes, there was also, from time to time, a big earthquake or drought. There was no rain, or too much rain, atibrāṣṭi—too much rain. There have been, from time to time, fire also, but never was disbalance like this, and humans were helping each other. Now humans are helping each other, but very selfishly. So after your day, you sit down and you withdraw yourself back. Thank you, Lord. Thank you that you guided my each and every step. You protected my each and every action, and you, Lord, directed my each and every thought in the way of your divine will. What is the sense of my life? First prayer, and then meditation, to withdraw your thoughts and your senses. "Be one with thyself" means be with God. Yes, like a sportsman running, long after long running or playing, comes and relaxes, and that's it. After a whole day's work, then you come and close your eyes. And you are one with that energy. For a sportsman, it is recharging energy or oxygen, or relaxing. For a spiritual person, be in the presence of God and listen to what He is saying to you. Listen. He tells you, "My son, my daughter, we are all sons of God. We are all daughters of God. Even a small mosquito is a son of God." A little worm in the cherry, she's also a daughter of God, don't bite her. She has her right. The poor worm hides herself in the cherry, but the human takes and squeezes it. Then you will be in another life, that worm in the cherry. Therefore, always when we eat a cherry, you open it and then you look to see if Kuṇḍalinī Śakti is inside or not. But I'm not 100% sure, but they said the first fruit has still not awakened the kuṇḍalinī, so we can check otherwise. There are always some creatures inside. So meditation. When you sit in meditation, there are many different kinds of meditations. Meditation is only one, called Dhyāna, but there are different techniques to come to Dhyāna. One is called concentration, and one is called Dhyāna. Concentration is called Dhāraṇā. To concentrate, be alert. Dhyāna means to be completely alert with oneness. When a small child goes to school, parents say, "When you cross the river, my child, pay attention to both sides and then cross the road." So that's called dhyāna. Dhyāna means that you accept everything within thyself is that state of consciousness. So when you sit down, you feel one with your Iṣṭa Devatā. And your Iṣṭadevatā is talking to you, and you are telling your happiness. You are telling how hard the day was, how hard the work was, but all the experiences come to you, and you give all to your Iṣṭa Devatā. Therefore, it is said in that bhajan, "Ab saapa diya iss jīvan kā sab bhār tumhāre hāthoṁ mein. Hai jeet tumhare haathoṁ mein." So, when you sit in meditation, many people say, "Swamiji, I cannot concentrate. I cannot relax. I am restless. I have so many thoughts." I can understand. You have so many thoughts, and you cannot relax because you have no one to give to. That's it. You have so many cobras, you hold once in your hands, you know, and holding like this. One cobra biting here. Then you said, "Oh, biting here, oh, biting here, here." Many, many cobras are around you because you don't have anyone to whom you can hand over. Therefore, love is personal from the heart. How you believe God, how you love God, in that way. "Ab saapa diya iss jīvan kā sab bhār tumhāre hāthoṁ mein. O my Lord, now I hand over to you all the burdens and heaviness of my life. Hai jeet tumhare haathoṁ mein." If I will be successful, it is in your hands. Or I will fail is also in your hands. It means our duty is to do our karma. Now, the result is in his hands. O human, you just go ahead, acting, do it. Your duty is to do it, but the fruits of your action God will give, and how they will be, it will be like that. If you brought a cobra, he will give you back a cobra. And if you brought a beautiful, nice flower, he will give you a flower back. If you bring poison, he will give you the poison. And if you bring the nectar, he will give the nectar. So it is you who have to learn inwardly to surrender. If you cannot surrender, you can't open your heart. Be sure that you will not cross this ocean of ignorance. Your life will not be successful. Therefore, for humans to concentrate and to be relaxed, there are many, many techniques and ceremonies. Why? Ceremonies are where you can give your love, your stress, and all your doubts. When you place one flower under the Śiva Liṅgam, it means you place your one doubt there. Your doubt is out, and you are free without any doubt. Abhiṣeka, everything has a meaning. But if you don't have meaning, then of course you are just that spoon in the honey. Honey's taste is sweet, but the spoon cannot taste the honey. Therefore, meditation techniques, many, many techniques, meditation is only one. Meditation means where you become one with thyself and one with your... That's meditation. Without sorrows, peaceful, peaceful. You are protected. You are relaxed. Otherwise, there are techniques. You imagine the sun rising. You imagine lotus flowers on the lake. Waterfall, flowers, forest, desert. Everything has its beauty. A very dry desert, only sand flowing, and there are few trees standing, a little bit of green branch, you know, but it has a beauty. And suddenly rain comes, and the entire desert turns into a beautiful green carpet. And within ten days, flowers are coming out. So the desert has its beauty, the forest has its beauty, the mountain has its beauty, the ocean has its beauty. Oh God beautiful, oh God beautiful,... oh God beautiful. In the mountain and the ocean, in the mountain, oh God, beautiful, oh God, beautiful. In the meadows and in the forest, in the desert, everywhere, God is beautiful. Ugly is inside you; beauty is outside. But