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Part 1: The Precious Human Birth and the Path to Inner Peace Sadā Śiva Samarambhaṁ Śaṅkarācārya Madhyamām Asmadācārya Paryantam Vandhe Guru Paramparām. Gurur Brahma Gurur Viṣṇu Gurur Devo Maheśvarāḥ, Gurur Sākṣāt Parabrahma Tasmai Śrī Gurave Namaḥ. Mannātha Śrī Jagannātha Madguru Śrī Jagadguru. Māmatmā Sarva Bhūtātmā Tasmai Śrī Gurve Namaḥ. Salutations to the Cosmic Self. Salutations to the Śrī Alakh Purī Jī Siddha Pīṭha Paramparā. Māilānāth Pranāms to our beloved Gurudev, His Holiness Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Maheśvarānandapurījī. Good evening to all of you who are present here. Good morning, afternoon, or evening to all of you who are watching through the webcast. It is a beautiful time here, and the tradition goes forward. Madharam Jī, Om Namo Nārāyaṇa, everyone. Hari Om. This time, we are focusing a lot on inner peace and happiness, because I think this is what we need now. Many say that when I open my lectures with this statement, some like it and some do not, but it is said that the truth is bitter. As you know, there are four yugas. I like to start with the harsh part and get it done with, and then it gets better and better till the end. We keep the dessert for last. The four yugas are: Satyuga, Tretā, Dvāpar, and we are living in Kali Yuga. When we think we are living in very interesting times where many not-good things are happening around us, we should realize this is just the beginning. Kali Yuga is still a baby. It is just 5,200 and some years old. We still have thousands of years to go. If we think these are bad times, trust me, they are not. That is why I always say we are very blessed to be born in the same era, in the same time and space as Gurudev, and to have found Gurudev as our master to guide us and lead us to our ultimate goal of self-realization and, hopefully, mokṣa. It is said in the Vedas and Purāṇas that, till the end of Kali Yuga—this is the harsh part I mentioned—we say "Jīva Jīva Bhakṣate," which means jīvas eat jīvas, or animals eat animals. This does not apply to human beings because we are not supposed to eat other living organisms. But at the end of Kali Yuga, times will be so bad that humans will eat humans; there will be cannibalism. At least we are not in that timeframe yet. At that time, a whole village can come under one tree, meaning we will all be very small. At the age of nine, a woman will already be a mother and a grandmother, meaning the lifespan will be approximately ten years. So, we are very lucky. That is what I am trying to say. The positive part is that we are very fortunate to be in this timeframe. It is always the right time and the right space. We all deal with our own problems; we all have individual things to handle. But we need to realize that the blue sky we see above is us, and the clouds are our problems. Some clouds are white, as sometimes the sky is clear blue—that is amazing. Sometimes there will be clouds, but they will be white clouds, still nice. Then come the slightly grayish ones, and then the heavy rain clouds. But did you notice one thing? The clouds do not stay permanently. The blue sky is us; it is permanent. The clouds are what shall pass. Whatever comes in our life shall pass; it does not matter what it is. This body is also not permanent. That is why we say, "Ātmā is." The soul is ajar amar, meaning it is forever, omnipresent, and everlasting. But this body is like clothes. In the morning, we open our closet and say, "Okay, which clothes shall I wear?" In the same way, the ātmā chooses the body. This body is not permanent. We are not permanent; only the Ātmā is permanent. When this Ātmā unites with the Paramātmā, that becomes the greatest union, and that is what we all are looking forward to. But the clouds pass. That means if happiness comes, it shall also pass. If sadness comes, it shall also pass. Nothing remains permanently. But the problem is—guess what the problem is? This is an interactive satsaṅg, so you can talk in between. It is not only me talking and all of you listening. Those of you who are with me already do not need to answer this question because you already know it. Any guesses? Yes, that too, but what I wanted to say is that we are the problem because we create the mess in our head. We are the ones creating the problems. In reality, there are not any problems. We are all looking for inner happiness. Outer happiness, outer joy, we get from many things. Some of us like to travel. I used to, and I still do. When I was young, Swāmījī used to travel, and I would ask, "Swāmījī, can I go with you?" He would say, "No, you need to stay and study." I was not so happy with that, but now I know it was the right decision. Now, as Swāmījī is more often in India and I have started traveling, I realize how much work and effort he had to do in his entire life to create this beautiful family of