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All spiritual beings strive to attain a divine consciousness. Our beloved holy Gurujī, Śrī Swāmī Madhavānandjī, often said in satsaṅg: "Pranī mātra sukh kī icchā rakhte haiṁ, pranī mātra sukh cāhte haiṁ, duḥkh koī nahīṁ cāhtā hai." Every entity wishes for happiness. No one wishes for unhappiness or trouble. "Asli sukh ātmā jñāna mein hai, brahma jñāna mein hai." Real happiness is in ātmā jñāna, in brahma jñāna. Ātmā jñāna is given by Gurudev. This is a quotation from Gurujī. People try to be happy. Some seek happiness in money, some in a partner, some in study and a high position. It means everyone is hungry, starving. Bhūk hī bhūk. 'Bhūk' means hunger. Someone has a bhūk for money, a bhūk for beauty, a bhūk for partners, a bhūk for this and that. This kind of hunger, ambition, will never be fulfilled. Some try to gain contentment through magic, tantra, or different techniques. Yes, they may attain some siddhi, but not mokṣa. Mokṣa comes only through pure devotion, pure sādhanā, sāttvik sādhanā. Spiritual sādhanā is where love develops for all creatures. I remember a story Holy Gurujī told in a satsaṅg in 1968. Today, while swimming in the ocean, that memory awoke in me. The ocean is holy. All rivers, all saritās, flow into it. The holy dust from the feet of saints also flows into the ocean. Therefore, oceans should be adored, respected, and celebrated. Blessed are those who can think and feel like this. This water is not for joking. It is not a place where you go in, are too lazy to come out to use the toilet, and urinate inside. Though in this Kali Yuga, people direct many canals into the oceans, which is not right. That is why humanity suffers. The more they pursue higher education, the more atheist they become. Many are only religious three times in their life: at birth, marriage, and death ceremonies. And even then, many do not respect this. Unfortunately, many people go to temples, churches, or religious places only for social life. Those who stay with their family, farming and taking care of our nourishment, are more spiritual and more devout. If everyone sought only higher education and sat in an office, from where would you get your salad? No one wants to work in the field. Then we would have chemical salads and chemical tablets. Therefore, the life of a farmer, of country people, is not easy, but it is also full of belief and devotion. God takes care of them more. While swimming, we try to keep discipline. We were like two strong, opposing forces: one side the ladies, the other the gents, like a scale in balance, with a stick between keeping both sides balanced. It is not easy. If you have to balance exactly milligram by milligram, then if one fly sits on the other side, it moves. In 1968, Holy Gurujī was giving beautiful satsaṅgs. He was observing chaturmāsa. 'Chatur' means four; 'māsa' means months. For four months during the monsoon, sannyāsīs, saints, and monks should stay in one place, not traveling, and give satsaṅgs wherever they stay. In Europe, it rains for twelve months; you never know when it is raining. So it is called not Cāturmāsa but Dvādaśamāsa. In Europe, there is a four-month winter and eight months of cold. We have permanent seasons that are not balanced because humans have become imbalanced due to pollution. I remember in '68 I was sitting near Gurujī, and many bhaktas came to the evening satsaṅg. One day, Gurujī told a story about people who perform black magic in graveyards. They go to make prayers and ceremonies to gain devilish powers. But you know, in the graveyard there are no devils. There are only the bones of good people who died, yet somehow they associate this with dead bodies. There was one master who had a disciple. The disciple lived in a different part of India and attained ātmā jñāna. It was very spiritual. Unfortunately, after some time, his master became involved in magic powers, siddhis, going to the graveyard, sitting where a body was buried in Vajrāsana or on a horse, holding dead skulls, and calling spirits. For what, I do not know. He did so much that all the souls which were not liberated, who are still in the astral world called Pitraloka—the ancestors' world—came to him. These ancestors who did not attain liberation, or svarga, and are not yet reborn, are still hanging somewhere due to their karma. They need ceremonies and prayers from