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Life is always tiring. It doesn’t matter what you do: you travel, you don’t travel, you sit at home—you still get tired. We think only traveling will make us tired. Absolutely not. There is a state called Khālī Dimāg, Śvetāṅka Dimāg, which means an empty brain, or rather, an ideal brain where there is nothing going on. In simple language, you can call it being bored. When the brain is bored, it starts to find new things, which are not always positive things to do, simply because it is bored. How many wolves do we have inside? Two. Which ones? Good and bad. But it always depends on which wolf we are feeding. And when we are bored, when there is nothing to do, and when the mind is idle, it always finds or goes towards that dark wolf. Doing something nice gives us a good feeling. But doing something a little bit diverted gives more of an adrenaline rush, right? Why? Because that wolf is hungrier. And at the moment when our conscious mind is idle and has nothing to do, that wolf is so hungry that we feed it with our Icchā Śakti. Out of the five enemies, the lobhī one—the one which is greedy—that becomes the food of that wolf. Because then we try to figure out brilliant ideas: how we can get something, how we can do something which will be fun. Not necessarily dharmic. It is not always following righteousness, following the dharmic path, but it is somewhere in the middle zone. Then we immediately know that this is the wolf of darkness, because that wolf in the idle brain will always try to find something new, something interesting to do, which is not the right path. Which are the five inner enemies? Kāma, krodha, mada, lobha, ahaṅkāra. All these negative qualities can only be reduced by using our viveka. Gurudev taught us, gave enough viveka to all of us. But at the end of the day, we are the ones who have to use our viveka. In Hindi, there is a word called buddhi and there is a word called buddhū. There is only a change of one small alphabetical abbreviation. One has an "i" and one has a "u." You remember from where the "u" comes? U A U M. That is how Gurudev taught us to chant. So, ukār and ikār. Buddhū means stupid, and buddhi means intellect. Now we decide if we want to be buddhūs or buddhi jīvīs. And only our viveka can determine if we are buddhi jīvīs. But most of the time, we are fighting between our heart and our brain. That is the biggest fight which we inwardly always fight. There, we do not use our viveka. There, we do not think, "Is that my heart, right?" or "Is that my inner voice, right?" Devotion and a pure heart. When you have a pure heart, then immediately you emit that energy, that purity, to all others around you. And if you have a dark heart, or there is something impure, then that becomes a reflection, and they reflect it back towards you as a mirror. Most of the time, when someone says, "You are like this, you are like that," those are exactly their own qualities, which they are expressing through what they are telling you. Because whatever we say, whatever comes out of our mouth, has to go through the subconscious mind to the conscious mind to come out. And inwardly, if our subconscious mind is completely fogged up with all these useless things, then that reflects through our conscious mind, through our Vāka Śakti, through our mouth. That is why I said: talk with awareness, listen with patience. It is very simple logic. If you talk, whatever you talk, if it is going through your conscious mind, put it in the subconscious mind, process it—there should be awareness—and then whatever comes out will be pure. And if the other person can listen with patience, then there will be no complications. But we ourselves, as the innocent or ignorant human beings we are, our tendency is that we become impatient, we become unaware. That is why we are what we are. What are we? Agyānī jīva. Which means the ignorant one, because we did not know, but now we know. Gurudev told us what the goal is. But we need again to have trust, we need to have faith for it to work. O Veda Purāṇoṁ meṁ gāte haiṁ. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān, Kī Jai, Śrī Śivānandjī, Mahārāj, Kī Jai. Even in the Vedas and in the Purāṇas, it is said that all the pilgrimages reside in the lotus feet of Gurudev. And even in the prayers every day, what do we sing? Rāma usne vī—so even if God Rāma, Lord Kṛṣṇa, they also had a guru in their physical, materialistic world. Without a guru, this journey, crossing the ocean—the wavy ocean—is not possible. So all we need to do is trust and step into the boat. And we are already in that boat. Now it is just in our hands to remain in that boat, which our Guru is leading. The waves are very turbulent, but in that boat we are always protected. Guru is from darkness to light. He is not that light, but He is the one who is bearing that torch and showing the path on which we are supposed to walk. Four Kṛpās. What is the first one? Deva Kṛpā. The second? Śāstra Kṛpā—the blessings or the kṛpā of any scriptures that we study. If it goes inside of us, if we know it, understand it, that is Śāstra Kṛpā. Third? Guru Kṛpā. Guru Kṛpā Hi Kevalam. So when we have Gurudeva’s grace, when we have Gurudeva’s kṛpā, blessings, then our life is in ultimate bliss. And the fourth? Khud kī kṛpā, which means the blessings, the kṛpā of ourselves. Because until we move ourselves... This human life is very precious. We should not waste it. Why? Because eating, sleeping, and reproducing, even animals can do. A drunk monkey who is bitten by a scorpion, walking on thorns. In the Bhagavad Gītā, Śaṅkarācārya always compared our mind with a monkey. But then, looking at my own mind, I know that it is not only a monkey; it is a drunk monkey bitten by a scorpion, dancing on thorns. At least, that is my brain; I do not know about yours. But then our viveka kicks in, our alignment with dharma kicks in, and we know that this is right and this is wrong. What happened in the past, you cannot