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Part 1: At the Lotus Feet: Santoṣa, Viveka, and the Art of Letting Go My eyes stay on the lotus feet of the Gurudeva. In this māyā world, in this world full of illusion and all these things, we still come back to the lotus feet of Gurudeva. It doesn’t matter what obstacles come; it doesn’t matter which way our life takes us. Our mind and soul are only at peace when we are at the lotus feet. There might be a hundred billion obstacles, but we are simply happy with the dust particles. This universe is immense, yet we humans are not even equal to one dust particle from the lotus feet. We can do lifetimes of tapasyā, lifetimes of sādhanā, but without feelings, without love, there is no power, nothing. When we sit and sing “Ākhiyā, Sattā, Gurujī, Charaṇ, Om, Melaṅgī,” one way is just singing. Another is singing with a little bit of Śakti, a little bit of Bhakti. There is a slight difference in energy, a slight difference in the atmosphere around us. And it’s good cardio—we sweat. Good exercise for the throat. I still haven’t found my pitch. When I was younger I used to sing in such a low, high pitch, and then I got a deeper voice. I would sing “Ākhiyā Satguru,” and then try “Ākhiyā Satguru,” and sometimes it just gets stuck somewhere in between. But bhāva is important, not how it sounds. If your wife, your husband, your partner cooks some nice food and forgets to put salt, but it is full of love, you will enjoy eating it; you can just add some salt. But if the food is made with boredom—feeling frustrated, thinking, “Why do we have to cook? We can just order Uber Eats or Volt”—yet we still decide to cook at home, the energy is different. You can bake one loaf of bread with pure energy, and compare it to a store-bought loaf; you will taste the difference. There is tāmasic, rājasic, and sāttvic. We can have rājasic food and a sāttvic way of cooking it. Any food we cook, it’s like royal cooking. When the feelings are right and you put in your love, that is sāttvic food, because you made it with intention, with pure love. Or you go to a five-star Michelin restaurant; the food quality, look, and presentation will be good, but you don’t get any energy from it. That is because of love. We say “love” very easily, don’t we? It’s a very easily used word. Half the time, the person doesn’t even know if he or she means it or is just saying it for fun. It’s easy to say it; it’s not easy to live by it. You give your word to someone, you give your love to someone, but compatibility is not there. Neither you are happy, nor is the other person happy. And if none of us are happy, then what is the sense? That’s why I say, try to find someone who is not necessarily on the same page, but at least in the same book. Different books are hard to manage. Same book, different pages, we can adjust a little; one day you sneak into that page, and so on. Otherwise, one partner is going to sādhanā and the second one just woke up and is late for work: “Cook me breakfast. What are you doing sitting there in front of pictures?” So, as we were saying yesterday, we all have time for our sādhanā, we all have time for each other, we have time for everything. Do we find the time? That’s a different problem. Time is there, energy is there, but where the energy flows is in our hands. We hold immense energy; we are so powerful, but in which direction will that energy flow? That, at the end of the day, is in our own hands. No one else can decide for us where and what we are going to do. There is a saying: “Suno sabkī, mān kī, karo apne man kī. Suno sabkī, karo apne man kī.” This means, listen to everyone, but do what feels right to you. Why? Because we all are doctors, we all are engineers, we all are plumbers; we know everything. Or at least, we think we know everything. We believe so much in ourselves that we think we are sarvajñānī—which means we know everything. How to fix this? Yes, we know: we’ll take screwdrivers and this and that. Either we fix it, or we destroy it completely. We don’t leave anything in the middle. There is no middle ground—either completely this side or completely that side. Imagine a child falls down and scrapes his knees. Ten of us will come with different first aid kits and try to push our medicine first, or our technique. (I think you are getting more cool air there outside; should we exchange?) So, we all have our own dharmas to follow. But nowadays, our neighbor’s grass is greener. Santosh—whose name is Santosh? Any Santoshes here? What does Santosh mean? Contentment, satisfaction. Do we have santoṣa? The real kind, or both? Because if we have santoṣa, if we are content, we are in much more peace. And if you have santoṣa, then vairāgya comes easily. Vairāgya means detachment. But you can only detach from something if you have accepted it, and if you have satisfaction towards it, then you can let go. If you are not satisfied with something, you will want more—and not