their children. That tantric master suddenly attained a siddhi. All these ghosts, these spirits, came to him and said, "Yes, we are in your service. What can we do for you? We are capable of doing everything. We can turn the earth upside down if you want." The master was very happy. "Now I have a siddhi," he said. "When the time comes, I will call you and give you duties." From time to time, he would go and awaken them in the forest. After many years, his disciple returned. He had pursued pure spiritual sādhanā: prayer, satsaṅg, helping others, ātmā jñāna. He came to see his master. The master was very happy and said, "My son, for a long time you were not here. Meanwhile, I attained a beautiful siddhi." The disciple said, "Yes, Master, what kind of siddhi have you?" The master replied, "I will show you tonight; you must come with me." The disciple agreed. Around eleven o'clock or midnight, the master took some things and said to the disciple, "Come with me." They went to a graveyard. The master drew a big circle and said, "Do not step out of this circle. I will call. So many ghosts will come. They are all... In our Śiva service, is it okay? I will see now." He offered alcohol and a little meat, because Asuras' nourishment is meat and alcohol. Devas' nourishment is milk, nuts, and honey. The master began chanting. No one came. The disciple sat watching as the master tried hard. The master was proud of his power, wanting to show his disciple what he commanded. He called, "Come, come!" No one came; not a single bird flew from the trees. He grew angry. Until three o'clock, he tried all his mantras: sing-song-sing-fung-fing-hung. Nothing happened. After three, during the Brahma Muhūrta, the ghosts' power diminishes. The master said, "Let us go home. I am sorry, but they will see who I am. I will punish them." The disciple said, "Yes, Master." The next day, the master said, "I will go alone. You do not come with me." The disciple agreed. The master went, drew a circle, and offered everything again. He called many times, but no one came. After half an hour or an hour, one ghost came. "Master, master..." "I am here. Where were you yesterday?" the master asked. The ghost said, "Master, I was so unfortunate, the unlucky one, that I did not come yesterday." "What? What do you mean?" "Because all who came yesterday were liberated." "Liberated from what? From this life as a ghost, from this ancestors' area? How?" "Because your divine disciple, through his mere presence here, automatically liberates all. They no longer wish to listen to you. They are not here, Master. May I have a darśan of your disciple so that I may also be liberated?" The master said, "Thirty years of work. In one second, my disciple destroyed everything." He went home and said to his disciple, "My adoration to you. What sādhanā have you done?" The disciple replied, "Nothing. It was your kṛpā. I attained self-realization, Master. Do not practice these dirty vidyās." The master said, "Can you liberate my one bhakta? If you can liberate me also with that one." So, dear brothers, sisters, bhaktas, this kind of sādhanā is not for humans. For humans, only good sādhanā, prayer, meditation, repeating mantras, and helping poor people and all creatures are important. That is the divine thing in life. Then you will come to that divine consciousness. Otherwise, those who practice such things will also go to that loka and hang there. Therefore, Holy Gurujī said, "Yantra, you know, someone puts something on your arm or here, puts it in a capsule, saying, 'I put something for you, and you will be healthy and good.'" This is called yantras. Mantra, some kind of śuṅg, śaṅg, śiṅg. "If you do not believe me, if you do not do this, I will destroy you, I will do bad." Blackmailing, jantar mantra, jādu, magic. Okay, śuṅg, śaṅg, śiṅg. "After seven days, next Sunday, this jādu will begin to function." This is called psycho-terror, terrorizing, psychic, nothing. Jantra, mantra, jādu, ṭonā. And there is another kind of magic ceremony. "Guru bhakta ke kuśa nahīṁ honā." If you are a devotee and have the kṛpā of Gurudev, nothing can happen. Nothing can happen. Therefore, spirituality, spiritual sādhanā is for the upliftment of the soul into divine consciousness, to ātmā jñāna, ātmā darśana. For that, for lives and lives, great sages work and wait for when our consciousness will become pure consciousness. So, lead a pure