mine. If I were in a normal family, I would have five or ten family members. Now I have millions all around the world. It is a beautiful, lovely family which he gave to all of us. We sometimes ask our friends or someone, "Are we on the same page?" In this world, there are many people who are not even in the same book. But at least if we are all sitting here, it means one thing: we all work on similar frequencies, so we are at least in the same book. Our being here means we decided to choose satsaṅg over kusaṅg. There are two types of saṅg. Saṅg means gathering. Sat means truth, so satsaṅg is a gathering of truth. Ku means negative. As human beings, we are all drawn toward negativity much more easily than toward positivity. That is human nature. For example, let us say in one corner we have Naginbhai with Vid and a few more people sitting and gossiping about something. As humans, we will be more drawn to go towards Naginbhai than towards Mansukram, who is having a spiritual talk on the other side. Madaram, sorry—there are other things going on. Many things go on in the head. So that is the problem. Are we all aware of where we are? Sometimes yes, sometimes not. On one side we have gossip; on the other, spirituality. Our human nature will be more drawn towards the gossip, towards negative energies. Why? Because that gives us some juice, some fire. True? Not to me. No, I am not saying that; in general, you are higher, that is why you are sitting here. What I am trying to say is that we, as human beings, are drawn towards negativity more than positivity. But at the end of the day, it is always our decision whether we want to go there or here. If we choose satsaṅg, which we all did today, that is already a step towards positivity. That is why we are all on the same or a similar frequency, sitting in this space. It is the right time to be in the right place, simple as that. Talking about those four goals: dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa. These all have to be integrated to attain mokṣa. Mokṣa is the final step. We will, hopefully, with the blessings and guidance of Gurudev, attain mokṣa. That is what we are all here for, because we do not want to be stuck in this cycle of death and birth, do we? I love the example Gurudev gave multiple times. First is the mother’s lap, then the cradle: mother’s lap, cradle, mother’s lap, cradle. We grow up a little: it is school, home, school, home, school, home. We grow up more: then it is home, work, home, work, home, work. Finally, after we hit a certain age, what then? Hospital, home. Before the hospital comes pension. But Gurudev always said, "It is not pension; it is tension." Why? Because then comes hospital, home, hospital, home, hospital, home. Then finally, one day we die. We think, "Oh, finally we are free." Then it is death and birth, death and birth, death and birth. There are 8.4 million life forms in this world, divided into three categories: Jalchar (those in water, like fish, sharks, stingrays), Thalchar (those on land, which includes us), and Nābhacar (those in the sky). After passing through all the snakes, scorpions, centipedes, ants—think of anything and everything—we finally get this human birth. Gurudev always used to tell me when I was younger: "Yā manuṣya jīvana badā anamola hai, ise vyartha nahīṁ gavānā cāhiye." This means: "This human life is very precious. We should not waste it." That is why when we choose satsaṅg, we are not wasting it. If we choose kusaṅga, we are wasting it. This life is not permanent, as we know. You never know what will happen tomorrow, let alone in five minutes. So, whatever time we have should be spent in spirituality, in positivity, with positive people. Satsaṅg does not mean we need to come into this hall, gather together, have one person speaking while all of you are bored and falling asleep. Satsaṅg is also when you are sitting at home. It does not matter—your family, a few people—if there is positive talk happening, that becomes satsaṅg. We all can have satsaṅg in our own homes. You just need positive energy, positive space, and positive people around you. That already gives you a type of inner peace. When we talk about outer peace, external peace, that is all temporary. If we go to kusaṅga—say, what is today? Saturday. Today is Saturday, Sunday off, why not? Let us go partying, have drinks. But that is kusaṅga. What will happen? You will get temporary happiness, and then in the morning you will get a hangover. That is temporary happiness. What gives permanent happiness? It is this guru kṛpā, the blessings of Gurudev, the guidance of Gurudev, His divine light, the company we are sitting in. That gives us long-term happiness. That is the inner happiness we are searching for. But to find that inner happiness, what do we need? We need to accept ourselves for who we are and how we are. We need to be content with what we have, how we have it, as it