only more, but also different qualities and quantities. You get one pair of shoes, you don’t like them, then you try ten different shoes. That’s why now I like my wooden ones—not much decision-making to be done. But before flying, we went with the boys to get them some shoes in the shopping mall, and that day I realized the true value of time. And then I realized, okay, this was how my time was going in the past. Slowly, as you start detaching yourself from things, as you progress further, you begin to see your own past. I don’t dwell on it because I cannot really change it. But when such moments come to remind me, “Okay, this was how I was,” then I check what has changed from then to now. If nothing, then it’s useless. If something, then in which way has it gone? Did it go worse, or did it go better? We don’t need advice from everyone. That’s what I’m saying: Kogarkoli? Anybody, anybody, Kogarkoli. I was like, okay. So, when we’re sure, it’s good promotion for them, no? Every corner we go, every second person we meet, “Kāmārkoli gremo, kogārkoli srechāmo,” not in this one, in another one, still, not in glass, something where it’s not visible. See, it’s good to be honest. You are my family, so every second person we meet will have opinions on what and how you are doing something. “This is right, but it should be done in this way.” Now the best thing I do is, I say, “Sure, show me.” Show me—I don’t know how to do it—and you let them do it. Less work for you. If it’s done well, very good. If not, then you show them how it’s done. But if we fight with them, if we argue, if we try to prove that we are right, we are wasting our own vital energy. Let it go. How many of you watch Frozen? Let it go. Don’t hold on to it. Because we hold, we grasp onto things in such a tight way that we don’t want to let them go. But if we do let go, life becomes much simpler. We all have that intuitive power. We have viveka. In India we have a funny saying: “Bhagavān ne bhejā, par bhejā ke andar bhejā ne bhejā.” It’s like the tongue twister about a seashell sitting on the seashore… He says he knows some tongue twister from Slovenia. What is it? Some tongue twister from Slovenia—I know one. So, this saying means: God sent you—bhejā means sending, and bhejā also means brain. Hindi is very special; you can say kal, which means both yesterday and tomorrow. Now you choose which kāl you want. And similarly, it’s very easy to say “Okay,” or “Why?” or “How come?” because all is acchā. Acchā means “okay,” acchā means “Oh, how come? Oh, how come?”—acchā, I will see you angry. Okay, I will see how you work. Acchā, surprise. So just by changing the tone of the word, you get multiple meanings. So Bhagavān ne bhejā, par bhejā ke andar bhejā ne bhejā, which means God sent you, but He didn’t put any viveka in the buddhi. He didn’t put any brain in the brains. We all have a storage unit where we are storing, subconsciously or consciously, materials, most of which are useless. Of the information we store in our human brains in a day, I would say 90% we don’t need. If we would all mind our own business, not poke our heads into other people’s businesses, and let everyone live in peace, bliss, and harmony, we would have much more time. Half of our time is on the phone, gossiping with our best friend about what happened. What does she get out of that information? Nothing. What do you get out of telling that information? Again, nothing. So nothing plus nothing equals nothing. I’m good at this much math: zero plus zero equals zero, anything times zero is zero. Śūnya Kāj. So, if we rid ourselves of these things, we can have time to focus on our spiritual growth. Kāna, Pīnā, Bhoganā, Paścāt Śamana. We were sitting for lunch, and kāma, pīna, and bhogana means eating, sleeping, and reproducing. Ziga was supposed to say khānā and pīnā, which means eating and drinking. Do you want food, do you want lunch, in simple language? I was like, khānā, pīnā, bhoganā? Let’s skip the last part. That’s why the meaning: arthakā anarthona—which means you can get a good meaning out of a bad meaning, and you can make a bad meaning out of a good meaning. But we were all laughing because the bhāva, the intentions, the feelings, were pure. When the intentions are impure, then you feel it. So when we say “use viveka,” it means Gurudev has taught us our whole life what is wrong and what is right. Sometimes, the hard disks in our computers get corrupted. Dharmarāj and you, they might know: when the memory card gets corrupted and all the data is lost. In the same way, we humans and our buddhi, our viveka, get corrupted from time to time, and then they need cleansing. And when we come for satsaṅgs, when we go for seminars, those are the cleansings. Did you see a mountain? How many of you like mountains? Part 2: The Mountain and the Self: A Discourse on Inner Stability and Spiritual Growth Mountains are very majestic and immense. Many other things, many people, appear tiny by