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Discover your wisdom

A spiritual discourse on the process of teaching as a means of awakening one's own inner wisdom.

"You speak one sentence. While speaking it, in your intellect, brain, memory, consciousness, and inner self, there is like a fountain or radiance, and you give so many meanings to this one word."

"In the first place, you are teaching yourself. You learn so many things. It is your own milk—the milk of your wisdom."

Swami Paramatmananda leads a satsang, explaining how the act of teaching Yoga in Daily Life reveals and refines the teacher's own latent wisdom. He uses the analogy of coloring a cloth and milking a cow to describe this internal process, and attributes the flow of insightful speech to divine grace, specifically the goddess Saraswati. The talk expands into themes of non-duality, the equality of all souls, and the importance of devotion.

Filming location: Vép, HU.

DVD 440

You have heard many words of wisdom, and you liked them. They inspired you to continue your sādhanā, to take a mantra, to practice continuously. They inspired you to understand what Mahāprabhujī is, what Gurujī is, what Devapurījī is, what our spirituality is. They inspired you to want a picture of Gurujī. Then the day came when you began to think, "I too would like to become an instructor." In yoga teacher training, you receive the same words, the same teachings your teacher gave you—nothing new. Perhaps in the training course, it was more organized, more spoken. You enter the examination, you pass, and you receive the Yoga in Daily Life diploma. You begin to teach and organize a group. Now, what will you tell your disciples, your pupils? You will repeat the same things, which is correct. But at the same time, when you recall these words or subjects in your consciousness, one word comes to your memory, into your awareness, and you begin to pronounce it. What happens then? It is your wisdom, your intellect, that gives a beautiful decoration to that one word—the decoration of wisdom. Because you feel within yourself that it is correct, right? And you wish to give it to someone. You go to a shop where a flower seller has many flowers in a basket or bucket. You say, "I want to buy these flowers." The seller will take them out, and not merely hand them to you, but will put them together, wrap them in paper or cotton, decorate them, and then give them to you. The person to whom you give the flowers will also say, "Thank you, nicely decorated." This decoration did not belong to the basket where the flowers were. The seller, through intuition or learning, did nice packing and gave it to you. You have a lot of wisdom within you. When a word comes deep from your heart, deep from your consciousness, it is colored. The word is colored in your color. It is like the bhajan of Kabīr Dās Jī. When everything was completed, it was given to the color man, who colored it in such a beautiful color—completely lāl, lālo lāl, red into red, completely red. Or you take a white cloth and soak it in yellow, blue, green, or orange dye. It goes in white and comes out orange. So it is you who have so much wisdom. You take this teaching; it goes in and comes out colored in your color. If I have negative feelings, dualities, ignorance, or jealousy, then that color will emerge accordingly. If I have devotion and clarity within me, then that clarity will emerge. So many times, what happens? You speak one sentence. While speaking it, in your intellect, brain, memory, consciousness, and inner self, there is like a fountain or radiance, and you give so many meanings to this one word. You did not even know that such nice wisdom lay dormant within you. You are surprised at how nicely you present it, even though you were afraid: "How will I speak? How will it be?" People are surprised. That word which we heard hundreds of times and did not understand—suddenly, you were the one who gave it such a simple and good meaning, making it clear to everyone. This means that when you begin to instruct or teach, first and foremost, you are not teaching others; you are teaching yourself. You are also learning from yourself. You come to know how much treasure is hidden within you. In this way, your teachings awaken. So, in the first place, you are teaching yourself. You learn so many things. It is your own milk—the milk of your wisdom. There is a beautiful bhajan or poem from Kabīr Dās. Once he was telling how one thing has many functions. He said, "Clear is a very clear," which is made out of skin. This five-element physical body is a cow which has the skin. The cow is also from the chamḍā (skin). And who is milking is also Caṇḍā. And that skin, which drinks again—understandable or not understandable. So you are that cow. You are milking that cow of wisdom, and that is the cow. You are milking, and you are also drinking. So you preach, you teach, but you are also teaching yourself, nourishing yourself from your teachings. Therefore, teaching, especially our Yoga in Daily Life system, is not only physical movements and not only for the brain—this center and that center, the pippala tree and that tree. Many, many trees are inside, as God Kṛṣṇa said. Thank you very much—I forgot, and he helps me. That is the 15th chapter; you should read it again. But finally, for what? What is the purpose of it all? What is the sense? It is always changing. It is not about whether it is changing or not changing. It is that we bring our inner self