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Our beautiful weekend program is coming to an end, and different life activities will now begin for you. We have definitely gained a lot of energy. We are coming to the point of discussing this energy, which is a very interesting point in our life. Many are trying to understand what this energy is. There was an international conference with a scientist and many scholars who spoke from the Vedas and Upaniṣads. Many learned people gave their views on this point. The conference was organized by a person who was the director of a NASA scientific center, and he is still working with scientists. The subject was prāṇa, and still it was not clear—at least not to me, and also for many others. You know, such a conference ends, and the beginning is more or less the same, except you exchange your business cards. So, prāṇa is for us, and for yoga also, something very important. In many bhajans and in much poetry, we say God is known as Prāṇadhāra. Every creature, every living being on this planet—no matter in which form, how big they are—what is living is known as a prāṇī. A human is also known as a prāṇī. Now, prāṇī means prāṇa: a holder of the prāṇa, one who has prāṇa, who is alive, still living. If someone has not yet died, we say "abhi śarīre prāṇa hai". And if one is declared dead—no matter who, animal, human, bird—we say "prāṇa chhod diyā". You see sometimes on Discovery channels, or channels about wildlife, a lion or a tiger catches a deer. The tiger catches the deer by the throat and holds on as long as the animal is showing strength. That strength means prāṇa. When there is no more cramping or strength in the muscles and legs, then the lion leaves that animal dead. It means died. There is no more power. Prāṇa. Now, in our nourishment, in the Upaniṣads—in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, I think, or in another Upaniṣad—it is described how the soul is traveling in the astral world. You saw that one nice video done by the Ministry of Tourism of India about Śaṅkarācārya, and you saw all of it. There is a description of how the soul is passing. It goes to the astral world and then comes again in the form of the atmosphere, gas form, clouds, rains, and travels into the vegetation and into the grain. When we speak about grain, seed, any kind of seed, there is a presence of the soul. Therefore, in the eating mantra we say, "Annapūrṇe sadāpūrṇe, anādeva, anādeva". For this planet and the earth, it is very, very important. That's our life. Truly, where there is enough anna, there is everything. Where there is no anna, there is hunger. I think I remember often people tell me—I didn't read it, but it is said also in Christianity—the Lord said don't throw the bread away; to throw away the bread is a sin because bread is the nourishment. And the salt is the source of the earth. We say in India, in whose house you eat namak, uske ghar kā bura nahīṁ karnā chāhiye. Isī prakār se, namak harāmī. So if you eat namak, salt, in someone's house and you do something wrong to this family, then you are known as namak harāmī, and there is a big sin. Therefore, to protect the environment, they offer food. In your culture, mostly the demand in Slovakia is bread and salt. Annapūrṇe sadāpūrṇe. Again, prāṇa. Now, if you cut a branch of a tree, after one minute you will see this branch is getting sad, what do you call it? Lifeless. So there is also prāṇa. One of our yoga sisters is not here, or maybe she is here—Milena Lise's father. He was a very great artist in lithography. He used to make art from plants and flowers. Milena used to say, she told me, that when her father used to take the flower, he was saying, "Please, please, remain alive still, let me do exactly," because within a minute, changes take place. Prāṇa goes out. This prāṇa is in nourishment. Our life is nourishment. Before the creation took place, there was a parliament sitting, a cosmic parliament. It was not that just we were created, we are here. No, no, no. So, 99.0 percent we don't understand God's work. So it is a bungalow. And to that body, it is said that it is a wonderful home in which Nārāyaṇa speaks. And from him speaks God. In which Nārāyaṇa speaks, but Guru does not open the secret. But without the help of Guru ... So that architect must be perfect. It has been discussed: Viśvakarmā designed this world, designed the life. All electric wires, ventilation, air conditioning, automatic, everything. And then said, "How will it function? It needs something. How will they work? How will they be active? They will not be moving. All will be lying like stones here and there. How to move the creatures? They will be lazy. Nobody will work." So very clever, very excellent, one who made a discovery: the eating system. Hunger. So Mahāprabhujī said, "Hunger is the guru of all." Everyone dances for the stomach, so this is the hunger. Your stomach is what moves you. All creatures are moving because of this one. How? How will they be hungry? Then give the fire; the fire will burn everything, consume and consume. You know, a human in one life consumes two and a half tons of nourishment. So when you destroy two and a half tons of food, you have destroyed. Then this machine is kaput. There is much important information. Recently I read and got information about our kidneys: how much blood they purify in 24 hours—1,700 liters in 24 hours. 1,700 liters of blood flows through the kidneys, so only God's machine can handle it; all other pumps would be destroyed. So what will they eat? What should they eat? Then the jīva, jīva bhakṣate—life will eat life. Oh God, it's cruel, no ahiṃsā. Yes, no ahiṃsā, cruel. In nature, it is cruel. They said, "Why this?" Viṣṇu said, "This is impossible; I don't allow the cruelty." But there were many parliament members. They said, "Yeah, here Viṣṇu, what do you want? This world which we create is a mortal world; it's not an immortal world. Only you are immortal, but if what is created were also immortal, then your value is lost." Okay, think, work for the work. You see how it is, so what? Give them limited life, work for their karma—to come out of the karma or create more karma. Because this planet we are creating, that creation which we are creating, is not only once; it is sustainable, long-lasting. So how? Should it be newly created? But who will create new? Always we cannot create, and how? Therefore, they gave the system: male and female and kāma śakti, passion. If there is no passion, no generation will grow. Yes, but there will be too many; that's why