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What a beautiful bhajan: Sādhanā Chhara, Karuṇā Chhara. It is the teachings of the Bhagavad Gītā and Śrī Śaṅkarācārya Jī, which Gurujī, Holy Gurujī, expressed in simple language. There are so many Upaniṣads, Vedas, and Purāṇas, but for us ignorant human beings who cannot truly understand all of that, our great Paramparā masters create bhajans to simplify the meaning. Bhagavadpāda Śaṅkarācārya Jī wrote about this Sādhanā Catuṣṭaya and the Ṣaṭ Sampatti in Viveka Cūḍāmaṇi. In that book, he described the four sādhanās and the six virtues. But Holy Gurujī, for us, put it in simple language for all the Hindi speakers, because you all understand. Yet Hindi is still simpler to understand than Sanskrit. So: "Sādhanā chāro, karo Hari pyārā." O ones who chant the name of Hari, who are loved by Hari, in this Kali Yuga it is said, "Hari Nāma Saṅkīrtana karnevāloṁ kī mukti hotī hai." This means that those who chant the name of Hari, the name of the Lord, those who chant the Guru Mantra, will be easily liberated. That is the easiest way for mukti in Kali Yuga. So, O seekers, O bhaktas, devotees who chant the name of Hari, if we follow these four paths, these four rules, then we are on the path to mokṣa and we will attain mokṣa. First is viveka. Think about our viveka, our determination, our power of discrimination: the ability to differentiate between what is permanent and what is temporary. Who can differentiate between satya and asatya, between truth and lies? The second sādhanā, the second way, is vairāgya, which is to let go. It is detachment from all worldly, materialistic things, and also from all the beautiful things we may receive in Brahmaloka, in the heavenly world. We detach ourselves from that as well. "Tīja sādhanā śraddhā sampati dharo." This refers to the six virtues within us, the six inner treasures: śama, dama, śraddhā or titikṣā, uparati, and samādhāna vicāra. If we follow these six inner intuitions, these inner powers of a human being, then we will always abide in ānanda. Then there is mokṣatva, the intense longing to attain mokṣa, to be liberated, to be free from this cycle of death and birth. Mokṣatva is that burning desire to attain something, to attain mokṣa, to attain self-realization. Śrī Mādhavānandajī, Holy Gurujī, is telling us at the Lotus Feet of Mahāprabhujī that these are the four ways. All the Vedas, Purāṇas, all the knowledge is contained in the bhajans; we just need to understand them. But sometimes, even for me, it is a little hard to understand because some of the bhajans use a very specific Mārwāṛī dialect. And I love our prayer. That is why we speak of the importance of bhāva. Our prayer is a combination written by Mahāprabhujī, Holy Gurujī, and Swāmī. We have a mixture of Hindi—no, sorry—Mārwāṛī and Sanskrit in our prayer. When true scholars of Sanskrit read it, they say, "Hmm, I see. Yes, this is a true combination and merger of languages." But that is the point: the bhāva. What is Gurujī’s bhāva? What is he trying to explain? We all understand that through his simple language. All the knowledge we could possibly receive, he gave us in bhajans, he gave us in all these forms. So, titikṣaṇa. What does titikṣā mean? Titikṣā means patience, endurance. We were enduring for so many days and weeks, and today, finally, the documentary of the Himalaya trip arrived. So I would request Nirañjan Purī Jī to come and present it. Is anyone here, besides us three, who was in the Himalayas? No. Okay, and then he will speak. Śrī Dīpanā Mahāvākyam, Chaitanya. Hello, hello. One, two, one, two. Śrī Dīpanā Maghavānakī, Chaitanya. My praṇāms to our Gurudev and to our Paramparā, Alakhpurījī, Siddha Pīṭh Paramparā. To Avatārpūrī Jī, all the sannyāsīs, and to all dear brothers and sisters. Along with Avatarpurī Jī, one month ago at this time, we were in the Himālaya. Why? Why did we go there? Why do people go to the mountains? Because mountains are beautiful, full of nature, full of prāṇa, less crowded, and full of inspiration. But there is no other mountain like the Himālaya. From the mythological point of view, it is the home of Bhagavān Śiva and Mother Pārvatī Jī. Not only Kailāś, but also Badrīnāth, the Gaṅgotrī area, Amarnāth—it is all over the Himālaya. Actually, if you look at the name of Mother Pārvatī, it means the daughter of the mountains. She has about a hundred names, and at least ten of them indicate that she is the daughter of the mountains: Pārvatī, Girijā, Śailajā, Śailaputrā, Haimavatī, and so on. So Pārvatī Jī is from the mountains, from the Himalayas. Avatārpurī Jī mentioned a very important thing two days ago: the ṛṣis, munis, and yogīs go there for thousands of years, continuously, uninterruptedly. They perform sādhanā, they perform tapasyā, and their tapasyā creates a saṁskāra in the mountains. The vibration remains there. It is like building a temple. When you take the architecture and build only the structure, it is still just a structure. When you perform prāṇapratiṣṭhā, when the divine energy is given to the building, it becomes a temple. But it only remains a temple if bhaktas go there and do their worship, if paṇḍits are there and perform the pūjās. This is what has happened with the Himālaya. When Sister Pavitrā from Salzburg spoke two days ago, she said one very important sentence: "You can’t help but feel it." If a spiritually inclined person goes to the Himālaya, he has to feel the spiritual input, the income it brings him. Even the great saints and great yogīs, even now, go there. Although they do not need to, they still go to receive more. We basically followed the footsteps of our Gurudev, Viśvagurujī, who went to Gaṅgotrī in 2014. He was there in early May, so the national park was still closed at that time, and he could not proceed further into the mountains. But I think Maṅgalpurījī was there with Swāmījī, is that correct? In Gaṅgotrī 2014, yes, Maṅgalpurījī was there. That journey must have had some meaning for Gurudev, because it was only the second time in his life that he shaved his head. The first time was when Holy Gurujī took Mahāsamādhi, and the second time Gurudev did this was in Gaṅgotrī. We were hoping to have a big group, but actually, we were a very small family gathering. Again, thanks to Avatārpurījī that he joined with his Indian group, because otherwise we could not have organized it. On the way, we visited beautiful places of tapasyā and sādhanā: Ṛṣikeśa, Uttarkāśī, Harṣil, Gaṅgotrī, and many others. Thanks to Avatarpurījī’s presence, doors opened everywhere. During the āratīs, we could sit in the front line, and we could go directly to the temples and descend there. That was very helpful. When we reached the top destination of our trip, Tapovan—a meadow 4,300 meters above sea level in the heart of the Himalayas—we met two sādhus who have lived there permanently for more than 15 years. They live there twelve months a year, which means six to seven months under snow. One of them, Swami Ānand Sarasvatī, said that for six months he does not go out of his gufā. Another Swāmījī, Ananta Sarasvatī, said that after six months he would not even get out of his guphā. I have to say that as a bhakta, I was pleased with how they accepted Avatārpuri Jī, because there in the mountains, the title of Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara has zero value. And that is how it should be. Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara is just a title. "I’m still the same Avatārpuri. Nothing changes." That is Avatārpuri’s humbleness. But you know, when we come to the āśrams in Haridvār or Ṛṣikeśa, a certain protocol has to be followed. It is the culture of the Sādhu Samāj, the society of Sannyāsins and Sādhus. But up there in the mountains, with these people who live there twelve months a year, they are the masters. They are the ones to whom we should bow. Yet they showed so much hospitality and humility. That was beautiful. A short diversion: we were wondering, along with our Indian organizer, Rājūjī—many of you know him—how Avatārpurījī would manage in the mountains, since he is always either traveling in a car or sitting in lectures. September is coming up, so now I am practicing cycling and walking. I don’t know what the reason was—maybe next is rock climbing, who knows? Was it the lack of internet signal, mobile phones, or electricity? I don’t know, but there was some atomic gear inside Haṭhar Purī Jī. Twice he fled away from us. He was always about two hours ahead of the group. Now I come to the point when he arrived at Tapovan, and we came two and a half hours later. He was in just a very simple dress, and it was quite cold there—he had less than a t-shirt on. One of the sādhus, who had never seen him before, gave him a full, very nice warm dress and said, "As long as you are in Tapovan, you keep it, you have it." Perhaps it is not visible in our documentary, but Avatarpurī Jī was the only one who took a bath every day in