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Part 1: The Parable of the Father’s Will and the Symbolic Language of Scripture Swāmījī told this story many times. There was once a shopkeeper, very rich—very rich—but you know how it goes. The first generation tries to build something, the second is the rich generation, and the third usually destroys everything. They say that hard times make a hard person, a really strong person. But a strong person, a hard person, makes easy times. Easy times make soft people, and that is the situation we see in the world today. We are spoiled because, truly, we have everything. We are complainers: “We don’t have money, we don’t have this, we don’t have that”—but we have the best of the best. Because of this, Swāmījī used to say that Indians, these Rajasthani people, are like a coconut: hard on the outside, upright, but soft inside. And he was polite, Swāmījī, and he said, “And you are like a tomato—soft on the outside,” and he did not finish. We understood it, didn’t we? Now, this shopkeeper’s father became old, and he knew there would be a problem. So he wrote a letter for his son: “My dear son, I give you my money, all my property. But three things you must do. First, go to work on the shadow and come back home on the shadow. Second, always eat the most delicious food. And third, if somebody comes to you and asks for money, just give money and never ask for it back.” That is a formula for destroying everything, yes? Imagine that you received a lot of money and such a will. Excellent—nothing to do. So first, the son built a covered walkway, a shadow, from home to work. Second, he found the best chef, and he always ate the most delicious and expensive food. And if somebody asked for money, he immediately said, “How much do you need?” and never asked for it back. Within a few days, everybody knew that there was some disturbed rich guy giving money to everyone. And of course, in three months, he lost everything. He was completely broke. He was sitting on the steps of a chair—completely devastated, because he had lost everything—when an old friend of his father passed by and asked, “Why are you devastated? What happened to you?” The young man said, “Oh my God, my father was completely losing his mind. He gave me his last will. I did everything written in the last will, and in three months I lost everything.” The old friend of his father said, “Please tell me what was in the last will.” He replied, “Yes, look: go to work on the shadow and come back on the shadow, always eat good food, and give money.” The old man said, “Look, you are completely wrong. Understand the last will of your father. ‘Go when there is shadow’ means go before sunrise and come back after sunset. That is what shadow means. ‘Always eat delicious food’ does not mean you should have the best cook. Look at you—you have a big stomach, you are full of fat, and you will be ill very soon. Heart attack. Your father meant that you should eat only when you are very hungry. As they say in the West, hunger is the best cook.” And what do we learn from Swāmījī? What is real Āyurveda? Not this New Age Āyurveda. The old Āyurveda, what we received from Viśvagurujī, says: you may eat your next meal when three-day-old bread tastes like the most delicious food. Now the Ayurvedic doctor is for the third generation, the soft generation. Fasting is not good, never torture your body, etcetera, etcetera. But what does the second instruction mean? Eat when three-day-old bread is the most delicious food. And third: lend money to people, but never ask for the money back. That is completely true. But you must take something from that person which is more valuable than money. Then that person will run to you to give back the money, plus interest, to get it back. The young man said, “Now I understand, but what do I do now? I don’t have money.” The old man gave him a new letter. Inside it was written: “My dear son, I know in which situation you are. But only through that school will you learn something. I have prepared money for you. At three o’clock in the afternoon”—of course, a big question mark: why that day and that time? But okay. The son started to work again, and he waited six months for that specific date. He went to the temple, and after prayer, he went to the roof—something like an attic—and he tried to find the money. But nothing. He started to tear out every brick, pulled everything down, and completely destroyed the temple. Nothing. He was very angry with his father. He went to his father’s friend and said, “My father was completely crazy. Look, I destroyed the whole temple. Nothing—no money, nothing inside.” The old friend said, “Okay, again nothing. We need to rebuild the whole temple, exactly as it was before.” And the young man rebuilt the temple—not by paying somebody to rebuild it, but through karma yoga. Then the old man said, “Now we need to wait until next year.” The next year, same date, same time. But this time, the old friend of his father went with him into the temple, and after prayer, he said, “Now we will go outside the temple.” And the old man said to the young man, “Look, where is the shadow of the roof of the temple? When you find the shadow of the roof, dig