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In āshrams or spiritual communities, satsaṅg is often organized on special occasions. It is typically arranged by the āshram but financed by devotees. This is seen as good karma, a meritorious deed. Someone may sponsor it for a birthday, a wedding day, or in memory of a departed person. Others do it simply to perform a good act, distributing prasāda. Sometimes it is a collective effort, as not everyone gets the chance individually; people come together and donate jointly. They may sponsor an entire meal, specify what meal to give, or simply donate funds for the meal. It could also be for an evening prayer gathering, offering prasāda like halvā, nuts, fruits, or for the juniors, ice cream. We would be very happy to get ice cream, yes—but without sugar, the diet ice cream. Anyhow, it depends on what one wishes to give. Sometimes donors wish their name to be told, and sometimes they give anonymously. That does not matter. This is how āshrams often run in India, and this is the nature of a satsaṅgī. I would not say it is merely a tradition; it is a way to share your joy with others, or to distribute something to become free from something. There is one story. Do you still want to listen to a story? Have you not had enough from stories? Stories are the best way to learn. So many things I speak, you may forget, but the stories you will not forget. It is the ancient way of teaching through stories, poems, or drama. For those who have difficulty learning something for school, if you make your whole subject into a story, then there will be no problem learning it. So, there was one man who had a kind of leprosy disease. He was sitting outside the village under a tree when a sādhu came. The ill person said, "Swāmījī, which karma do I have that I got this disease? Is there some way to get free from this karma?" The sādhu thought and then said, "Give 20 kilos of butter, ghee, to the āshram." There must have been some āshram nearby, he said. "And tell them this is for the full moon day, the satsaṅg day, to give halvā to all bhaktas who come there." If you cannot go every day or once a week to the āshram, at least on the full moon day you should go, maybe just for one or two hours, to have darśan—in our case, if it is nearer, because sometimes the full moon is on a working day. To come from Levoča till here is far, but you have an āshram in Levoča; everywhere, our yoga center is an āshram. The sādhu went away, and that man was thinking, "I am poor. 25 liters of ghee is quite a lot of money for me, but anyhow." He went to the shop and asked the shopkeeper if he could borrow 25 kilos of ghee, promising to pay half the money now and half later. The shopkeeper was surprised. He said, "For what do you need 25 kilos at once?" The man explained that such and such a sādhu had told him. The shopkeeper then said, "Okay, you take 25 kilos of ghee and you do not need to pay anything to me. I would like to help you." So the man got 25 kilos of ghee and sent it to the āshram, specifying it was for the full moon day satsaṅg. The master living in the āshram called his kitchen in-charge, the person looking after the kitchen, and told him, "On full moon day you should make prasāda. Two thousand, three thousand people will come, and everyone should get this halvā." The in-charge said, "Yes, sir. It will be done." He took the ghee and went to the kitchen. He thought, "Such nice ghee, and two or three thousand people will get just nothing. If I eat it all myself, that will help me. I will be strong like a bodybuilder." So he brought some cheap oil, made halvā with that, and gave it to the people. He himself used that ghee all for himself. It took him three months to eat it. Just as the ghee was finishing, the man with leprosy became free of the disease. But the kitchen in-charge got many, many pimples on his skin, and his skin began to burst. The other people working in the kitchen went to the Master and said, "Master, our head cook, the one in charge of the kitchen, has got some peculiar disease. We think the best would be that he gets treatment and goes on holiday." The Master called that man and looked at his hands. He said, "What happened?" The man said, "Sir, I do not know. For the last 15 days, my whole body is burning and I have got so many pimples. I do not know what disease this is, Master." The Master said, "Well, I will meditate for you and pray for you, and we will call an Ayurvedic doctor tomorrow." That night, the Master was meditating. "Why has my bhakta who works in the kitchen got this disease? What karma has attacked him?" Then he saw a vision of 25 kilos of ghee and a leper, a man. The next morning, the Master called that man and asked him, "Do you remember, three months ago I gave you 25 kilos of ghee for some prasāda? What happened to that ghee? Did you make the prasāda?" The man could not answer, but his eyes were answering; he was crying. The Master said, "That ghee, I ate personally." The Master then said, "Then you have to suffer personally. That ghee was donated by a person who had a leprous disease. If the 3,000 people had gotten it, they would have gotten only one small pimple each. That would have been easy for them to cure. But now the 3,000 pimples are on your body. That will be a little hard to cure. Therefore, on whose name something is given, one should honestly give it further. Do not take something in between." You see, in every country, the last will, the testament, is taken very seriously. So if someone is giving something, there is a will of the person, and the person wants to give something with this intention. In this way, every help that you give comes back to you. Every donation that you give, it will come back to you. Where there is need—the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Wildlife Fund, or a blood bank, cancer rehabilitation centers, blind organizations—there are many, many ways where you can do something good. It should be used for the general good. Similarly, what you give to the āshram goes to all bhaktas, so you share with them your karma; you will get rid of karma, and the bhakta will digest everything because the bhakta is taking it as prasāda. Prasāda means blessing. Where there is a blessing, it is pure. So prasāda should be received with deep love, deep respect. Prasāda can be a whole meal or only one nut, or for children, a big ice cream. It does not matter. We eat for two days, or fruits. There are many things to distribute. For example, you can distribute something like this. This is also prasāda. Prasāda means not only eating. You can give cloth, anything. What you give, that is something giving. To friends and family members, everyone can give. That is not that kind of donation; that is only friendship. But to give to those whom you have no family relations with and no obligation towards as a friend, but in the name of God—it does not matter who is who—that becomes fruitful. That is what is called to donate, to dedicate. Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Summer seminar