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Always Be Ready To Learn

A spiritual discourse offering guidance for yoga teachers and practitioners.

"If he will think that I am sad, then he will not become a thief."

"A yoga teacher has to be an example... Your people will see how you are behaving toward other yoga teachers."

Swami Ji addresses a gathering, using a story of Holy Guruji having his pocket watch stolen to begin a lesson on alertness and selflessness. He outlines essential conduct for teachers, stressing humility, the avoidance of ego and infighting, and the importance of creating a respectful, heart-centered atmosphere in class. He reinforces these points with parables, including one about Lord Krishna being tested by his guru, emphasizing that a true teacher must be a steadfast guide like a "cat's eye" on the road, unaffected by life's dust.

Filming location: Vienna, A.

DVD 212

Once, Holy Gurujī was traveling from Calcutta to Guwahati and had to go by ferry. He was sitting in the ferry, making his mantra, and he had a little pocket watch on his side—something heavy you could see hanging. Gurujī was making mantras, and a pocket thief came. Even though Gurujī was very alert—even aware of a mosquito flying—the thief cut Gurujī's pocket and took the watch. Afterwards, Gurujī wanted to see the time and his hand went through the hole. Gurujī told the ticket conductor, the safnā, who said, "Swāmijī, the thieves didn't even leave you out. They took your watch." Gurujī said, "Yes. If he will think that I am sad, then he will not become a thief." For thieves, it doesn't matter who is who or what trouble someone will face. For them, it doesn't matter. If a toad is equal, we do steer, do steer. And so is this. Vāṇīya man sarāyat, and sākṣ pīṭhī pīṭhī libe toad. Pithi, last make fried, toad viya dasnik makar. So, there are certain things in life that, for certain people, it doesn't matter if it will be good or bad; they don't care. But we have to learn to protect ourselves. In Indian street driving, they write, "Protection is your protection." If you protect others, it means you protect yourself. If you make an accident, the accident not only injures and involves the other one; you are also involved. So, yogī, we have to learn to live alert, aware, conscious, and always giving respect to others. This we did not learn yet. Everybody tries to concentrate in the front, and the backside still has a lot of space for you. Why? Because we do not care about others. If we cared about others, we would sit in the back and say, "Please, you go and sit in the front because you come very seldom, and Swāmījī is in the front." But we don't think that, and that is the biggest mistake. There one can see, oh, voila, this person does not care about others. This person does not think about others. He is self-sufficient. And self-sufficiency and greed, these two things are the most dangerous in our lives. Being greedy is very, very dangerous, so don't fight. It's my right to be in the front? No. The greatest are they who can renounce. To give up in life is difficult in certain situations. There are many good yoga teachers who sit all the way in the back, in the middle. They can also come forward. Radha sits all the way in the back. She can also sit here because she is an organizer, so this is missing. Don't say when you come into your classroom, "Yesterday I was sitting here, it's my place, please you go to the back." That is enough to create an enemy. You can be happy that this person has gotten your place and your good energy. So, in yoga class, we should make a nice selection of the place and order; there are no problems. This is still missing in yoga people, especially those who are more advanced. That's why I must tell you, this is one of the problems in Austria, which I see as more of a problem: that you have little new people. Because the yoga teachers in their class explain very differently, very well, and they are very happy, and they would like to come to the satsaṅg. But when they come to the satsaṅg, they are completely ignored. And then we are fighting, and we are looking, "Who is there?" and this, and we try to come to the front, and that's not good. So, these yoga teachers have to learn to teach themselves in the beginning, so that we all can maintain the situation and give good feelings. Talking doesn't solve our problem. We have to become an example for that. This is for yoga teachers, as well as for yoga practitioners and future teachers. This instruction is very, very important. Just to know how to perform one āsana, the second āsana is not this. And many of us, what we call yogīs, if something goes a little against our principle, then we are so angry, and this is not good. All schools are fighting. One yoga school to other yoga school to other yoga school. This means that we are like, "Who have how many sips?" This time, when they selected the new pope, then someone told, he said, "The Sephard." I said, "What means 'Sephard'?" So they said, "Yes, the Sephard, who have the sips and this stick, the Sephard." Stick in the, till today I thought this is a pope who has, like, a daṇḍa also in hand. So this is a safer stick. The safer is only who is taking care of the sheep, and how many sheep are