there.” And of course, he found the money. That is our situation. We have received texts: Guru Gītā, Bhagavad Gītā, Rāmāyaṇa, all the Purāṇas, the Upaniṣads—all of this. And we are like that boy, that young man, and we destroy everything. And we say, “Oh, this is not functioning.” Yes, it is not functioning because you need to understand it in a symbolical way. Especially, all these texts are written in poetic language. And poetry is completely different from ordinary language. Poetry, as Swāmījī said, is the language of the wise. Why? Because something that is not possible to explain—because it is beyond our ability to understand, because it is beyond these three or four dimensions—is possible to express through poetry. You know, like in one bhajan: something that you smell, you hear; and something that you hear, you see. You know this? That is the explanation of another dimension. Because in philosophy, when you try to explain what God is—what is Īśvara, Parameśvara, Brahman, Paramātmā, however you call it—Guru—you will always say neti neti: it is not this, it is not that. How will you explain something without form, nirguṇa, using the understanding and the language of saguṇa? Because of that, our bhajans are so important. And not that a bhajan is simply translated through artificial intelligence. We need to understand the symbols inside. Because of this, there is some problem in understanding, especially Guru Gītā. When you are not able to understand Guru Gītā through symbols, through such a language, you will say that it is the cult of the person. And that is the problem: who is not the real guru, who is just a kangaroo—that kangaroo is always forcing you to understand through the cult of the person, because then you will completely have people under your will and command and your wish. But the real guru does not want this. The real Guru says, “I am just a disciple, I am just a postman.” We hear this so many times from Swāmījī. I say this because from this twentieth verse, this śloka, it is very important to understand everything in a symbolical way. Because inside it says: just live, don’t worry about your life, about your position and everything. Give everything to your Gurudev—nothing, nothing is yours. It sounds very nice, yes? If you have kangaroo style. For what? For my benefit. And why? You read Guru Gītā—yes, everything is inside. Yes, but you must be a wise one to understand in a symbolical way what this means. And we will say this: because of the poetry of singing Guru Gītā and translating it into English, or Czech, Slovak, Croatian, and other languages, we have more poetry inside, more trying to make music, and we lose some words inside. And now, as the text is translated into various languages, the translations also try to include some poetry so that it can be sung nicely—but again, we lose a little bit of meaning. It is very important to understand that from verse 20 to verse 30, it is the same idea. It is not important—your social status, identity, and ego. And it is said: just leave your mokṣa. Mokṣa is attachment. Do not be attached to the āśram. Oh yes, but what does āśram mean? Āśram means the four āśramas: Brahmacārī āśram, Gṛhasthāśram, Vānaprasthāśram, Sannyāsāśram. Four stages in your life. Brahmacārī until twenty-five. And also Brahmacārī means abstinency of sex. But also Brahmacārī means that you will live only with one partner—and you are a Brahmacārī. What are you now? Until twenty-five years old, you are studying, you are celibate. Or you are living with one partner, and you have only one partner on your mind and in your actions. And how do we have it? Is it like this, that we study until the age of twenty-five and we don’t have any partner, or only one partner? Is it like this? What does Brahmacārī mean? Because of that, it is always very important to know in which context we are talking about something. So again, it is necessary to know in which context we are talking about something. Same thing with āsana—āsana, the position of the body. Āsana is what you are sitting on. Āsana means the place of your living. And when you say, “Give me āsana,” what will you give? What does this mean? A little something for sitting. And also, Swāmījī many times mentioned—I don’t know exactly what it is—saindhava. Saindhava means salt and horse. Salt and horse? Something like this. I am not sure, but one sentence is the same, like salt and horse. In Sanskrit. And during lunch, when you say this, you will not bring the horse into the house. What it means is you need to have common sense. That is very important. Okay, here it means you must leave attachment to āśram—this position. You know, many times: “I am a mother.” It’s okay, you are a mother. “I am a householder.” I am so proud that I am a householder. Or, “I am so proud that I am a sannyāsī.” We need to leave this. Jāti—jāti means social position. Kīrti—it means reputation. Puṣṭi—we need to leave this attachment to strengthening our material security and all this stuff. All this—just leave the worries about your life, position, everything, and just give everything to your Gurudev. We have two stories about this. One is from the Bible, and one is from Līlā Amṛt. One is in Līlā Amṛt, because