is. It is good enough for us. But we as humans have five enemies: ego, jealousy, lust, anger, and greed. These exist in every single human being. How to control them? I would not say "control"; I like the word "taming." We tame a horse; we tame these enemies down. How do we do that? Through all the magical things Gurudev has given us. We have the four Vedas, 18 Purāṇas, 108 Upaniṣads—so many things to go through. But all the knowledge is given in our bhajan book, which Mother Rāmjī will sing soon. If you go deep into any bhajan, there are so many meanings in it. Everything He gave us—the greatest power He gave us is our mālā mantra. You repeat our mālā; that is everything, that is the whole. The soul. Everything He has given us is there, so we do not need to look around for anything. But to move forward, even if we are to look: first is dharma. Dharma means walking on the path of truth, acting according to dharma, not doing things we are not supposed to do. Then comes artha. Artha means money, wealth. If wealth is earned with dharma, then that is okay. If it is earned by cheating, stealing, robbing a bank or anything, that is a-dharma, that is not right. If wealth is earned with dharma, good. How is it spent? If spent with dharma, in dharma, very good. Then comes kāma. When we say the word kāma, we immediately translate it as lust, but not necessarily. Kāma means pleasure. Pleasure does not need to be sexual pleasure. It can be any type of pleasure. We eat food, we eat something nice, we like something—that is also pleasure. We sit and have nice fun, we go around in nature and enjoy it—pleasure. Any type of pleasure, if done with dharma, is good. When all these three come together and you integrate them—dharma, artha, kāma—then mokṣa can be attained. The only thing that is instant here is instant coffee. Mokṣa is not instant; enlightenment is not instant. Otherwise, ṛṣis and munis would not have meditated for millions of years in caves. They would have gotten instant enlightenment. Great souls like Gurudev have been free for a long time already. They were much happier up there, but still they came down to this māyā loka or mṛtyu loka, whatever you want to call it. Why? To free all of us. He was much happier up there—who would not be?—but He still came back down for all of us. So, we should be very grateful, very happy that we are here, that we have Him, that we have His guidance. The literal meaning of the word Guru is: "gu" means darkness, and "ru" means to light. So, the person who brings us from darkness to light is the Guru. That is why we are blessed to have Gurudev as Viśvagurujī, who is always constantly guiding us, supporting us, helping us, and bringing us forward in our spiritual life. We always sing in our prayers: "Bhagavān Śrī Rāma, Lord Rāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa," who were incarnations of Lord Viṣṇu. Even when they were incarnated in this world, they needed a guru in their lives to be successful and to move forward on their spiritual path. Cintā means worry. We all worry about things. "What if this happens? What if that happens?" When we put "if," it means it has not happened yet. We are just imagining things which do not exist and probably will never happen. But we just put it: "What if this happens? What if that happens?" That clutters our mind with more thoughts. Until we manage to solve one problem or one thought, we create in the process ten more problems and ten more thoughts to solve. We are in a constant cycle of creating problems and then solving our own problems, which never existed. So, if we want inner peace, all the techniques He gave us—meditation, mālā, satsaṅg, bhajans, all the other paths of yoga—we will talk about them. We have six days; if I put everything here today, I will not have much left for the other days. But if we have belief and trust in Him, and we say, "Kartā tuṁ, kartā haṁ nāhīṁ," which means "You are the doer; I am not the doer." If He is the doer, something will flow through. No worries, we will always find something to talk about. So, if we stay with the topic of using our life well, here is one bhajan, "Bhajī Tuma Jāgo Re," from Swāmī Madhavānandajī. For those of you who do not speak this language, which is almost all of us, here is a little hint of what the bhajan is about. It says: "My brother, wake up, your opportunity is passing. The sleep of ignorance has covered you. In many, many lives, you have tasted this suffering, this pain. In this circle of birth and death, who else will help you to get out of it, if not your Gurudev? Therefore, go and take shelter at the feet of the Guru, seek protection at His feet, and your life will be fruitful." As Swāmī Avatārapurījī was saying, this human birth is a precious, very special jewel that you do not get so often. There is an analogy: we are like people carrying jewels in our pockets and begging on the street at the same time, not