comparison. Yet does the mountain ever declare, “I am so big,” or “I am so small, there are small mountains and there are big mountains”? No. Mountains remain ever stable in their same position. Storm, rain, snow—anything comes and goes, but the mountain is stable. It does not listen to who might say what. It does not grow jealous of other objects, other mountains, other people. It simply is there, just as we are. We, too, can learn not to be affected every day by little things—who said what and why. We are far more highly developed spiritually than that. The power of the human brain is immensely vast. Everything you see around us—buildings, chairs, anything at all—has been made by the human brain. Good decisions, bad decisions—the same brain. When we speak of sāṅgātika asar, which means the effect, the colour: if you wash freshly coloured clothes together with white clothes in a washing machine, what happens? The white clothing will get stained. In the same way, if you throw your beautiful, white, pure soul into kusaṅga, that colour will stick to your clothes a little. And if we go to satsaṅg, that colour will also stick. In any case, it happens that way. The best example: no matter where you are or what you do, when your child goes to kindergarten or gurukul or wherever, he or she makes friends, and then you will see that effect slowly, slowly manifest in your child too. Why do we tell our partners, in front of children, “Behave”? Because the child hears and sees; they may not react, but subconsciously everything gets stored. That is why in India, when a mother is pregnant, even at that time she is advised to listen to the Bhagavad Gītā, to good things, to eat good food, to surround herself with good vibrations. Why? Because it is believed that those vibrations reach the child. That is how powerful the human body, brain, and soul are. The human soul, this human body, is meant to do something good. And if we are all sitting here, we have all found the reason for our existence. Every morning after waking, we look at our hands, rub them, and say, “We may have darśana of God.” We make praṇām to the earth. And then, every morning, until we receive the answer, we should ask ourselves the same questions: Who am I? From where have I come? What is the cause of my existence? That is it. Now, why did he or she do this? When we point one finger, where are the other three fingers? If we point three fingers upwards, then yes, obviously three fingers go downward; but if we point them forward, three fingers point at us. So first we observe ourselves. That is why self-discovery in meditation exists—Gurujī has established it. Because when we observe and try to see what is wrong within ourselves, we will find enough things to fix instead of fixing others. We will find so much trash inside us that it would take lifetimes to clear. But we have already been clearing it for lifetimes, and that is why we finally have Gurudeva. He cleared all the past karmic problems. Yet that does not mean the future is also clear. Our past can be cleared. But then, after we receive mantra dīkṣā—when it is our new birthday, when we are again reborn—it all starts again. Then we know, and we use our viveka to discern what is pāpa and what is puṇya, what are good deeds and what are bad deeds. At the end of the day, Gurudev still protects and guides us, but the decision-making lies in our hands. One day there was a father, a son, and a donkey. They were walking. The neighbouring people who saw them said, “What stupid people! They have a donkey, yet they are all just walking together; no one is using it.” They heard this. The next day they arranged that the child sat on the donkey while the father walked. Then people said, “What an evil son, making his poor old father walk!” So they changed. Then the father rode and the child walked, and people said, “What a bad father, making his poor young child walk.” Finally they lifted the donkey and carried it on their heads. Now what? Now they are even more foolish for carrying the donkey on their heads. In the same way, whatever we do or do not do, we will always be judged. Why? Because we get juice out of judging people. Masālā. And you know, if I say something, “Jai Dev, do this,” then Jai Dev will tell his father, “Avatarpurī said do this,” and the father will say further, “Avatarpurī said this and this and this.” So already there are three versions, then four, then five, and someone adds a little masālā on top. That is why the Paramparā works the way it does. That divine light of Gurudeva, that divine light of the Paramparā, flows in a constant manner, without obstacles. We are merely the channels. We sit here, and then they flow. Otherwise, we are back to normal. But we need to believe that they are there. We all sing Nāhaṁ Kartā after meditation. Do we truly believe in Nāhaṁ Kartā? If we truly believed, then he would say, “I should still have my license, no?” So when we believe—believe without