it is a complete story. In the Bible, half is missing. And from the Bible, that story can be misused. The story from Līlā Amṛt: One Ṭhākur came, a disciple of Mahāprabhujī, a disciple of many years. He came to Mahāprabhujī and said, “I give everything I have—everything—to you.” And Mahāprabhujī said, “Yes, okay. Everything that you have is mine. But what will I do with this? I live in an āśram, I meditate, I teach. I will not take care of your property and your family. Take care of everything, but you must know that everything is mine.” That is the important thing. When we say, “Give everything to the Guru,” what it means is that you are not attached to it. And in the Bible, a man asked Jesus, “Please, I would like to go with you to become your disciple.” And Jesus said, “Give everything to the people.” And in that moment—oops—it was no longer, “I want to go with you.” And Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. But that is true, and also it is not true. If somebody is poor—yes, who doesn’t have pennies, money—if somebody without money has only one tissue, and he thinks, “It’s my precious, my precious,” he is in the worst situation. If you have three houses, five swimming pools, but you are not attached to them—that is different. Jāti, which means position: “I am that, that is my origin, that is my family. I am from a good family. I have some title, like a count or something like this.” Kīrti: “I am what other people think about me.” And Puṣṭi: “I am what I make in this life, my success.” Because of that, just leave your role in life, the pride of your origin, what others think about you, and what you accomplish in your life. All this stuff—just leave it and give it to the Guru. And they said: the highest conscience, the highest state of this realization, will be accomplished very easily by that person who constantly thinks on higher things. And actually, the one who thinks at the higher level, at the raised things, he will reach them. And they said that knowledge—but not knowledge, wisdom—yes, wisdom, what is coming through the Guru’s words, you will gain this wisdom only through Guru Bhakti. And that is the big difference between information and knowledge. Mostly today, we get information. Because of that, there is always a nice picture about a question: Which pot of water, when you bring it on your head, is easier to carry—half full or completely full? Which pot is easier to carry on the head? Half full or full? Hmm? Half? No. When it is half full, the movement of your walking makes the water slosh inside, and the water will spill out. Part 2: The Weight of the Guru and the Path Beyond Māyā It is very hard to walk with a pot that is only half full. You need all the time to take care of it, to ensure it does not go down. But when it is full, it is heavy, yet without waves inside. And you may walk without taking care about that pot. Because of that, they said, you may know and read hundreds of śāstras, but still you will stay in the darkness. And that darkness means that we identify ourselves with the body, with the role, with the emotion, with the spiritual title. I am Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar. When you identify yourself with the role, with emotion, with cittavṛttis, that is the problem. And you may read thousands and thousands of holy books, philosophical books, etc. We are still in the darkness. And they said, very nicely, Guru is not just someone who puts the light and the darkness disappears. But they said, my pronunciation is not so good. Grasakam. Grasakam means that it is not eat, but somebody who, maybe who knows projderati, you know Slovenian, Croatian is similar. It is not, no eat, not too much eat, but you know when you, it is not eating nicely but just, ok, ok, we will not ask. You understand what it means. Just swallow the darkness. And because of that, the wisdom of Guru's words is possible to gain only through Guru Bhakti. What it means also is that you have trust, you have complete confidence. Because guru is brahmaniṣṭha śrotriyam. Those who know by experience all śāstras, all holy books. He has experience, not just knowledge. Guru is the symbol of the darkest night. Guru is the symbol of light. It is not in doubt that the Guru is Brahman. Gu is the māyā, and the principle of māyā is all the time changing, and the rule, and yes, this māyā, the essence of māyā, is three guṇas: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas means darkness, ignorance, that we are dumb, sleepy, etc. A sāttvic is the pure, but that is the māyā. A to je māyā. And yoga means this. That when we sit in this position, that is the, what is yoga? And that is beyond māyā. That is the Absolute. That is Individual. And yoga is unity of ātmā so Paramātmā. And these three fingers represent the three guṇas: tamas, rajas, sāttvik. And yoga is beyond the three guṇas. Because everything in this world that is māyā is connected with the three guṇas. Usually, I take love, like, for example. Tamas, love. You know this Tamas, I so love you. And you feel like a slimy something is touching you. A rajas is gypsy love. When I love, I love. When I don't love, I kill. Yes, in short, not so philosophical language. Sāttvic is this pure