knowing what we have. Gurujī says that only in this human body can you search for the Ātmā; in other bodies, like those of animals, this is not possible. In your own heart, you meet with your beloved Rām. At the end, Holy Gurujī gives recognition, or his bhakti devotion, to his Master: that his Master, Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Mahāprabhujī, woke him up; He woke this sleeping swan. And like this, Mādhāvanandajī is singing. Please listen carefully. He says, "Tehrī Satguru Rakhe Lāj," meaning He will be there to protect you, to take care of you. He is the greatest caregiver, the greatest protector, and the most forgiving person we know. That is the beauty of a Guru, especially a Guru like Viśvagurujī. It does not matter how or what; even if we do not like it, we leave and go. But even after many years, when we realize, "Okay, maybe that was the wrong decision," we still come back, and He is still there with open arms, saying, "Come here, my dear." He never looked at race, background, nothing. All are always welcome to Him. Nirbhay means without fear. They are telling us to be without fear, to be fearless. Why? Because He is there to protect us. Rakṣā means to protect. Do not ever be scared; be fearless, because He is always there to guide us and protect us. Those who take the name of Gurudev, those who are under His guidance, will always be protected and will achieve mukti, will achieve mokṣa, and be free from this cycle of death and birth we were talking about. Even in the bhajan for Gurudev, what do we sing? "Binā svārtha niṣkāma, jīvan mukta kare bhakto ko." That is another topic. That is the best part—you take one word from somewhere and you can make anything out of it. "Without any self-interest." Self-interest means expectations. He never expected anything in return from us. Part 2: The Ever-Present Guide He was always there to guide us, to help us. He always just needed our love, support, and our devotion. But when we surrender to the lotus feet of Gurudev, then all the problems are going. Guru caraṇa meṁ sattirate—that’s what I’m saying. There are so many bhajans interlinked to each other with all the knowledge which we need. We don’t need to look everywhere for any pilgrimages, because in the lotus feet of Gurudev, all the pilgrimages are residing. And without anything in return, he liberates and frees all the bhaktas who are truly his. Sumaraṇa, sumaraṇa—this word sumaraṇa means repeat, repeat, repeat the name of the Gurudev, repeat the name, the mantra which has been given to us. That’s why I said the greatest gift that we can get is our mantra from Gurudev. That is the Brahmāstra. In India we call it Brahmāstra, the highest thing that we can have. The highest weapon in the war of Mahābhārata was the Brahmāstra. So for us, that Brahmāstra is our mantra. All the problems, everything, all the worries, everything can go away with chanting the mantra. And the mālā, which we all wear, is a tool. Every mantra we repeat is like a phone call to God, to Gurudev, to the higher spirit, to whoever you want to believe in. Every mantra, every chant we do, we can do it also as ajapa. That’s the highest stage. When you see Gurudev, he’s talking to us, but inside, his mantra is going on continuously. For us ignorant human beings, in the early stages, we need the mālā. And why is mālā important? Because of concentration. Right now we all are sitting here, but how many of us are really sitting here? We’re all sitting here physically, but our mind might be in a hundred billion different places. But are we really here, present physically and mentally? That only we can know, but that’s why we have the mālā, to remind us. Because we are singing bhajan or we are chanting our mantra, and our thoughts are running to different places. But when we have our mālā, and every bead we are going past, it’s reminding us, "Oh, okay, I’m doing my mālā. I need to be concentrated on my mantra." So we’d go one bead, I’m doing my mālā. Second bead, I’m doing my mālā. That brings back the awareness to what we are doing. We are singing bhajans, we have a bhajan book. Even if I know the bhajan, I would still like to read it while singing because it reminds me that, okay, I’m singing this bhajan, and it gives me, every time I read through the bhajan again, a new meaning or a new perspective on that bhajan. So anything that we do, it doesn’t matter what. We’re eating, we’re focused on eating. We’re using our phone, we’re focused on our phone. We are singing bhajans, we are concentrated in singing bhajans. We are working in the office; it doesn’t matter if we like it or dislike it. Let’s try to be concentrated and focused on the work we’re doing. There’s always time and space. Yathā kāle tathā paristhiti, which means yathā kāle tathā paristhiti, or kāla or deśa, as Swāmījī always used to say, which means right time, right space for right things to be done. Right