if you think that I am one with God, then beautiful inside also. So that divine beauty of God, only rare eyes can see; all eyes cannot see. There is one story about the great Bhakta Mīrā. Okay? You like the story? Oh, story, beautiful. Meera was born as a princess. She was married in one of the kingdoms, and she was a queen. But she was a great, great bhakta of God, a great bhakta. The whole story of Meera I will not tell you. For her, everything was God. They married her, but she told them very clearly first that she didn't want to marry, but you know, at that time, ladies had no choice, you know. But after all this, we call ladies the holy cows. Yes, you should not kill cows, and you should not kill the ladies. At least, plus point. Holy cows. Hey girls, you should stand up and say, "I am a holy cow." It is true. It's not wrong. It's divine. Krishna loves that one. God loves that one. Well, here in Europe, it was the same thing. How many wars took place because of girls or ladies? How many kings wanted to marry that one, and they didn't want this? It's true. So everywhere, the same. But she told her husband, "You know, you will not be happy with me because I love only one, and that is Kṛṣṇa." So he had a hard time, he had a hard time. And you know how many people, that many words and opinions are, every mouth has one opinion, it's very hard to tell. Everybody will say yes, and if everybody said yes because Samājī asked and that he's not angry, it doesn't matter. I said yes inside, but I will do what I want. That's a case for many of you. Well, I'm not living with you long, but I live in Vienna, Austria, and I know all the qualities of my Austrian disciples. When they said yes, it's very clear for me that it means no. But anyhow, Austrian ladies are also... what disciples? People were telling Mīrā to the husband, Mīrā's husband, that definitely he sees in love to somebody else, and he said, "Yes." But to Krishna, he said, "No, no, there must be some other games he's playing with you." Then, you know, ladies are a symbol of love and jealousy. When three things happen with the ladies, then it is a dangerous thing, but I will not remind you, all for the sake of our protection, Chidānanda. Okay, men are also very easily jealous and can be very rude. Let's come above now. We are in emancipation, you know, so we have immense of the person. Clearly, you see, it was not clear. He put a guard, 24-hour guards, on her door. If anyone goes to her room, they should immediately inform him, that's all. And if they hear that she's talking with someone in her room, immediately they should inform him, it doesn't matter which time of the night or day, and he was night and day looking, concentrating to find some mistakes in Mīrā. And therefore it is said, "Night and day, night and day, I look for the night and day, night and day." That's it. One day, one night, three o'clock in the night. Guards were changing every hour because sometimes guards can also get kind of boxed, you know. Men are very clever. And suddenly, three o'clock in the night, Mīrā was laughing and saying, "Yeah, and so on," God heard this. He quickly went to her husband and knocked on his door. And he said, "Yes, sir. Meera is laughing and dancing and talking to someone. Do you hear that second voice?" He said, "Yes." He came quickly, took his sword, and listened at the door. Yes, he's talking with someone. Of course, there was no question to knock. He just broke the door and went in. And Mira was sitting on her bed, and she stood up. He said, "You are here now?" He said, "Yes." "Please, what can I do for you? You were talking to someone." She said, "Yes, I was talking." "With whom?" "With my beloved one." "Who can be more? Who is that?" "Krishna." "Where is he?" "Sitting here, don't you see?" "I can't see him." She said, "Yes, my dear, you need another eyes to see him. With these physical eyes, you don't see. You see, he's sitting here, relaxed, happy, looking at us, what we are talking." And he thought, "Now she's completely schizophrenic," that's called the schizophrenia hallucination. He said, "Meera, finished. Now your all drama is finished." He said, "How? What do you mean?" "Now I will kill you with my own hand. Stand up here." He said, "No problem, no problem." She stood up. And he took his sword to chop her head, and he took his hand up, and what did he see? The poor Mirajī was standing and smiling. How many poor? And a voice came, "Rāṇā, be careful, only kill that Mīrā which belongs to you." Now, how should... He knows which is which? The same form, same copy. He threw his sweat out and he said, "Crazy, either you or me," and he went away. That's it. So we need another eyes to see that love, to see God, another form. And that comes when you meditate. You cannot smell, you cannot touch, you cannot see with these physical senses. Otherwise, you can smell, you can see, you can touch. Anytime when you meditate, God is with you. Anytime when you work, he is taking care of you and looking. So believe that he is with us. We cannot hide from him. We cannot hide in front of him. So when you meditate, even 10 minutes or 1 minute or 1 hour, give all your sorrows into his hands and sit down and feel thyself. That's it. Meditation. There are many different techniques: Nāda yoga meditation, sages' kriyas, kriya yogas, mantra yogas, many, many,... many techniques. Every master has some different experiences, and they are all good. No technique is bad. Bad is that we don't understand that. But God Kṛṣṇa said, "Finally, I will be there. It doesn't matter through which way you will go. Finally, when you will enter the gate, I will wait, don't be too late." All right? So God is always there. Therefore, be happy. What?