love. But, almost one year ago, I was starting to think of love. Oh my God, that is such big inflation in the words love. Which kind of love? And that is the problem with our language, love. And because of that, you have in Hindi different words for love. There is just body love, emotional love, spiritual love. It is really different. That is so big, and that is also connected with the three guṇas. But that thing which is not changeable, which is not connected with the three guṇas, that is beyond Māyā. That is Parabrahman. And also, Guru means the process where we recognize Māyā, like Māyā. But also, we will say that this is the Viveka. What is true, and what is not true? What is dharma, what is adharma? But here Guru also knows that process, that disappearing of the darkness, and we are able to recognize what is the māyā. Guruji is the conscience, which is a slave of this material world. And rūḥ is understanding, viveka, of this: what is māyā and what is not māyā. Yes. And also, Guru means heavy. Serious, heavy. Těžký, vážný. But not heavy body. Always Swamijī jokes with this guru, heavy. But, you know, we said, oh, that is a heavy book. What does that mean, that is serious and that is... What Swamiji after that nicely explained is that yoga is not fast food. But you need a long time to digest that food. The position of Gurudev is even for the gods unreachable. And Gandharva was thinking about the glory of the Gurudeva. When we talk about gods, those are also principles. Symbolically, it is more what we said yesterday. God and goddesses, and all of this, are living in heaven. And heaven is Maṇipūra Chakra, and from Maṇipūra Chakra to Sahasrāra Chakra, oh my God, it is a thousand miles. We need so many things, more purification and understanding. And the position of the God and Goddess, he is saying what we yesterday talked about, Indra. And how Indra was in fear, that always Indra is in fear. That somebody will take his position. And you know this story about the beginning of the Rāmāyaṇa. When Nārada was meditating, and so strong meditation, tapas, that means inner fire, that Indra was in the fear that he will take his position on next election. And he sent Kāmadeva to make a nice spring atmosphere and start the spring atmosphere. The goddess, the beautiful lady, started to sing and dance in the water, and, you know. But Nārada stayed completely cool, and Kāmadeva just went. And Nārada in that moment thinks, oh, look at me, I am so great yogī. And Kāmadeva was very happy. Oh, we hook him. And so proud of himself, which yogī I am. Even Kāmadeva couldn't disturb my meditation. And he explained everything to Śiva. And Śiva said, "I am proud of you." But please, don't tell this to Viṣṇu. Don't tell to Vishnu. What means immediately go to Vishnu, yes? Śiva is jealous of me, and he doesn't want Viṣṇu to know that I am so great. There is darkness in our mind, and Nārada went to Viṣṇu and explained his victory over the devas. And Viṣṇu said, "Oh, I congratulate you. You are a great yogī." And on the way back, Nārada back to earth, Viṣṇu made one līlā for Nārada. He changed the form of Nārada, the physical form, and he looked like a monkey. But it is true. When ego starts to dance inside, we are like a monkey. Nothing else, and so on. And on the way back, he passed through one kingdom. And that kingdom was just a time of choosing the broom. Not a broom, but a broom for a princess. And Nārada entered the kingdom. Everybody recognized that he is Nārada. And greet him, O great ṛṣi. But in that moment, he saw the princess. And Kāmadeva was starting to dance in him. I want to be her husband. And start, you know, there are many different ways how to choose the husband. One is that the princess or woman walks, and when she sees the future husband, she puts the mālā on his hand. He found his future husband and put on his neck, and Nārada was disappointed, and he goes somewhere far from the wedding, and he was in depression, and you know, like an old monkey. And that time was also two, I think two, Śiva's bhaktas, who know the whole story, start to laugh. And Nārada was offended. Why are you laughing? And they said, "Look how you are looking." And he went near the water and looked, and inside, in the reflection, he saw a monkey. What does this reflection mean? It reflects what is inside. He becomes like a monkey because of ego. And because of that, he was so angry. Because ego, when ego is hurt, oh my God, we are able to kill. We completely lose the mind. And what Gurujī said, there are many different alcohols, not only from the fruit and corn, but that is the alcohol of āśrama, what we said before. This āśrama, jāti, puṣṭi, etc., what means position and age, position of your heritage, all this is the alcohol, which is completely toxic to our mind, and our ego starts to dance inside. Spiritual title, great Ṛṣi Nārada, I praise the Kāmadeva. All this, and he became very angry. And he cursed Viṣṇu. Next time when you come to the earth, and because of that, monkeys and bears were in his army. And these two Śiva bhaktas, also he cursed, it come in the form of monkeys. And I forgot the name in the Rāmāyaṇa of these two Śiva bhaktas. That is the ego, and we are all alcoholics. Not with