towards our goal, destination, aim—whatever it may be. The path is not always beautiful. Things are not always pleasant. There can be discomfort from time to time. Therefore, teaching. And when you are sitting and teaching, you are surprised at how much you know now. When I came to sit here, I had only one thing in mind to explain to you: the correct yoga dress color. Regarding our yoga and other subjects, I did not know what I would speak. I did not sit in my room, look in books, and write what I would talk about. Believe me, truly, I read only two letters today from someone with a little health problem. But I sat here and thought, "Well, I will continue what I spoke yesterday." And what I am telling you now—I am surprised how it is coming out. So it is Gurudev who speaks in us. It is Saraswatī, Māta Saraswatī, the goddess of wisdom. In India, in every school, the first remembrance, ceremony, and prayer is to Mother Saraswatī, the goddess. I think you know the Saraswatī prayer? The Sārada prayer? You don't know? He knows, but today he doesn't want to. It is a beautiful, beautiful prayer to Goddess Saraswatī, Mother Saraswatī, Vīṇādharinī, sitting on the white lotus, having a vīṇā in her hand—like Sītā, the Vīṇādharinī. The resonance, Nāda, Rūpa, Parabrahma—the sound, wisdom—is beautiful. It has a very great spiritual meaning, that prayer to Saraswatī. And it is true. If you concentrate on that particular principle, that particular path, it will help you. Now, it is not that we don't understand where Saraswatī came from. Swamijī sometimes said Mahāprabhujī, sometimes said Mahādevapurījī, now he said Saraswatī. And when he speaks the word of Viṣṇu, he will say Lakṣmījī. How is this? Once, an American lady asked Mahātmā Gāndhījī, "Why in India are there so many goddesses?" Mahātmā Gandhījī said, "The beauty of a garden is when there are different flowers. You see the beauty of your hand is when the five fingers are there. If we only have one stick... unfortunately, if somebody is handicapped and loses a hand..." I cut my hand once by accident. You know how difficult life is? I had a bandage for about ten days, very thick. Before showering, I had to hold it like this, covered with plastic. With only one hand, I was washing like this, like a monkey. Even my small finger has its meaning—the second ring finger, the middle finger, the index finger, the thumb. Every finger has its function. What Mother Nature made is beautiful. Where I use my thumb, I cannot use the small finger. And where I use the small finger, I cannot use the thumb. So there is balance, both feminine and masculine principles. Therefore, when we speak about Saraswatī, it is feminine. But when we speak about wisdom, the jñāna, it becomes masculine. Yet the jñāna is born from Saraswatī. That is why there are beautiful pictures of Saraswatī, and one should adore this, never neglect it. And also, there is Lakṣmī. Those who have money problems should know the Lakṣmī prayer. You said, "I have Lakṣmī; she will bless you definitely." I believe in her very much. I adore her; my great adoration is to her. So it doesn't matter if it is Saraswatī or Lakṣmī, Durgā or others. There is energy in those words. If you don't like photos of some females sitting as gods, it is your problem. You can remove them, but you can have the mantras. Or if you don't like some Śiva or Brahmā or Viṣṇu as male gods, it doesn't matter—remove them. But the meaning, the words. So there is no duality of male and female in this way. In wisdom, there is no duality. In the supreme, there is no duality of anatomy. There is only one. We say how many people died, or how many humans died. No one said the woman didn't die. Only the human died. Women are also human. It is a pity that we make such a difference. Many have said women have no soul, and then in a lecture they said even a tree has a soul—so it means you all ladies are even worse than a tree. I'm sorry, but that is ignorance, discrimination. We all have equal ātmā, we all have equal souls. We all have equal wisdom, all abilities. That is all. So, Saraswatī. You know, I can tell you a very secret thing of my own. Whenever I give a lecture and I close my little eyes, I go to Kela Ashram, to Duni. I imagine Devapurījī sitting, Mahāprabhujī sitting, Gurujī sitting, and I ask them, "Please bless me with Saraswatī. Please sit in my heart, and you shall speak. Mahāprabhujī, Devapurījī, my Gurujī, bless me with Jñāna, Dhyāna, Bhakti, Śakti, and Saraswatī. Please, you speak." Or when I don't have much time, then while chanting Om—you think Swamijī is chanting Om, but my Sūrat is there—I say to Mahāprabhujī, "Please, blessing Saraswatī Putra, let Saraswatī sit on my tongue, and you reside in my heart and speak." That is it. One who can speak nicely, who can give a nice lecture and inspire you... In India, we used to say two things: on his or her tongue is the blessing of Saraswatī; Saraswatī is sitting on his tongue. Or, he is the incarnation of the great saint Śukadeva Muni, the son of Vyāsa. Śukadeva is said to be, till now, the best preacher or speaker of wisdom who delivered. He was Śukadeva Muni. He was a very small child. He went to his master, King Janaka, the father of Sītā. Though Vyāsa Muni was greater and higher, he could not inspire his son to be his guru. So he went to the Ṛṣi Janaka, King Janaka, Janaka Videhi, and then he got the mantra and everything. Janaka had very strict rules and tests. For days and days, Śukadeva had to stand outside the