there. So many yoga schools or many other organizations, they are protecting their people, like with this stick, you know, who they are to come in or out. And that's not our aim, so we have to open. We have to open ourselves to respect, to understand. We are not only the best one in the world. There are many thousands or millions who are much better than us. Confucius said, "Don't think in life that you are a miserable person. Look a little more down; there are many more miserable than you. And don't think that you are the happiest and best person in the world. Look a little higher. There are many, many who are much better than you." So, the same thing, Mahāprabhujī had also said in his golden teachings. And this is what we are missing, or we suddenly begin to behave in an artificial way. And when you behave artificially, das nennt man unerlieke benemung, and das ist dann heuchlein. So this is not good. A yoga teacher has to be an example. Now, the teacher teaches: how much do they have respect and love for each other? That's very important. So your people will see how you are behaving toward other yoga teachers. For example, when Muktānand brings his five students, these students will not only observe Muktānand, but they will observe how they appreciate, recognize, or see Yogānand. Or Muktānand, his work. But when they see how Yogānand is behaving to Muktānand, there is a, "My God, what's going on here?" Muktānanda, Yogānanda will say to Muktānanda, "Don't touch, but it's my technique. You have destroyed all my this. Please don't touch next time." He will say, "My God, what is happening?" So, to know where and what we should do. So either it's a Yogananda or a Muktananda, any Nanda should live in Ānanda. That's very important. This will make you good. Second, who comes to yoga? To yoga, mostly two kinds of people come. Very rare are those who are searching for the spiritual path. But mostly people come who have so many problems, or had a problem in their life, and they couldn't find a solution anywhere else. And they heard that yoga would help, and they came to yoga. So, including myself, we all came to this path. We were very dispirited, and finally we found this way, and we came here. So perhaps problem means not only human problems, with the human relations, health problems, social problems, political problems, emotional problems, financial problems—many, many different things. Stress that, so we want to go to practice yoga again to live life, that we can continue to live well. That is our main aim to practice yoga. Very nicely, very holy, we have written in the title of the book, "Yoga im täglichen Leben, Yoga im täglichen Leben, harmony for body, Körper, Geist und Seele." And now we ask all yoga teachers here, the students still so far away. All yoga teachers, have they realized these three things or not? And if we have not realized these three things, then we also have no, we are also not teachers. This ashram is so beautiful, Gurujī's ashram. We have organized a waterfall for you so that you have a natural feeling. It's like a waterfall in this ashram. We don't need, you know, everybody to have at home the steamer and waterfall and some water fountain that gives a nice water sound, or go to the hummock or sit near the beach or near the river where a little creek is flowing. He says, "So ask yourself, before you write down in your book or you write, did you achieve this? Or are you trying to realize this? And if you are trying, then how do you lead your life? If you do not live accordingly, you will not realize this." And that's why our anger, our jealousy, our hate, our greediness, our pride, our ego, it's all very much on the surface now, like a teacup that is completely full. And now you need only to put one drop more, and it will flow over. And so is the situation of many yoga teachers. Yoga-Lehrer und Lehrerinnen, and that is not a symbol of becoming a yoga teacher. Try to endure something. A small wrong word, and I have 15 days of hardship, to bring this face back to a smile. Irgendeine Yoga-Lehrer oder Lehrerin bis in ein Etwas sagt, oder ich mag sie das nicht und das nicht und das nicht. You are a yoga teacher. What is that? The cat's eye is in the middle of the street. There is a lot of dust, but the dust doesn't remain on it. Always shining. It doesn't matter if it's raining, snowing, or a dirty road. But this cat eye always shows you the direction. Always shows you the right direction. And so is the everyday, coming pollution: emotional, physical, mental, many. But you should always be a guideline. Always be a guideline. No? When a little bit of dust falls, then you can go. A little bit heavy, then you can clean yourself. When the staff, she wears the staff of me. I should clean my stuff and the spot, and not on the earth's altar. That's very important: how we, as a yoga teacher, as a yoga practitioner, as a practitioner of yoga in daily life, as a disciple of Swāmījī, how we behave and how we lead our life. So, anything that you do will reflect on your yoga teacher, and that yoga teacher, automatically, it will reflect on me. Aha! This is Yogalarayan from Maheswarananda. So it reflects me. Who is? Oh! Gurujī's disciple. That Gurujī's disciple? He was writing about Mahāprabhujī. He