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We Are Born To Help

A public address on cultural preservation, universal yoga, and human duty.

"I saw many people in a good position—smiling, happy, and, I would say, different. It seems that the yoga you are practicing still works very well in solving these problems."

"Yoga in Daily Life makes a human aware of human responsibilities, of human dignities, and of that noble way of life—of following ahimsā, non-violence. Love your neighbor."

Swami Maheshwarananda delivers a speech celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Yoga in Daily Life society in Labin. He thanks local officials and praises traditional Croatian cultural performances, emphasizing the vital importance of preserving one's own culture while fostering multicultural understanding. He explains the "Yoga in Daily Life" system as a 24-hour practice encompassing ethical living, charity projects like water harvesting and education, and the cultivation of love, forgiveness, and family values, framing it as a universal science beyond any single religion.

Filming locations: Labin, Istria, Croatia.

DVD 192B.

I came here and, as I said to my colleagues, I saw many people in a good position—smiling, happy, and, I would say, different. Today's life is full; it has become too fast and too hard. People are having a difficult time with these life situations and, in the end, with themselves. It seems that the yoga you are practicing still works very well in solving these problems. I wish you much health in the future, much harmony, much love, personal happiness, and many more jubilees for your labyrinthine society. Thank you all. Adoration to the cosmic light, Lord of our hearts, omniscient and omnipresent. In his divine presence, dear brothers and sisters of Labin, respected vice mayor of this town, respected collector of this area, the organizers, the director, and the manager of this beautiful hall, it is my great privilege to be here today—physically in this town, and mentally or in astral form. I have definitely visited here many times. As many times as you remember, that many times I am with you. And as many times as I remember you, you are with me. Where there is love, there is no distance. If there is no love, even the neighbor's house is millions of kilometers away. That is what we try to awaken in human consciousness again: human love. To fulfill human duties. To be the protector, to protect the environment, to be kind and protect every creature. To awaken mutual understanding, tolerance, respect, and understanding towards religions, cultures, and countries, because in reality, all are the same. One, one in all and all in one. That divine consciousness is dwelling in each and every creature, and every creature is connected or united with the Divine One. I am very happy to be here this morning. First, thank you for your warm welcome. I thank you, the wise mayor of this town, for taking his valuable time to come to this celebration of the 10th anniversary of Yoga in Daily Life. And especially what I liked is your traditional cultural performance in the form of music and dance. It is very important to keep our own culture alive. It is very important that we keep alive our customs and traditions. The way you are dressing now is not your culture. The way you are dressing on the beach is not your culture, nor is it a protection of your culture. Culture, religion, and humans are very close; you cannot separate them. They have to be in one place, and that is why every culture should be kept alive. Every culture is a beautiful culture. Every tradition is a beautiful tradition. This is the way to protect human society, to protect the ethical and moral values of human society. Therefore, it is very important to support the culture, the language, the art, and the traditions that will unite us again. In the same way, every culture of the world should be understood and respected. Culture is something which is moving; we cannot stop it. You will be surprised how many thousands of Croatians are living in Australia. There are Croatian churches, clubs, and newspapers. Do you know how many Croatians are living in Africa? In America? In New Zealand? In my lectures, every fifth person is a Croatian from around the world. So I am all the time surrounded, or protected, by my disciples or friends from Croatia. Especially this part of your country, Istria, which has a mixed culture, is a very important place. It was connected to Italy, Slovenia, Austria, what you call Yugoslavians, Hungarians… That is something where you find a beauty which is created by humans. Every human tries to fight to protect their culture. If someone attacks our culture, then we will try to protect ourselves. We will not attack anyone's culture. Mahātmā Gandhi said, "We hate the actions, we don't hate the persons." Therefore, there should be mutual understanding. There is a necessity of understanding for the multicultural. In this part of Croatia, the multi-culture has its place. Now in Croatia there is also an organization called Multikulti, Multiculture. It is time for us to widen our consciousness, to look above the boundaries and welcome them as you did in the past and do always now. So, Yoga in Daily Life. Why Yoga in Daily Life? Why not just yoga? The big difference is that Yoga