the ice-cold water in the morning. Not that the rest of us do not know the rules of hygiene, but in the morning, sometimes we had minus 10 degrees. The water is not easily accessible because it is below the ice; you have to break the ice. Many of us were not in the best health, so to secure our health, we skipped the hygiene point. I still tried my best by forcing them every morning, but with no success. Regarding health, none of us had it easy. Everyone had some smaller issues. Mahātapasvī Vikrambharī is here. Āchārya, he is here. On the Monday when we started from Ṛṣikeśa to the mountain, he was fasting, as he does every Monday, all day. He has now convinced Jai Prakāś, and they both fast together. On that fasting day, he started with vomiting and a headache. It continued on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The whole trip we didn’t see him. Every day he was vomiting several times. Every day he had a headache from morning till night, but he never said he would go back. We were forcing him to go into the warm guphā or go back down, and he said, "No, my group is here, I stay here." The wolf pack. It was a very beautiful experience, and we hope we will have many more experiences like this. But on the other hand, many of us cannot go to the top. It is a matter of age, job, family, money. So, don’t worry. Gurudev never told us we have to go to the Himālaya. Gurudev is here, and basically, he is just one thought away. He is in the heart. Maybe the person who calls Alakhpurījī from the bottom of the heart is closer to him than the one who goes to the cave. So let’s hope the documentary is there. It is still warm, because we completed it just a few minutes before this evening lecture. If there are any mistakes, please forgive. Sūrya Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān, kī jaya, Sūrya Nārāyaṇa. All of you, please come here so that you can watch easily. Before we start, I would like to invite our dear Mantra Devī. She has a birthday today. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mantra Devī, happy birthday to you. Can we dim the lights, please? Welcome to Gaṅgotrī, one of the four dhāmas of the Himālaya: Badrīnāth, Kedārnāth, Yamnotrī, and Gaṅgotrī. From here we are starting our eight-day trek to the holy mountains of the Himālaya, where we will have no mobile signal, no electricity, no warm water, but beautiful spiritual vibrations of Śivaloka. Welcome. Welcome to Chirbasa, our first camp. We walked six hours very comfortably, with a lunch break and some other breaks. This is Himalayan pine, which is called chir, hence Chirbasa. We are here in such beautiful nature, and just 100 meters from us flows the Bhāgīrathī River. Let us go there to see. This is our holy river Bhāgīrathī, or let’s say Gaṅgā. It comes from the places we are heading to tomorrow: Ujbasa, then Gomukh, and finally Tapovan and the base camp of Mount Śivaliṅg. This is our camp in Tapovan, at an altitude of 4,300 meters. We reached here after three days of trekking from Gaṅgotrī via Gomukh. We are living just below the holy mountain of Śivaliṅg, and here is the Bhāgīrathī Massif. Visibility is not very good today, so we will show you in the next pictures. We have good, comfortable tents and toilets. This is a perfect Indian vegetarian kitchen with good food, and we practice yoga here and go for walks. It is simply a perfect place to stay. Now all of you don’t need to go all the way far away. You are exactly in the right position. Just turn around. Why go all the way so far, far away again? I should still say something. We did not comment on it, but at the end of the documentary, there was the Āratī at Har-ki-Pauri, the Gaṅgā Āratī. Actually, there are many holy rivers in India: Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Godāvarī, Kāverī, Sindhu—what did they forget? At the end of each river, you find an evening āratī, and sometimes a morning āratī as well. For them, the river is a living entity, a divine entity, and there is always a goddess behind with whom they interact. Gaṅgā Āratī is very typical. In Ṛṣikeśa, for example, many years ago you could normally attend the āratī at the Triveṇī Saṅgam. But now there are six Gaṅgā Āratīs going on in Ṛṣikeśa in the evening, and there is no fixed protocol. You go to one, you have one experience; you go to another, you see a slightly different program. But if you manage to join with that pūjā, with that worship, you find out that it is living. You see how the people