now is the right time and right space to be together to be here to be doing satsaṅg. When you go back home, it’s the right time and space to be with your partner, with your family, with your kids, with whoever you want to be with, your loved ones. When you’re at work, it’s the right time to be focused on work, because that’s what we are supposed to be doing at that time. And who chooses what we are supposed to do and not do? Us. That is the fourth Kṛpā. What are the four Kṛpās? Anyone remember? First Kṛpā, that’s the third one. The first Kṛpā is Deva Kṛpā. Deva means God or goddesses. That we are born into this human body, that we got this human body, is the first Kṛpā. Kṛpā means blessings. So the first blessing that we have is the blessing of the higher spirit of God, that we got this human life. Then comes the second, which is Śāstra Kṛpā. Śāstra means scriptures. Any type of knowledge that we read, we learn—school, college, now these books, Rāmāyaṇa, Gītā, Yogānandī Life, Hidden Powers, Līlā Amṛt. Any book, and we are reading it, and that knowledge is going inside of us, that is the kṛpā, or the blessings, of the śāstra, of the scripture. The third kṛpā, which we all have, is guru kṛpā. Guru kṛpā hi kevalaṁ śiṣyāṇāṁ ānanda maṅgalam. When we have Gurudev’s kṛpā, when we have Gurudev’s blessings, then we disciples are in ultimate bliss, Paramānanda. Ānanda means bliss, Paramānanda means ultimate bliss. Bliss, happiness we get from many things, but ultimate bliss—that happiness, that joy—that is only possible with the kṛpā, or the blessings, of the Gurudev. But Holy Gurujī said even higher than Guru Kṛpā, or more important—I wouldn’t say higher; highest is Guru Kṛpā—but more important than Guru Kṛpā is khud kī kṛpā, which means the kṛpā of ourselves. Why? Because the Guru will show us the path. You walk on this path. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s always going to be our decision if we want to walk that path or not. He can show us a path, but he’s not going to hold our hands and drag us on that path. It’s like a boat in an endless sea. And that sea is this Māyā, this illusion which we are living in. But it’s our decision if we want to step into that boat or not. But once we step into that boat, we know that that is the safest, securest, best place to be in, and we have that trust. But do we have the trust? Trust, faith. Why do we need to have faith? Because we always look up to something or someone, or the higher spirit, or whatever you want to call it. For us, it’s Gurū Dev. We look up to them. Why? Because we need some guidance. We need some way to be shown. That’s why it is said, don’t walk in front of the Guru. Don’t walk behind. Don’t walk on the side. Then our human brains will say, "Let’s walk diagonal." But it is said we should walk in the path which he shows us, because he is the one who knows what is right and what is wrong. He is the one who can change the destiny for us. He is the one who can do many things. There were two people, Divyā and Bhaktānanda. Or, let’s say this time, last time we had Divyā, so let’s say this time it was Mokṣa and then Bhaktānanda. It’s a fictional story, so do not take it personally. So those two friends were walking, and there was one satsaṅg going on from a boring guy called Avtar Purī. And they both were contemplating and deciding if they should go to satsaṅg or not. Bhaktānanda said, "There’s also a movie going on, and that it’s the last show." From tomorrow, that movie will be out of the cinemas. And at that time, there used to not have been Netflix and Prime or these things, so he couldn’t later on watch it. So the show was the last show. He said, "I want to go to a movie." And Mokṣānand, he said, "No, I will go for satsaṅg." They said, "Okay, let’s meet up after the satsaṅg and after the movie, and let’s discuss how it went." Agreed. They found a meeting spot. One went to Gurujī for satsaṅg, the second went for a movie. While sitting in the movie, Bhaktānanda had the thought, "I wish I was in satsaṅg." Because the movie, in the beginning, not... In the beginning, he was enjoying it, but in the middle he thought, "Not such an interesting movie." Maybe there was something more interesting happening in satsaṅg, so maybe I should have been there. Mokṣānanda, on the other hand, he went to satsaṅg, but he had FOMO. You know what’s FOMO? Fear of Missing Out. You know, us new generation, we have short abbreviations for everything. Fear of Missing Out. FOMO means Fear of Missing Out. So he had that feeling that, "Oh, I came to satsaṅg, but Bhaktānand went to a movie, and that movie was so interesting and lush. Oh, and I missed it, and I could have gone with him. It would have been much more fun." So again, concentration sitting in a movie, not concentrating on the movie, thoughts being in satsaṅg. Second person in satsaṅg, but thoughts being in the movie. So on the way back, they were