was Mahāprabhujī's disciple. So you see, it's going from the yoga people, teacher, to Swāmījī, to Gurujī, to Mahāprabhujī, Devapurījī, and the whole little amṛt comes into the picture. And because your behavior is like that, you shall try to keep, at least you should have that much respect, that you keep this path, this lineage clean. And therefore, give others room, give others space, give them space. Put them in the front. Be ready to clean. Do Seva. That is very important. If you can't make the sevās and all that, I have the right to always sit in front. You sit on that side, you sit on that side. No. That will bring your position down. That will bring your position down. Sit anywhere. It's okay. This is how to improve our yoga situation and yoga classes in our place, in our country, in our ashrams, wherever we are. Do you agree, or are you angry? I said it wrongly. Who will say it wrongly? And then, we are always talking and belonging to the system. A yoga teacher must keep the system and teach according to the system. If you have any good ideas, then consult with the organizers of the system. You have no rights to change something or put something inside. This is the biggest problem. Either you go to Spain, or you go to Italy, or you go to Germany, or you go to the Calhoun Fort. Everywhere they are trying to change something inside, because you think it's better. I tried to change one or two bhajan lines, and Gurujī said, "OK, you can do it if you like," because I was telling him this and that, and he said, "OK." And after he asked me the question, "What means this? Can you explain me?" I was completely wrong. So Gurujī said, "Okay, then we write again the original line. That's it." So you think that you are the best yoga teacher and you have more knowledge, and these Swamijīs just put some āsanas in and that's all, but we were correct. People like this, and now the modern system is like that, and modern is like this. No, we are not learning modern yoga. We are learning the ancient part of yoga. This is one of the mistakes of some religions in the world, that they are changing their scriptures according to modern society's development. So, it is not that everyone will follow us. No. When you dig to find a diamond, all stones are not diamonds. Very few diamonds are there. So, if you all will become self-realized, I can tell you that you are capable of making the whole of Europe self-realized. Or if only three or four of you, or one of you. And who is that one? It can be one of you. Like I said, I told one story about one monastery, you know, that the monastery became a ruin. Nobody was taking care, and nobody was cleaning, and this and that. And then one came, a very holy monk, and they all respected him very much. And they all went to, who was living in the monastery, a few monks. They went there and they said, "This is the condition of the monastery, and this." And he said, "Yes, some holy, self-realized one is missing." And they said, "But, yeah, when will he come, or about how, where to find?" So he just said, first he spoke, "What means the monk? What means the holy man? How to live in this?" And then he said, "But..." I think one of you could be that one, and they all began. Then he thought, "I will be that." He thought he will be there. She thought she will be there, and they all began to clean the monastery and take care of the monastery. And complete the other atmosphere immediately. So it is not that it is destined that only Gajānanda will be there and nobody else. Then we can say this Hopanung, Los Barons, all will be murions. Swamiji had said it will be only Gajānanda and finished. No. Maybe Gajānanda will not be at all. Maybe it is Hṛdayakamal. But maybe Hṛdayakamal will not be. Gajananda has his own problems. She also has problems swimming through it, so who knows? So maybe Albert, or what if he studied fine English? No, so this is try number 22. Trans, trans football spieler stayed in the football field, and that's football. No, Anakin, then football, uh, slagen. In the door, and so it is now. So many we are, all we are the players in this field of spirituality. Now, how you will play, you will be the winner. So, how will you practice? How will you follow the disciplines? All these, then. You will be, and Gajanan, this spoke yesterday very, very nice about guru vākya and Guru Pūrṇimā, because we had to stop him because many people had to go home, and program we had still more program. But his suggestions or examples what he gave, it was very, very gold-wired sattva-manirastra, you know. And he didn't tell any of his own stories. He presented you the Līlā-Amṛta, that you again look into the Līlā-Amṛta, and in which way you should read the Līlā-Amṛta. Not only, ha, Gurujī said this and Mahāprabhujī made this and that, no. Now, what do you learn out of this story? That's it. What does it mean for you? What changed in your thinking? So, every problem we have—is there an agarbatti somewhere? It always goes in my mouth. House. House. So what we learn from this is for the yoga teacher, for the yoga practitioner, and for the new, coming teacher. These are instructions for yoga teachers, what I am telling you, how to behave. Not that you know how to chant the Bhagavad-gītā ślokas, and when