life. Give up your hunger, give up your longing, give up your sufferings. That which you are longing for will never make you happy. Yes, do your duty, do your social work, do whatever you can, perform seva. And whatever you have, be happy with that. It is said: before its time you will get nothing, and more than what is written in your destiny you will get nothing. More than what is in your destiny you will not get, and earlier you will not get. When the time comes, then you will get. If you become blind, suffering and waiting day and night... Many are waiting for someone. I am waiting to find a partner. As a buyer, a company is not a good partner in business, not in business. Please, someone is praying. I did it once, and I will never make that mistake again. Is it true? Someone asked, "Please send me a partner." I said, "Mahāprabhujī, please fulfill her desire." Yes, she found a husband. She found a man. The first day was okay. The second day was so-so. On the third day, he was drinking and slapped her on one side, then the other. Still, she digested it because she wanted to have a male partner. After one week, she found out he was not at all interested in women. She still blames me. "Do you fulfill my wishes?" But I did not ask for this, man. So it will never make you happy. Do not wait. If someone is in your kismat, they will come. And before the time, it will not come. Do not expect something prematurely. Look at your past karma. How many times has God given you a chance, and you missed it again? That is it. Therefore, the best thing is to be peaceful. So, before its time, it will not come. And if it is in your kismat, it will come in your destiny. If you force it, then of course you will be the victim. Look at your bhāgya line, or fate line. Look at your hand line; here is written how many wives or husbands you will have. This is the line, you know. And here is written how many children you will have. I will teach you how to read palms, okay? Therefore, purity. God, Jesus did not tell you to do all these sprinklings and ceremonies. Buddha did not tell, Muhammad did not tell, of course Kṛṣṇa did not tell. Rāma did not tell anyone. Śiva is that which maintains the balance between both, because it has been there from the very beginning of the universe. Āsurī Śakti and Devī Śakti are active. Āsurī Śakti is the negative power, and Devī Śakti is the positive power. There is a struggle between them. Sometimes one is the winner, sometimes the other. The seeds are there, seeds which are very difficult to destroy. I like that. I do not know if you have seen it. There is a film called Dracula. At the end, Dracula is killed, but suddenly you find someone has been bitten and it is said, "Oh, this is continuing; the seed is there." So Dracula, the blood of Dracula, is flowing in your veins. That means māyā, that lobha, kāma, krodha, krodha-agni, lobha-agni, moha-agni, kāma-agni, māyā—all of that. This will not make a human happy. So see your past; what have you done? God gave you a second, third, fourth chance. Then God said, "No, finished." So, Patañjali—we come again to our great saint Patañjali. What Patañjali says in the Patañjali Sūtra, again I come back to the third sūtra of the Samādhipāda, where he says: "Darśana alabdhā bhūmikatva sthititvāni citta vikṣepa te antarāyāḥ." I have told you three times, translated this, but I like it. That is why I am coming again. Why is yoga sādhanā not successful? Patañjali said the inner obstacles awaken in you, which are hidden in your subconscious. Outside, everything is okay, but it is within you, which disturbs you and others. Many times you find a very good partner, but you are the cause that makes him or her angry, and then he or she goes away. Love needs surrender. Love needs devotion. Love needs mutual understanding. Love needs confidence. And love does not need all these physical things. Love is very gentle, very fine, on a fine level. Love is a divine quality, and therefore it needs divine treatment. So there are obstacles: vyādhi. Vyādhi means some troubles, accidents, or diseases. Disease, or accident, or some troubles. Astral, from astral energies coming. Astral negative energies are created through your negative thinking; your phenomenon is full of dark energy inside. Vyādhi, sthāna, saṁśaya, pramāda, ālasya, viparīta, bhrānti, irdarśana, alabandha, bhūmitā, icchā or anavasthitatva. These are