walking to their meeting spot. Bhaktānanda found one gold coin on the streets. On the other hand, Mokṣānanda got one thorn on his foot. When they met, they started discussing. They said, "A weird thing happened to me." I said, "What? I went to satsaṅg, devotion, spirituality." But I got a thorn in my foot. Bhaktānanda was happy. He said, "I went to a movie and I got a gold coin." Then Mokṣānanda was angry a little bit because kāma, akrodha, mada, lobha, these enemies are within us. So at that time, the anger arose. I did something good. I went into a positive path. If you want, you can sit on the chair. Yeah, if your leg is hurting. No, no, you can stretch it. I’m saying, if you want, there’s a chair. So he decided I did some good. I went into the positive path, and still I got a thorn. And he went to a negative side, but still he got a gold coin. Then Mokṣaṇan said, "Let’s go to Gurujī, he will explain. I think he is smarter than us." So they went to Swamījī and they said, "Gurudev, what is this Līlā?" Līlā means, what is this divine play? I did something good, and I got this. He did something bad, and he got this. So why do I say that he is the person who can change your destiny? It is because Mokṣaṇan was supposed to get not only one thorn but a much bigger accident. But because he chose to go to satsaṅg, the intensity of the harm which he was supposed to get was reduced by the kṛpā of the Gurudev, and he only got one thorn. And Bhaktānand, who was supposed to get a whole basket of gold, but because he went to kusaṅga to a movie, still, because of that one thought, "I wish I was there," he got one gold coin. So that is the power of satsaṅga and kusaṅga. Tum sab ke... In this bhajan, it’s mentioning Pārvatī, Nandī and Gajānanjī. So it just reminded me of one thing. You know why Śivjī is known as Mahādev? Dev means God. Mahādev means God of Supreme God, or whatever you want to call it. Because every God is worshipped individually. Let’s say if you have Bhagavān Rām, then... Or with the wife, Rāma and Sītā, Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī. They are a couple or single. But Mahādev is Mahādev because the whole family is worshipped here. How? Śivjī worshipped? His wife, Pārvatījī, Satī Mātā, anyone? Worshipped. Son, Gajānanjī, Gaṇeśa, who, as we know, is worshipped. His wife, Hṛddhi Siddhi, worshipped Kārtikeya. Nandi, even the mode of transport, is worshipped. Tiger, mode of transport of Pārvatī, worshipped. Peacock, worshipped. Every single one of the whole family is worshipped. That’s why he is Devoke Dev, Mahādev. And he is always the most kindest one. That’s why he is also known as Bholenāth. Bhole means naive, innocent, very easily pleased. For other god and goddesses, you have to sit many, many years to finally get their darśan, Śivjī is very kind. Nothing, you need to do. So even if you, without anything, just one flower, and he’s happy. Shivjī is always happy. That’s why he’s Bholanāth. And one thing which we as a family can learn from Śivjī is how to live together. In these hard times, where we tend to become slightly dysfunctional, to have doubts, to have conflicts, to separate ourselves because of inner enemies, the best thing that we can learn from Śivjī is how they live together. Śivjī wears what on his neck? Snake. The mode of transport of Kārtikeya, his elder son, is peacock. Peacock eats snakes in the real world. Then you go to the mode of transport of Gaṇeśjī: mouse, rat. In the real world, snakes eat rats. The mode of transport of Pārvatījī: tiger, share, whatever, that eats all the rest. Bull also, it can be eaten by that lion, tiger. So they all, if they all can live together in one small Kailāś Parvat, very small, but if they all can live together, why can’t we all live together? The unfortunate thing in this, as we proceed in Kali Yuga, is, or especially I see it a lot in India, I don’t know how it is here, but parents grow older, kids put the parents in the old age home, who wants to take care of them, go. Why can’t we all live together in one beautiful family? They are very rare families. I only know, out of so many disciples of Gurudev in India, one or two personally who still live in one family. Parents, four children, therefore have already grandkids, and some of them already have great-grandkids, but still living in the same house. That is the beauty. Why? Because we need to stick together. Without a bhāva, without love, without feelings, this world is incomplete. Bhāva does not mean only to your partner. Love and compassion need to be amongst us as guru brothers, guru sisters, as family members. Towards anything, we need feelings. Without feelings, if we cook, the food is tasteless. It depends with which feelings you are doing what. When you’re cooking full of anger, that anger is in that food. And when the person, other people eat that food, that anger is going within you. So if you’re cooking, cook with