in Daily Life makes a human aware of human responsibilities, of human dignities, and of that noble way of life—of following ahimsā, non-violence. Love your neighbor. That is very important. So, it is 24 hours of living according to Yoga in Daily Life. Not that you practice half an hour or one hour, but how you work, how you think, how you behave, how your relations are—everything is Yoga in Daily Life. A human understands to give, but a human should not be proud that only they are giving. Nothing is created in this world by the Creator which is not given to others. Flowers give us beautiful smells and beauty; trees give us fruits. Every creature is giving to us. Cows give us milk, and humans understand more the value of giving. There are many different kinds of giving, but the greatest, biggest thing a human can give is forgiveness. But forgiveness not with the feeling of arrogance, but with humbleness, with forgetfulness. That makes a human perfect and happy. Folded hands have little value compared to helping hands, so we are born to help. Yoga in Daily Life has many activities: harvesting projects to supply water where people have no water to drink. You don't know what water is. You don't know. But they know what water is. Just for five liters of water, they have to wait twenty-four hours or walk a few kilometers and stand for hours and hours in a queue to get just five liters of water for a family. They know what water is; we do not know what water is. To give them water is to give them life. Similarly, we have projects for education. Humans are greater because of the intellect, and intellect needs education. There are two kinds of intellect, two educations: the education of the parents, and the school, college, university education. Nowadays, children are separated from parents, and the computer system has completely separated children from their parents. Humans have become individuals; humans are becoming strangers to other humans, and the future will be dangerous. Therefore, every parent's duty—their first prime duty, the goal of their life—should not be money, should not be a business, neither a social position, but love and education for the children. Children are the culture of tomorrow, and children are the future of our country and world. Here you are sitting, mostly Croatians. You are surprised to see your own costume. Would you have also been dressed like this? You feel ashamed. You don't dare to go into the office with your own cultural things. That is something dangerous and terrible. Money is not everything. Position is not everything. The highest position is that one where you are satisfied and you have a good reputation. Money is lost, nothing is lost. Health is lost, something is lost. But if the character is lost, everything is lost. That character is built by education, which is the education that parents can give. No university can give you that education. So Yoga in Daily Life supports, and in my lectures and speeches for the last four decades around the world, I always talk about the joint family, happy family, family relations, and not to divorce. It is easy to get married and divorced, but what about children? Be sure they are not happy. Perhaps you are also not happy with your partner, but don't be selfish only because of you. Why are you not happy, and why were you in the beginning happy? What brought you to change is to remove the obstacles. Yoga in Daily Life is supporting the health project, mother and child care and health, youth conferences, world peace, the Yoga in Daily Life and World Peace Summit, yoga for good health, Yoga in Daily Life for education. So it is a unique system, an integrated system, which tries to create a healthy and free-thinking human society. I am very happy to be here today, and I congratulate you for the ten years that you have been practicing Yoga in Daily Life. Croatia is also one of the countries where Yoga in Daily Life is practiced very much. Every citizen of Croatia knows the name of Yoga in Daily Life. We don't even know what percentage of Croatians are practicing it. I wish this organization of the city of Labin all the best, divine protection, and much success. Also, I wish this city and the people of this city good health, long life, and happiness, that we may contribute love, tolerance, and peace to the whole world. Thank you for your coming and for your invitation. Yoga in Daily Life is above religion. Every religion is coming out of yoga. We have to understand what yoga is. Yoga is a universal principle. It is not exercises, nor is it believing this religion or that religion. All divine principles are given by yoga. No religion exists on this planet which can be older than yoga. Love your neighbor. Love, give, serve. Be kind. Believe. Pray. All these principles are yogic principles. Therefore, it is a universal system. In every culture it can be practiced. By every person of belief or religion it can be practiced, because yoga leads to freedom. Therefore, the science of yoga is the science of body, mind, and consciousness, eternal and cosmic. We are ever and ever connected with this. So I wish you much success in your yoga practice. And once more, thank you for the invitation. Thank you.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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