the nine kinds of obstacles which awaken in us. The first: in śarīra, in the body, in the indriyas, or in the mind. On these three levels, disease awakens, and that disease makes you so unhappy. You lose your confidence, you lose your feelings, enthusiasm is lost. But you should know: śarīra vyādhi. Śarīra is a temple of the vyādhi, a house of the vyādhi. This body is a house of the vyādhi. Vyādhi means illnesses, troubles. Do not think you will ever be so healthy that you can jump and do this and that. Time will come. Today you can row or run, but the time will come when it will take you half a minute to get out of your bed. Unless you are healthy and have an accident and die. For that person who died, it may be good, but for us who remain behind, it is not good. We will be more unhappy. "Oh God, how young we were, how healthy we were, how this was." So it means the old can die, the ill can die. You see how selfish we are. We think only of always being young and healthy. What about others? Everywhere there are many conferences for children and youth. "Youth is the culture of tomorrow," yes. But what about the seniors? How much treatment do we have? Very good treatment for seniors. Even they get a retirement pension, get very little money, hurry home. Because they think seniors are like a lemon that has been juiced, taken away, and is only lying in the kitchen, occupying space, to be removed. In the last few decades, human consciousness has changed because of business life, the money life. When parents or grandparents died, we were very unhappy. Nowadays, when even a father or mother dies, the children say, "Well, my mother died; she was ill." That is all. Love is lost towards parents. Love is lost towards ancestors. Love is lost towards elderly people. So, how do you expect that you will have more love now? You lost it. So whose longing will not get, and whose not longing will get it? Mahāprabhujī said, "Do not run behind money. Then money will run away from you." Then money will be for you like a horizon. What is a horizon? The horizon is as near as you come, that far it goes. If you do not run behind money, but run in the other direction, then money will run behind you. Do not run searching for a partner, but a partner will come and run to you. Yes, you know when your kismet will awaken. There is a true story of a devotee who was at this year's summer seminar in Strilaki ashram. She said her dog died, an old dog, and she said, "Swāmījī, I am so thankful to my dog." I said, "Why?" She said, "My dog brought me to yoga. How? I was driving in Atlanta, and there was a traffic jam. My dog jumped out of the car and ran into the 'Yoga in Daily Life' center. There she performed a prema pūjā, and it was so nice. Since that day, I began to practice yoga." So luck will jump to you. If you are suffering day and night, it will not come. I asked Mahāprabhujī one day, and he said, "If that person would meditate or pray that much, it would be quicker; everything is there." But your thoughts, your feelings are somewhere else, not with God. We pray to God only for half a minute: "God, please." And what are we praying? "Mahāprabhujī kī jai," and this and that. "Please, Mahāprabhujī, fulfill my wish, and please this." We are actually praying a few words while having two handfuls of wishes. Did you ever pray one day without any wish? Very little. Therefore, we should surrender our love to God. Let it be; just give it. And when you have given... You have no rights over it; that is it. If you borrow, of course, now you have the right to have it back. But when you said, "I gave it to you," so you gave it. You have no right to ask for it back. That is all. Vyādhi. So the first obstacle: the illnesses of the body, indriyas, and mind. Second: suddenly you lose interest in your sādhanā. In the beginning, you were doing mantras, fasting, getting mantras, ceremonies—oh, wonderful. Now, honestly, how many of you practice your mantras and meditations every day? And if you practice, you are asking, "Mahāprabhujī, please send me this." "Om Prabhudeep Niranjan Sabduk Bhajan. My car is not functioning." So many wishes we have. So Mahāprabhujī said, "I am not a mechanic." So tyāga. Tyāga. Just be. That is it. That is it. Third: all the strength you have suddenly leaves; your confidence is gone, and you feel without energy. "Better today I will sleep than do five malas. Only one mālā