love. If you’re talking, talk with love. If you’re interacting with one another, do it with love and feelings. Without love and feelings, this world is incomplete; we are incomplete. But to love others, we need to love ourselves. Until and unless we do not love ourselves, we cannot truly love others. And believe and understand ourselves, we cannot. But who is ourselves? That’s a good question. In Aprokṣaṇ Bhūti, Bhagwat Pāṭśrī Śaṅkarācārya jī says, "Who am I? From where did I come? From where did I originate? What is the cause of my living in this world?" These questions we need to ask ourselves. Then it is said, I am the Brahman. That I am is not the egoistic I am. That is just the realization that I am the Brahman. You know that one? Yeah, yeah. Something like that, I know the tune of it, and I know the meaning of it. Amen. Gītā Nārada Bhagavān Ne Kī Jai. When we realize that this ātmā, this soul, is ajar amar, which means it’s immortal, and the body is the one which will perish. We came with nothing, we shall leave with nothing. But we need to realize that we, or I, or us, or everything, are just the observer. We are not the doer. Nāhaṁ kartā prabhu dīpa kartā. They are the doer; let them do. We are just observing what is happening around us, what is happening with us. Even if it’s happening with us, we are not the doer. We are just the observer who is observing all these things, and we are higher than that. These all clouds shall pass, everything shall pass. But our bond and our connection to Gurudev, to each other, that is the one which will be there. Rest, everything will perish. All the problems will go, all the sadnesses will go, all the happinesses will also go. Nothing is permanent, but when we are sad, we are more worried about how much worse this can get. Instead of looking at the positive side, that this shall also pass, and happy moments are there, coming around the corner. And when the happy moments are there, we are more worried about when this will end and sad moments or other bad things will happen, instead of living and enjoying and being in the moment and enjoying those happy moments. So there’s not a problem in the outer world; there’s a problem in our inner world. But once we find that, and once we become one with the inner self, and once we realize who we truly are and accept ourselves as we are, then everything will move smoothly as it is supposed to be. I’m getting signals. So we need to realize that this ātmā and Paramātmā need to unite, and that we are the ātmā, which is just observing, not doing. So, if all these bad things are happening, or if anything is happening in our lives, no worries. That shall also pass. Nothing else. We have everything. We have all the tools. We have each other. We have Gurudev. And we have ourselves. But we always want more. Why do we always want more? Because that is our human nature, to want more. Satisfaction, contentment—yeah, that’s all down in the books. But do we feel like that? Do we live with that? Maybe yes, maybe not. But once we realize that we have enough for what we need, mostly it’s what we want, not what we need. There’s a difference between needing and wanting. We want more things. We want a new car, which will give us temporary happiness for two months, until we drive it like any other car we owned. But permanent happiness is this: what we are doing now, that is long-lasting happiness. Even if we are together now for six days, these memories will be there for at least a year, until we refresh them again. But going to a party, you will forget it the next day morning, because you’ll be too drunk to remember what happened in the party. So this party is much more fun. Let’s be here, let’s enjoy it, let’s be with each other, let’s be in the presence and the blessings of Gurudev. Any space or any place where his lotus feet were, that place becomes divine. That place becomes holy. So his energy, his blessings, you can feel it when you enter this hall, when you enter the ashram. And the same is for your homes. Wherever there is bhakti, which means where there is bhakti, where there are bhaktas, there there is God. And Guru is above all this. So where we have Gurudev and his blessings and his presence, and most of all, that is within all of us, inside of our hearts. We don’t need to look outside to a picture. It’s lovely to have his physical presence, but we need to look within and realize that he is within all of us, in each and every one of us equally. It’s not that I’m sitting up—I like back support, that’s why I’m sitting up here, and that you can all see me better. But we all are his disciples, we all are equal, we all are one unit, one beautiful family which he has created for all of us. No one is bigger, no one is smaller, no one is nothing. We all are equals, we all are his disciples, that’s what matters, nothing else. Śānti, Śānti,... Sadgurudev Bhagavān kī Jai. I’ll see you all.