beer and whiskey. But with the, oh, I have, I am young, that is the ageism, or I have 95 years and look at me, still I have a head standing, same position. All that is the alcohol, which is toxic to our mind, and we become a monkey. And now starts, oh my God, now starts a very dangerous part. Very dangerous part, and we need to understand completely. They said, in short, that we need to give to our guru everything that we have. Even family, wife, and our life. You know how it looks in the cult. When some psychic ill person starts to play guru. And first starts a problem with the wives, yes? But you need to understand it in a symbolical way. Give to your guru your āsana. What it means is you will not give to your guru Paścimottānāsana. But it means that for you, it is not anymore important what position you are in, meaning your position in society. Śayanā. Śayanā means bed. Okay, we will not give a bed to Guru, but we will give our time of rest. It also means our private life and our comfort. It does not mean give, but imagine the situation. You are somewhere with Swāmījī, and he said, just finish the seminar. You are the organizer of the seminar, Karma Yogī. And you are not tired, but you are dead. And next day, you must go to work. And Swāmījī said to you, "Come with me, we will go to another place." What is important for you? Your rest, I need to sleep, I need to eat properly, I can't live on this chocolate and coffee. I need my comfort, my bed. I can't sleep anymore in the sleeping bag. And you say, "Yes, Gurudev, I want." What is important for you in that moment? Your comfort, or to be in the presence of that divine light? That means give your bed. Give your vastra, odezhda, vastra. In Croatian, vastra, in Croatian we say vesta. Vesta is the pullover. Vesta is the pullover, and means your dress. But it does not mean that you will give your dress to the Guru. But it means that you will give it importance for your identity, your identity in the world. I am that and that. It is not any more important. When you come in front of the guru, you do not come like a vice president of some big company. You are a disciple. You are not, oh, professor this and that. No, you are a disciple. Give your bhūṣaṇa. This means what you have, necklace, and that is bhūṣaṇa. That is not meaning that you will give all your rings and earrings to the Guru. Because if Guru is like gold and he wants your gold, but bhūṣaṇa, because it is decoration. Bhūṣaṇa means the picture which you want other people to have about you. That people see, oh, he is a very nice person, oh, he is a rich person, oh, etc., etc. And give vāhana. Vāhana means vehicle. But what will Gurū do with the 99 Rolls Royces? Why did I say 99 Rolls Royces? Because somebody talked about Osho and the Rolls Royce cars. But something is symbolic. And if you understand symbolical things, and if you donate a car, it is not that you are donating a car. On that way, symbolically, materially, you want to show, I give the way in life in which I want to go, the idea where to go, I give to you. What it means is I will have only one way, and that is the way of spirituality. And next is svajjīvitvam, which means I give my life. But it does not mean that you become completely emotional, etc., dead. Because we said, if you are without anything, you are just... nothing. You know what is said in the Bible? Maybe old, I don't know which testament. You are neither hot nor cold. I will throw you from my mouth. Yes? Yes. What does it mean? You are neither hot, active, nor cold. You are something in between. You are being... What to do with you? You need to be hot or cold. Oh my God, we have seven minutes. Again, Rāmāyaṇa. But before Rāmāyaṇa, Vālmīki, Vālmīki was a robber, this bandit, he was killing the people, and once again Ṛṣi Nārada passed through the forest and he took Ṛṣi Nārada and said, "And I will kill you because you didn't give to me your property." And Ṛṣi Nārada said, OK, it is no problem. But you know that everything that you do, you will get back. And Vālmīki, before he became Vālmīki, said, no, my family will also share my karma. And Nārada said, OK, ask them. He tied Nārada to the tree, went home, and asked first mother and father, and mother and father said, no way. Your duty is to take care of us. Ok, he visits his wife and asks, "My dear, do you know what my business is?" "Yes." And you will share karma with me? No. Even I didn't want to marry you, and now I will not share karma with you. And he was completely in depression, went to Nārada and said, my life makes no sense, I will commit suicide. And Nārada told him, no, no, repeat mantra. He went into another forest, and in short, he was meditating, repeating mantra. Around him, the nest of the ants was, and he got a vision of the future life of Rāma, and he even didn't know, right? But through meditation, through getting that vision, he got knowledge of Sanskrit, and he wrote the Rāmāyaṇa. And such language, which after that became, I don't know, the standard or something like this. What is important to know: if somebody is a bad person, but has a fire inside, he has the opportunity to change. If he is a good person and has a fire like a hero, he will also accomplish an aim.