is enough, Mahāprabhujī, sorry. Tomorrow I will do perhaps six." That is it. He does not need five malas. He does not need the meditation. It is we who need. One person told Mahāprabhujī, "I do not believe in God." Mahāprabhujī said, "And? What does God lose if you do not believe?" So we love because we want God. That is it. Look from which side are you? We are here, guests on this island. We need to be here as guests. And therefore, we have to be good to the host. It is nice of them that they are giving hospitality. Do you think that with the money you pay, is money everything? Maybe you will pay 100 euros, and you destroy in the apartment about 300 euros worth of repairs. There are some people, you know, who tear the curtains and this and that, many things. But yoga people are very clean and very nice. Even they have very minimum garbage to clear, to remove it; that is it. You are all very correct people, very correct. Accept a little bit of human mistakes. That is it. So the third obstacle: you lose your confidence. "Will I get these fruits or not? Will my sādhanā bring me what I was expecting?" That means you lost it. You lost it. That was an obstacle. That was a lemon in the milk. One drop, and the milk is spoiled. Therefore, no doubts. Confidence. It does not matter how it is. You gave it; it is. Then another: when you are doing yoga sādhanā, anuṣṭhāna. The first day, you do it with great laughter. On the third day, you do it with full enthusiasm. On the fourth day, you say, "All my body is aching. I think I will go for better karma yoga." You do not do it. "Today I will not do, tomorrow I am going with a friend, the day after tomorrow I am going swimming." All these kinds of excuses are an obstacle on your yoga sādhanā. Do not neglect anything. You see, on the church tower there is a bell ringing every hour. The bell rings every day on time. This is a machine; there is no soul inside. Even a machine can be so punctual; then what should we expect from ourselves? We are different, so we should be better than this. Avalāna—it means to neglect or to have doubts. That will not make you successful. The fourth and fifth obstacles are tamo-guṇa, sattva, rajas, and tamas. Sattva-guṇa—guṇa is quality, a pure quality. This guṇa comes through nourishment. That is why sattvic vegetarian nourishment is important—sattvic, pure quality. Rajas is food that makes you very angry, aggressive. Alcohol, meat. Certain kinds of food make you aggressive. And anger is the thief that will take everything away from you, from your door. It will not let you into your house. It will take everything away before you come to the house. Tamo guṇa—rajas guṇa is anger. Sorry, did I say rajas or tamas? Rajas. Tamas guṇa is laziness. Certain kinds of food make us very, very lazy. You eat and then say, "Oh, let us go to sleep now. I cannot anymore." This is tamas guṇa. Prāṇa and apāna. Apāna brings the tamas guṇa out and directs it towards the brain. You feel so tired. Tamas guṇa takes over the strength of your muscles. Tamas guṇa takes the strength of your eyesight. So your eyelids begin to droop. Many of Swāmījī's lectures say that while driving, one is tired and one sleeps or has micro-sleep, and one dies. So tamo guṇa, ālasya—the greatest enemy of the human is laziness, tamo guṇa. Who has this ālasya and pramāda, neglecting the sādhanā and just playing that "I am tired" and "I cannot today" and "no time"? This is the greatest enemy, the greatest obstacle on our path, preventing us from being successful. Self-discipline is the key to success. And sometimes to follow discipline is not easy; it is hard. But to open this hard nut of Brahma-jñāna, this Sahasrāra cakra—you know, the Sahasrāra cakra has such a beautiful sound, resonance, no? Your Sahasrāra is completely tight. There is no resonance. You have to awaken nāda. My God, that is something. No? So, ālasya. Sixth: then your indriyas. All your senses try to connect with desires. And when you have desires, then your meditation, your mantras, your sādhanās are only symbolic. Your being is somewhere else. Mīrābāī said, "I am living there where you are, O my beloved one, Kṛṣṇa. Here is only my physical body." So you are doing your mantra, but where are your thoughts? There you are in reality. Therefore, as your indriyas become more attached to desires, enjoying many kinds of enjoyment—swimming is enjoyment, driving is