are, how joyful they are. They understand the words, they understand the wisdom, and there is a flow of energy during that pūjā. When we went down to Haridvār, Avatārpurījī had to go quickly to Jādan, but he arranged for us to attend that Gaṅgā Āratī, which was at the end of the documentary. We had no idea that it was a constellation that repeats once every three years. It was some Ekādaśī in the Puruṣottama month, an extra month in the Hindu calendar. There were 50,000 people sitting there—a huge crowd. Imagine 50,000 people joining the prayer with full enthusiasm; many of them traveled thousands of kilometers to come there because of that. These are things you can experience only in India. I don’t think you come across such things anywhere else. You can plan it if you go to Kumbha Melā or some announced Yajña, but in India, such things happen just out of the blue. Although we had a program, an itinerary of what we would do, many things we actually experienced could not be planned. They were simply prasāda. Exactly what we talk about: go with the flow, be in the moment. One experience is actually what Guru Kṛpā is. We don’t need miracles in life. We need protection, some basic material comfort, and the touch of the divine. We need to know that we are connected, that there is something more than the ordinary life we live. In India, this principle is a little bit more palpable. So once again, thanks to Paramparā that we could realize this dream, which for a few years was somehow on the mind. I humbly request the prolonging of mercy, that we may make such trips again. Now, Avatārpurījī is telling me I should mention that next year we are planning Kailāś and Mānasarovar. Theoretically, it should be at the end of the summer, but we still don’t know because it has to match with the summer seminars. The plan is a summer seminar, then we go for a month-long India tour seminar with Kumbha Melā, then we come back and complete the seminar. I don’t know where in the Himalayas he will fit it, but the plan is to start the summer seminar, then go to India for an Indian trip and Kumbha Melā, and then come back here for the seminar. How the Himalayas will fit in there, we will see. We would like to go to Kailāśa a few more times, but we just need to make it happen the first time. That is the important step. We already have the itinerary: about 15 or 16 days from Kathmandu to Kathmandu. A 7-day or 10-day package is manageable, but they do not guarantee that you come back alive. We don’t want only to go for darśan of Kailāś; we also want to come back. To make it comfortable enough—because for most of us, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—it will be costly, you can’t avoid it, and it can be 18 or 19 days. You don’t have such a holiday every year. Let’s do a life test. How many of you are interested? Good. We will make it safe. It is two days in Kathmandu, two days in Kirang, which is already in Tibet after the Nepal border, at about 3,000 meters. Then two days in Sāgā, which is already 4,000 meters, and two days at Mānasarovar, which is 4,600 meters. The kora of Kailāś itself normally takes three days. In our language, we say parikramā, going around the mountain, which is 52 kilometers. Basically, two days you have to walk 20 kilometers. The minimum height is 4,700 meters, and the maximum is 5,650 meters. So it requires both proper acclimatization and fitness, because you have to walk these 20 kilometers at that high altitude. That is why, to make it sustainable and safe, we go for the 15-day itinerary. That is the plan for next year. Whoever would like to go needs to have some recent experience—let’s say within three years—of trekking in the mountains, at least above an altitude of 3,500 meters. It does not mean you need to go with us; you can go with anyone, but we have to keep each member and the group safe. There will be a medical test for everybody, or let’s say, you need to have the stamp of your doctor that you can go, and there will be such preconditions. But we are all practitioners of Yoga in Daily Life, so we don’t get old. Only I feel old; that’s a different problem. If anyone wishes, this September we are also going to Alakhpurījī’s cave and Devpurījī’s cave. Avatārpurījī is also joining. I am joining Alakhpurījī and Devpurījī—I still have not confirmed. It depends on my physical condition. But I will let you know in time so that you can plan. So if anyone is still considering, it is still possible to process it.