somebody corrects you, you say, "No, you don't know. Did you learn Sanskrit? I am correct. Keep quiet." Oh my God! The teacher will not. Always be ready to learn something. Always be ready. So there is one little story, and with this story I will stop. When the god Kṛṣṇa became very famous, he was famous, but anyhow he was grown, and he went from his gurukul, from school, home, and married Rukmaṇī, and he had a very nice time and was very famous. So everybody was praying to him, "God, God." So his guru, Ṛṣi Sandīp, he thought, "I should go and see if Kṛṣṇa has his ego." Because now everybody said how high-grade he is. So then the master is coming with a stick. So Ṛṣi Sandīp came with some disciples, 100 or 50 or 20, I don't know, I was not there, so I can't tell you. And when Kṛṣṇa heard that Gurudev is coming to Śāṇḍīpa with horse-kuśa, Kṛṣṇa ran on his foot. As he was sitting, he didn't even have time to put on his shoes. He ran and greeted him and said, "Master, what has brought you here? What brought you here, my Lord? You just sent me a message, and I would have come to you running. Why did you take the trouble to come here?" So Rishi smiled and he said, "Krishna, I came today with some special feelings." He said, "Yes, please, Master, tell me what." I heard that you can cook very well. You are a very good cook. I would like to eat today from your cooking. He said, "I could have come to the ashram and cooked for you, sir." He said, "No, no, but my disciples are also here." Okay. But only cook. You will cook only. Don't take any help. Okay, sir, I will do. So he had to cook for all his disciples. Disciple of the Master, his Guru brothers. And in two, three hours, he prepared a very nice, very nice dish for everybody, and he served. And he first served Gurudev, and then bhoga lagānā, first he offered him. So first Gurudev tested, and he said, "Oh God, it is not eatable at all. Krishna, what he did, he spoiled everything. Oh God, remove it, cook again, new." So Krishna said, "Sorry, sir," and he took it. And again, he tried hard to cook nice. He gave all his love inside, all devotion. And he was singing mantras, you know, while cooking. Jai Guru, Jai Guru,... Jai, Jai Guru, Jai Guru, Jai Guru. Because Krishna doesn't sing Govinda, Gopal, though, because he himself is Gopal. He cannot sing his mantra, so he had to have another mantra, the Gurudev mantra. Again, he brought food, and it was not good. Again he said, "Oh, God!" It's just like an air day, he smoked. And the third time, he cooked again. And when, the third time, Krishna brought the food and he tasted it, he said, "Oh Krishna, so delicious, so good. You have given the taste in this food from all three worlds." So he said, "Yes, Master, that's your kṛpā." And he gave food to everybody. And then after, Ṛṣi Sandeep said, "Now I will go. But my horses are very tired. I think, Kṛṣṇa, you and Rukmiṇī both should pull my chariot." Krishna said, "Yes, Lord, I am very happy." So they brought him to his āśram, Gurukul. And Krishna said, "Lord, you had so much trouble with me. Excuse me." So the master said, "No, Kṛṣṇa, your first eating was so delicious, the second was more delicious, and the third was even more delicious. My tongue still can't decide which was the best one. But I only wanted to test that if you have ego, that when I reject your dish, you will think, 'I am like a king, and I am God, and everybody is respecting me so much.' And what does this old man say? Does he like it or not?" That time, Krishna, with folded hands, said, "Master, you know, I am so happy that at least in this whole universe, there is one who can find my mistakes also, so that I can better myself and correct my mistakes." So Master said, "Yes, Krishna, there was no mistake. Only I want to know if you have ego or not." And so when someone is correcting our mistakes, it's not so, it's not so. The answer is not science. So we are in a popcorn of the high symphony. That's exploded, and so forth. Accept, learn, learn. And there are some masters and disciples, the Master is afraid to tell anything to the disciples. For example, myself. Why should we go far away? The disciples, they, weeks long, months long, their faces are like many, many wasps. That is not a sign of yourself. It's not a master, not your friends, not other people. It is you. You did not master your ego. And that is a lifelong, lifelong trouble for you. Even after death, it will trouble you. These are the slangs that you cannot get rid of from your throat. Anger, hatred, envy, greed, jealousy, sloth. These are the slangs that bite you day and night. In Hindi it is very nicely said, "Kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, ahaṅkāra, rūpī, śarāpa, bāra, bāra, tumhāre ko dachrā hai." Dachna means the slange bites. These slangas in Rundherumpam Kapha, on the standing bison, was without a slangan, this gift. The forgiveness is not mere. So unless we do not purify this, we cannot say that I am a yoga teacher. We are very far, we are students. And a yoga teacher can learn many things from the people. So be ready to learn any time. So this is very hard, what I am telling you, but it is the truth. So when one respects you, then you receive respect double. That's it. There is our greatness. There is our