enjoyment, walking is enjoyment, dreaming is enjoyment, eating, many things—when your indriyas become slaves of this enjoyment, then I used to say: the joy of the joy which you would like to enjoy is less than the sorrows of that enjoyment. And that is exactly what Patañjali is warning us about. Therefore, give up laziness. And Holy Gurujī said in his bhajan: "Bhai tum jāgo re, terā auśar bitā jāye, bhai tum jāgo re." So this was beautiful, no? Do you not think? Thank you. Sometimes it is good to make sure that, yes, you like it. Seventh obstacle: yog sādhanā ke sādhanā ko kisi kāraṇ se viparīt samajhnā, arthāt ye sādhanā darśan. Darśan means to see, and bhrānti means doubts. Bhrānti means not reality. You walk on the road, and about 30 or 40 meters away, there is a rope lying there. You say, "Oh, a snake!" You come near, and there is no snake; it is only a rope. So, bhrānti. Towards your yogī sādhanā, you think, "Oh, this is not like that, this is other," this is called mithyā bhrānti, mithyā jñāna. Mithyā means senseless. Mithyā means false. Mithyā means doubtful. Mithyā is not authentic. When someone is talking and telling this and that, then you will say in India, "Do not speak mithyā." It is not truthful; it is just self-made thoughts. And so also sometimes: "This is not like that, and I could have done other, and this and that." Mithyā jñāna—then you are also lost from your spiritual path. Years and years of what you have done are destroyed through your mithyā jñāna. You drive the car on the road, and about 100 meters ahead on the road, you see water, but there is no water. It is only a reflection, a light reflection, or heat coming from the earth with a little humidity that creates a reflection. But there is no water of the kind you think it is. That is also mithyā. Mṛtyu Kṛṣṇa. And the eighth obstacle: when one is doing yoga sādhanā and does not get any level of change in consciousness, any experiences, then you lose interest. Like that story I told many times about one yogī who was sitting under an olive tree—or it was a fig tree, you know? It was a fig tree. Under the fig tree, because he was so lazy, he thought, "A fig will fall down and I will eat it." A fig fell down, and he said, "No. If it goes into my mouth, I will eat it." He was meditating, and suddenly said, "So many years I have been doing this; I have gotten nothing. Sixty-eight years. Not even could I levitate my hand. Whenever my hand has to be levitated, I have to use my energy, but I wish it would levitate automatically. It will automatically. You have nothing to do, but on that day, it is finished." So he stopped his mālā and looked, thinking, looking at the fig: "If this fig is sweet or not, but why should I stretch my hand till there?" An ant came. In the ant's mouth was a grain of rice. She tried to climb the tree; her nest was somewhere. After half a meter, she lost the grain. Again she came down, again found the rice, again climbed. After 20 centimeters, she lost it again. Up and down, up and down. For one hour she climbed up and down, always losing the grain. He observed this for one hour. "What is the ant doing? A stupid ant, like me." He said, "This ant is exactly as stupid as me. Sixty-eight years." Finally, the ant carried the rice into her nest. And he said, "No, she is not stupid. She is my master. Try again and again." Try and try and try. Do not give up. You will get it. You will find it. Do not give up. Do your duty. Practice, try, try,... try. And finally, in the practice of yoga, in any part of yoga, any sādhanā, any bhūmikā, your citta vṛtti becomes restless. A few days ago, some sādhak came to me and said, "Swāmījī, suddenly in my meditation now I have so many thoughts. Before, I could meditate for one hour, two hours without anything; I was very happy and very good. But now come the thoughts." This is the ninth obstacle that Patañjali speaks of: that your concentration cannot maintain on that one thing and is always fluttering, sometimes this, sometimes that. So these are the inner obstacles, inner rocks, inner fightings, inner kleśas, which every one of us faces every day. And to remove this duḥkha, the best is again God's name. There are another five duḥkhas more when this... Nine come to it, then a fifth joins to it. And what are these fifth ones? That we will listen to tomorrow nicely, with some kind of stories again. Okay? So, I wish you all the best.