do anything about it. You do not know the future, so let it go. Some people say some things, you go through certain experiences in life, which most of the time changes the whole path of our life, but we need to know that we are always the best versions of ourselves, no matter if someone loves you or does not love you. It does not matter what anyone else thinks. But I am 100% sure that we are all trying our 100% best to do what is right for us. We might have doubts about other people. We might still not fully trust other people. But at least I know that it does not matter what we think about others. At least we know that we are good, we know what we are doing. And when things are done with awareness—when you are aware of not only what I am saying or what you are listening to, but also about the things which are immediately coming into your mind while I am speaking—and then manage to solve that question which you came up with until I start my second sentence, then we are using the monkeys; they are not so drunk that day. It is easy, trust me. And it is possible, but we need to make it possible. And this is, what is this called? Saṃskāra. Saṃskāra. And these are the saṁskāras which parents should give to the children. And these are the saṁskāras which Gurudev gave us to give them. When a child is young and you give them a phone, they will learn how to use the phone. And if you teach them that by making praṇām they get chocolates, then that is how they learn how to make praṇām. So, in the same way, as kids need treats to do something, we also need treats. And what is our treat? The grace, the blessings, the divinity of the divine. And figuring out if we really want it, or do we really need it. Because most of the time, we already have everything that we need. But that Icchā Śakti, that lobh which is within us, that is just increasing and increasing. And when that increases, our spiritual level decreases. Our biggest enemies in our spiritual path are these inner enemies. When we learn, we do not need to control them. We do not need to remove them. But in the same way as we tame a horse—it kicks you, gets wild, runs off, throws you off, it is back—many options. In the same way, when we go too much into a trip which we like—but I am not talking about a road trip, I am talking about an ego trip—that trip can get you really crazy. And once you enter that trip, it is hard to come back out. Because that is the only thing which is giving that ghī into that fire. And once we start with this ego trip, once we start with the spiritual ego trip, then our spiritual journey goes downhill. In dharma, in spirituality, there is no comparison. You cannot compare: "I am better, this is worse, I do more sevā, I sing more bhajans, I do more karma yoga." And then we do ten mālās and we say, "I did ten mālās and all good," and I covered up that karmic connection. It is said that one bad word which comes out of the mouth destroys ten rounds of mālā. And imagine how many swear words we use a day. We are driving a car, and someone overtakes us. First thought in our mind: "Damn, such an impatient person." And then five minutes later, we are overtaking someone. "I have some urgent work. I am just rushing, nothing else." So other people are impatient, but we have important work. In spirituality, there is no comparing big, small, this, that—nothing. Someone can do ten years of their gummalā, their kriyā anuṣṭhān, ten years of very devoted meditation. And the other person just did it for one day. But if they do it like Rām or they do it like Rāvaṇ, that is up to us. Rāvaṇa was the greatest scholar. Rāvaṇa was the greatest disciple, the greatest Śiva Bhakta. He was the only person who could get aṅgraha from Śiva and lift up the whole Kailāśa mountain, but the only thing that got him down was his pride and his ego, and that one person. Who did his mālā meditation with pure devotion, with pure devotion... with pure devotion. Purity in the heart, that will be more fruitful than ten years of doing anything. We will immediately notice the change when we are more aware of our actions, of our thoughts, of our speech, of our Śruti and Smṛti both—what we are hearing and what we are remembering. And we immediately see the difference when we start to become more aware of our thoughts, our actions, our words, our truths and truths, what we hear, and what we remember. Śrutis are those things, those information, those knowledge which we receive from listening. Smṛtis are those that go into our subconscious mind. That is why we say Smaraṇ Śakti: the power of remembering. But we live in a world where we all are living with short-term memory loss. There are so many things happening, and this is the exact proof of why we forget things all the time. Because we are so divided in our minds with all the hundred billion thoughts which are coming and going. We are so distracted in those thoughts that we just get lost in them. When a thought comes, we evaluate it. Is it our thought, or is it the thought of someone else who is reflecting it on us? Then evaluate if that thought needs action, or can it just go? Useless thought, no action needed, get out. Some action is needed, then determine if it is for them or for us. If it is not our emotion, if it is not our thing, it is someone else’s projection, let it be theirs, get out of there. First we need to fix ourselves, first we need to love ourselves, then only can we spread and give love to others. If you manage to evaluate that that thought is ours, then find a solution for the thought. Every lock has a... If every lock has a key, that means every problem has a solution. If we have clear vision—not this eyesight vision, but inner vision, clarity, purity in heart—then we will notice that half of the things that we are seeing, listening, talking about, thinking about, need no space in our mind. And there is no way to upgrade your mind. There is only Viveka Cloud. Use the viveka, determine which half, or more than half, or 70% of the thoughts