greatness, humbleness. So there is a wonderful bhajan, and in this bhajan it says, the water always collects where the valley is, where the depth is. It rains on the mountains, but the water flows where there is a depth. And so the grace and the love collect there in the heart where the depth is. But when it is full there, like an overflow, then no matter what comes there, it flows on; nothing stays with you. So make your heart so deep, so wide, that God's grace, the grace of your students, the grace of your friends, the grace of your master, comes deep into you and stays there. So this is to create the harmony, create the atmosphere in our classroom, in our group, and in our society and life. Other than that, we know that there are still many people who do not respect and accept what we do. And we also do not accept what they do. But we should know only one thing: that we don't do bad things. Now, these people still don't know that we are such good yogīs, sattvic yogīs. We do not consume here any kind of drugs or any kind of alcohol. We do not make noise in that way. We bring harmony, but they still don't know. And that's why they are afraid of what's happening. So Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, because they don't know." And that's it. And if this same space could have been bought by some other activities, where alcohol is consumed and people dance, and this and that, and noise, and every day, nobody will be able to come and tell them anything. That's it. So we have to bring this to the people's awareness, to the consciousness that we are good. And this atmosphere should not remain limited in the classroom only, but also in the other rooms, in the street, and at home. So what you have here—peace, love, harmony, and wisdom received—should not end at the door. Otherwise, you will come into the problems, and then when you do not seriously receive or accept, then one day sooner or later, your sūrat, deine Aufmerksamkeit, deine kommt und fragst dich, nun in so viele Jahre, was habe ich? Verwirklicht, was habe ich erreicht? Dann plötzlich sagt, eigentlich nicht, eigentlich habe ich gar nicht verstanden und habe gar nicht erreicht. What have I done so many years here? This is again, nobody to be blamed, only thyself, because you didn't. Understand, you did not behave according to that. You did intellectually, or you did with the heart, but still you did not understand that it is so. It's very important. We had this, um, Gulab Kotari from Rajasthan in a web, and on the very first day... He spoke about heart and my intellect, and he said, "The heart needs another heart. The heart doesn't need another intellect." So, and that I, then after, I said in my speech, "Yes, that heart can be a heart of a dog. When you come home, how happy is your dog? I think there is one creature in your house who will jump, and this is your dog. If you measure the happiness of the heart of that dog when he sees you, perhaps it is completely different than any human's heart. And your cat may not jump on you, but her heart is so happy that she is going here and here, tail up, and touching the other furniture. And you know, you see how she or he, the cat, is demonstrating the heart to heart, not the intellect to your heart. So the heart needs the heart, meaning now, don't understand man and wife, okay? Don't think girlfriend and boyfriend. No, this heart, maybe one day. It will be very hard, but the dog will be lifelong faithful to you. But there are also humans; they are not only one life, but more lives. They will be happy and faithful to you. So, heart needs the heart; the heart doesn't need the... Intellect, so when you have a problem of the heart and someone intellectually tries to explain, it doesn't help your heart. But someone who will speak with the heart to you, heart to heart, then you will understand. So, heart to heart, do. Not understand again, please. Always as an emotion, don't understand again as a man and wife, because that will again create more problems. You will not understand this. So heart to heart means mutual understanding, mutual understanding. When someone died, let's say in London bombs exploded and many people died, and we said, "Oh God, terrible, pity," that's all. But if there would be someone involved from our family, we will be very sad and very, very, because that touches our heart. That does not touch our intellect only. Others touch only our intellect and do not touch the heart. And so when you will work with the heart in your class, when you will work in your workplace with your heart, when you work in your yoga classes and receive your friends with the heart, the atmosphere will be completely different, completely. And when you will work with the heart, there will be no tiredness, there will be no stress. But when you will work only with the intellect, then you will be in stress, and then we need stress management, and to find real stress management is another stress, and when that is not according to your imagination, then... Another stress, so because in the heart is residing that ātmā, that says the soul. Within the soul, the ātmā is in the whole body, in everything.

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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