door. Janaka said, "Nobody should talk to him," no offering of eating or drinking. Then he said, "Okay, he is still there. Bring him into the front room. He can sit down." He sat there. It was a long, long test. But when finally Janaka accepted him for Śukra, when he was enlightened... And you know who Śukadeva was? That egg of a parrot from the Amarnāth Guphā cave. When Pārvatī slept—I told you the story yesterday, no? Śiva was preaching, and Śiva told Pārvatī, "Don't sleep." She said, "Yes, yes..." Suddenly, Pārvatī was... and that baby in the egg said, "Oh God, it will be a great pity that this wisdom just goes into the air and is lost." So he came quickly out of the egg and said, "Yes, yeah," and then... you know the whole story. What happened? He flew. Śiva went after him with his triśūl, and he flew. At that time, Vyāsa's wife was pregnant. Śukadeva Muni, in the form of the parrot, thought, "Nowhere can be a safer place than this one." So he flew into her mouth and went to her stomach. Then the story goes further. So Ved Vyāsa told how it happened. She said, "I was pregnant." So he said, "Oh God, you should always do like this and that." Why do all of you automatically, when you are pregnant, make it seem so sorry? That is coming from Ved Vyāsa's instruction. You see how we are connected from here to there. So the wisdom that comes to us is Guru Kṛpā. There are no dualities, either man or woman. There are many, many great incarnations, of course: Saraswatī, Lakṣmī, Sītā, Durgā. We all adore them as Brahma itself, or Viṣṇu itself, or Rāma itself too. You must have that pure love. You don't see the bodies as male or female. You see that divine light, divine God itself. Therefore, the Saraswatī prayer and others—there are many, many nice prayers. There are prayer cassettes; you can find many in esoteric shops in your country. There are prayer cassettes with Śiva, Saraswatī, Viṣṇu, Gaṇeśa prayers, and many things. So it is not only one god or one goddess; these are different elements. You dial a number to reach your husband—one number—and he's not in the office. They say, "Please, he's available on another number." So you dial the other number where he is available, and they say, "He just left. Can you dial another number?" So you dial three numbers to reach your husband. Similarly, do you pray to Saraswatī, or to Lakṣmī, or to Viṣṇu, or to Mahāprabhujī? You come to your destination. That is it. You come to your aim. So to be a teacher and instruct your friends, your disciples, or your participants, and inspire them in a nice way, with free thinking and tolerance, is something great you can do in your life. A flower will die, but the essence, the fragrance of that flower, will remain. You know, many of our good yoga friends have died, but we remember them still very much. They left something for us. You should also leave behind something—not only a house and children, but some beautiful things so that for centuries mankind will remember you and your name, because you did something good for yourself, for the world, for humans, and for the environment. You have this ability. You cannot say, "What can I do? I can do nothing. The best thing has already been done. What should I do?" One man came to Gurujī and said, "You know, Gurujī, the best words for bhajans and poems are already used by Mīrābāī, Kabīr Dās, and many great saints. What kind of bhajan can I write?" It is simply like this: they took the cream, and now we have only this white milk, what we call buttermilk, but there is no butter inside. They took away the cream. So Gurujī said, "Yes, that's right. They took the cream. They ate the cream, but not the cow. The cow is still there. Feed the cow with the feeder of love, and day and night you can milk her. Will there be more fresh and good cream than the old one?" So that cow is within you—the wisdom, Saraswatī. Feed it with love. Love means devotion, bhakti. And bhakti means complete oneness, complete surrender, complete belief. That means now your intellect can milk as much as you want, and cream will come. That cream is your knowledge, your wisdom. You did not borrow it from outside; everything is within you. Therefore, especially to be a teacher of Yoga in Daily Life, for you it means to revise your wisdom, reuse your wisdom, and at the same time, distribute it. What you speak is your wisdom. Give your blessing to others. You give to others, and you lose nothing. On the contrary, you gain more, because again, from your unconscious or subconscious, your wisdom awakens and comes to your conscious mind. You know, you gain it. And you gain more, so that everyone will say, "Oh, how nice, how great it was." There was one disciple. I was in a village, and many people were sitting for a satsaṅg. One swāmī was also there. Some people were sitting behind, smoking their bīḍī, with their backs towards us. Outside the group, they were sitting ten or twenty meters away. The swāmī who was talking said, "When children go to school and the teacher is explaining something, and the teacher... the children are looking at the blackboard, or they are looking..." Back side. Immediately, they all turned this side, you see. So it is always very important to pay attention and use your wisdom, and give to others also. So I am happy for you all that you have got this wisdom of Yoga in Daily Life. And, of course, do not give up your practice.

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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