are useless, clear them out of the space, keep positivity in the head, it will be fine. And to see how aware we are, tomorrow if I ask you the same thing, many of us will not be able to answer the same things that I repeated today. And when there is so much trash in the mind, our words reflect that stink. And when we just completely say things without any awareness, then we will realize, okay, this is how many things I am carrying in me. If we create a problem, we solve the problem. Śrī Vivekānanda. Oṃ Viśvagurujī. There is nothing that we are still lacking. The person who will take us from this shore, from this māyājāl, from this spider web, and help us cross this ocean and let this Ātmā become merged one with that Paramātmā, that is Gurudev, and we already have Gurudev. And we do not need to worry about things, because He will take care of it. That is the Guru’s job to deal with things. My happiness is yours, my sadness is yours, my anger is yours, my everything is yours. Koham, kutamitam jātam, kouvei kartasivit, dite—ask this question to yourself: who am I? From where did I originate? What is the cause of my existence? This "I," this "me," that is not us. This Ātmā is just the observer, and this world is playing its play, and this outfit, this body, is playing its role in this world. In the morning, we open a closet, we change clothes. After death, the Ātmā searches for a new cloth and wears it, and that is it. But are we not tired of this circle of death and birth? I hope it is my last round. And I really hope it is all of our last rounds, also. That is the goal: this Ātmā, Paramātmā unites, the light becomes one, merges together, done deal. But we should not mistake it, thinking that it is instant coffee and instant enlightenment and done. But this is exact proof that for so many lives we were doing some sādhanā, some bhakti, that we had the opportunity, the blessings to have a guru in this life. And that is the exact proof to tell us that this is our last life. They were in much more peace there. But still, the great Mahāpuruṣas, the great saints, they incarnate on this world only for us, bhaktas, not for themselves. The Mahāpuruṣas, the great bhaktas, the great masters, they are getting into this world not because of themselves, but because of us. They already have it all figured out. They are already free from this. It is only this ajñānī jīva who is stuck in this. And that is why we do not use Google Maps. We have everything. Now we just pray for Śakti, Bhakti, and Vairāgya. That is it, except that we have everything. When we have the grace of Gurudeva, when we have Śakti, it will let us walk the path of Dharma. When we have Bhakti, we will do bhajans, we will do satsaṅgs, we will do prayers, we will do our mālā, and that will give us also everything. But even if we have Śakti and Bhakti, but there is no Vairāgya, there is no detachment... Detachment does not mean to renounce and leave everything. Detachment means not to be attached to the things that may possess us one day. Do not be possessed by the possessions which you possess, which may possess you one day. Too many possessives for you? So, the possessions which you possess should not possess you one day. So, let those attachments go. Why? Ki Jai, Śrī Swāmī Ātmapurījī Mahārāj, Ki Jai. It does not matter how much the world barks at us. What does that mean? That means that it does not matter what the world says. It does not matter who says what path is right, what path is wrong. It does not matter if people tell you that this is the right path or you are following the wrong path. The Vedas say, do not walk on the right of the Guru, do not walk on the left. Do not walk in front, and do not walk behind. Then our human brain thinks, "Where to walk?" Our monkey mind says, "Walk diagonally." So no, it is said that walk on the path which your guru shows you to walk. No other path is right, and our work is to be in satsaṅg. Which are the two saṅgs? Satsaṅg and kusaṅga. Satsaṅg does not mean only us sitting here. Satsaṅg can be at our homes. Any place where there is any type of positive talk, positive thinking, positive conversations, that is satsaṅg. And even if we are sitting in this hall and a few of us are gossiping and talking negative stuff, that is kusaṅg in satsaṅg. I got a question in the box: if we are working in kusaṅga, then how can we live in satsaṅga or something? First of all, viveka determines what you work. It is not anyone else who chose that job. It is our own viveka. If our viveka thinks that that job is a kusaṅgī job, but our heart, our emotions, our mind, our subconscious mind are not affected by it, and you are living a satsaṅgī life, that is okay. But if you are doing karma yoga in the āśram, and the mind is kusaṅgī? There is nothing we can do. What anyone can do is not Gurudev, not me, not anyone else. You, yourself, us, ourselves can make a change in our own life if we want a change. We are more than capable enough to decide what we need, what we want. And just know that that protective layer, that protection, that guidance is always going to be there. If Gurudeva’s physical health is not so good, that does not mean that that Guru Tattva has evaporated. That Guru Tattva is always there. But you need to understand that even the sādhus, even the great Mahāpuruṣas like Guru Dev, have to go through these materialistic words, laws, and regulations. Gurudev fixed and healed hundreds of us, thousands of us. A sādhu’s dharma is to do sevā for others, not for themselves. And we think that a sādhu’s life is the easiest life. We live in a living flame. This is a living flame. And in the real world, if we talk about that, it is the most tiring job ever you can get. Sleep anywhere between one to three hours, to four hours. Then, before, my life was a little bit simpler, but now, even in India, I was only one program once in a month. Now every day, I get ten programs: going here, going there. I do not know how Gurudev did it, but that is why he is Gurudev.