any doubt—that is belief. We all believe. But inwardly, somewhere at the back of our minds, I believe Mahāprabhujī will do everything, yet there is that small “but what if?” You know it; that is the problematic part. When Holī Gurujī fully trusted and let go, all doors opened. But when a slight doubt remains, why do things happen outside our control? What were we singing? Akhāṛā, Satguru, Charaṇāmelā, Agī, Merī, Kismata, Jāgīre, Kismat. Kismat means my destiny. My destiny awakened, it opened up. So we all have our destinies. What will happen, where it will happen, in which way it will happen—nothing is a coincidence. It is always something for us to learn or something for another to learn. Every life event, every happening occurs because it is meant to, and it is supposed to happen. There is nothing, really, we can change about it. But the kismet, the destiny, opens when we have the grace and the kṛpā of the Guru. Yet that does not give us a free pass. Even within that grace, destiny will still work; only its intensity will be reduced. If something is destined to fall upon you, you may have an accident, but instead of your leg being completely destroyed, you receive a thorn or a scratch. It will still happen. The manner, the way, the intensity—those differ. But the happening will happen. And what do we do? Our first impulse is to blame someone else. We immediately try to find a reason for why it happened and whom to blame. If we cannot humanly blame another, we will blame Swāmījī, or God, or anyone. When we say, “Oh, it’s my destiny,” we do not readily admit, “He did this,” or “She did that.” It brings us far more satisfaction to believe someone else did it rather than ourselves. But if we admit that we did it, do we become smaller persons? Do we change who we are? We talk about it, we admit it, and it is sorted. Otherwise, we stretch it out, have a hundred billion discussions, a billion lies, until eventually the truth emerges anyway. What do we say? Satya Meva Jayate. Satya, the truth, shall always prevail. No matter what happens, in the end truth will come out. It is easier to live with the truth; then we live a far easier life. That is why the books are now open. Read whichever page you want. Ask questions; we solve the questions. But keeping doubts in the head and concocting masala is not fun. So let us now try to focus more inwardly towards our self. Let us grow ourselves spiritually further. Let us develop our inner consciousness. And let us progress with the kṛpā and blessings of Buddha. When we make praṇām, what do we say? “Hey Bhagavān, grant me Śakti, Bhakti, Vairāgya; give me Śakti, give me Bhakti, give me Vairāgya; give me this, give me that.” Why? Because we ask for strength for what we do. We ask for blessings and guidance in what we do. We search for the truth. Iščemo resnico. And we walk the path with dharma. Dharma rakṣati rakṣitaḥ. We protect Dharma; Dharma shall protect us. We walk with Dharma. Let us go with Dharma. Earth, which means money and wealth, will come. Dharma, artha, kāma. Kāma does not mean only sexual pleasure. Kāma means any type of happiness, any type of pleasure. If we are driving a car, we have fun; if we are boating, we have fun; if we go out and play soccer, we have fun. Whatever we do, that enjoyment is kāma. And if that kāma is done with bhakti, with bhāva, then everything works. So dharma aligned with artha, kāma, leads to moksha. It is a gradual, step-by-step process. God knows how many lifetimes we have done this. How many lifetimes have we lived to come and sit in this hall? We are the rare and fortunate souls who were born at this time, in this place, to have Gurudeva in our lives. So we pray to Gurudeva and to the Divine Light to bless us, to guide us, to keep us happy and blessed. May all our avaguṇas, all our bad qualities, go away, and may we all be blessed. So, many blessings from Gurudeva. Much love from me. Every day I lose track of time, and I always go on till 9, 10, 11. Now I still have a two-hour drive. So we will sing one bhajan, then we have a prayer, and then we go. We would like to thank both Paṇḍitjīs for coming to Europe. And I have one idea: do we have any big paper? Yes. Just write “Praṇām Gurudev” or something, and we all sign, and they can take it to Swāmījī in India. So we thank them for all the beautiful pūjās and yagyas they organized and performed. And we hope to see them soon. We hope we shall see them again soon. Very good, have a safe journey. Lot, Turkish, which one? Air India lot broke my suitcase last time. Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, Śrī Swāmī Ātarpurījī, Mahārāja, kī jai. Śrī Alakhpurījī, Śrī Dīp Paramparā, kī jai. Śrī Satguru Deva, Śrī Satguru Deva, Śrī Satguru Deva. Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṃsvayī Maheśvarānandajī Gurudeva, kī jai. Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Śrī Samyatar Purī Jī Mahārāja, kī jai. Śrī Alakhpurījī, Śrī Dīp Paramparā, kī jai.