life will eat life, and that will continue. And so, life eating life. Nature is cruel; in nature there is cruelty, but in nature there is a balancing principle; it is balanced by itself. So it is given: hunger, given thirst, given feeling of love—many, many feelings—and every feeling which you have has its reason. And that is created with you. Now every feeling needs a kind of energy, and that is prāṇa śakti. If you are hungry, you have to search for your food, prepare your food. If you have no energy, you will die; you can't get your food. But here, that life will eat life, but not the humans. Humans are excluded, not included; humans are given more comfort, more priorities than other creatures, a better life. But at the same time, the human's karma is counted as karma, niṣkāma or sakāma karma. Good karma will have good result, and bad karma will have bad result. That is in humans, not in the animals. And that makes the difference between humans and animals, because the humans have got the most powerful tool, and that is the buddhi, intellect, rozum. The human intellect can be trained; human intellect needs education also. And this can be educated negatively or positively. When it is educated in such a hard way, když je vychováván tak tvrdě, tak rigidně, tak pak je ho těžko znovu vychovat, převychovat. Tak říkáme symbolicky, je těžké přesadit starý strom. So many times our grandparents don't understand many things because in their consciousness, the education in their buddhi, the śikṣā, is very compact and is not easy to change. Therefore, it is the human intellect that can be also a fanatic, a criminal, a terrorist, a thief, a holy person, a yogī, a kind person, a good person, a helper. Through different mantras, energy flows. Through the instrument, through the music, energy flows. Now, you are that living object, a living model, a living thing, a living being—so whatever you call it—energy is flowing, but you are able to catch that energy now. That energy, that prāṇa śakti, is so subtle that we cannot even define it. It is very hard to define it, between prāṇa śakti, prāṇa, and the soul. When prāṇa is gone, life is gone; when prāṇa is there, life is there; when the soul is gone, life is gone; when the soul is here, life is here. So now it's very hard to make a definition or difference between the soul and the prāṇa because feelings are in the prāṇa. Now, this prāṇa can be created in different ways. It's energy; electricity is energy that can save our life. That can take our life; in the motor, it's energy; the engine itself is śakti, your cycle is śakti, anything you touch is śakti. And similarly, that śakti is hidden in us. So which śakti, which kind of quality of the prāṇa, lets function our memory? Which śakti is functioning when we are talking a prepared lecture? It is a conserved food in the tin. And a free lecture is your wisdom, which comes from you. But which act is there? There must be something. Someone is talking in you, and when you are writing, you are only holding the pen; there is some different śakti which lets move your pencil. And that's the power, and this śakti which is in your hands, what you are writing, is controlled by your intellectual śakti. So our memory, our words, our thinking process, our actions, our feelings, digestive process, birth and death, growing, everything, hunger, thirst, cold—in the Vedas, very nicely described, because the Vedas is a science of the individual. Vedas means the Vedas; etymologically, the word "Veda" is connected with the Czech word "věda". What is not existing in the Vedas is nothing existing in your world. Till today, no science has discovered anything which is not already in the Vedas. Study the Vedas, but to understand that is also not easy. In Chicago, there is a library, and after the activities of Swāmī Vivekānanda, two Americans were visiting that library. Every day reading, borrowing a book from the library, the same book and same chapter for four years long. So the librarian one day asked, "Why do you borrow every day the same book and you read the same chapter?" And the book was the Rāmāyaṇa, the holy Rāmāyaṇa. They were reading the chapter where it described that aeroplane, which was before 10,000 years, where Rāvaṇa came from Sri Lanka with this Puṣpaka Vimāna, and it was a two-seater aeroplane. And when God Rāma came back from Sri Lanka, then his whole army, all friends were sitting inside; it was like 500 jumbo jets for the 500 passengers, the same aeroplane. What was the speciality of that aeroplane? That it could become bigger or smaller according to your saṅkalpa-śakti. You wish one place more? Yes, there is a place more. So everyone had a place, so they were reading this. From what? The Puṣpaka Vimāna. That aeroplane name was Puṣpaka Vimāna; "puṣpa" is a flower and "vāhana" is the vehicle, so from what was it made? Which material? Which technology? Before 10,000 years, there was already an airplane. And they are reading four years, the same chapter. Maybe they will find something, but still they didn't understand. So it's very hard to understand; a chapter about agni, fire, may take you one year. Every day can be five hours, lecture on that, and it will last one year. And still you will not understand what is that fire, so Agni Tattva is not this heat, but Agni is something more different than that. So it's unbelievable what that beauty of that wisdom is. But then one is stuck in intellectual knowledge; it is important that with your intellect you should spiritually develop. Then it's very good; otherwise, your head is getting bigger and bigger and body is getting smaller and smaller. Or head is getting smaller and smaller and body is bigger too. The proportions should be fine, so as intellect grows, the spirituality should grow; otherwise, that human intellect, which is educated, dry, without ethical principles, becomes destructive—self-destructive and also for others. So the prāṇa in the nourishment, and therefore after long thinking, very much thinking, they gave three qualities: sattva, rajas, and tamas. But sattva, rajas, and tamas, these three, are not so easy to define. Often people think that garlic and onion is tamas or rajas. Garlic and onion is very good for your health, especially for blood circulation, for the heart. You have a beautiful skin; you will have no skin disease. But when the garlic is fried in oil and is burned, then it becomes rajasic and tamasic. But in Āyurveda, which was developed long after this, all discovered the signs of prāṇa. And there God Dhanvantari, Viṣṇu, he appears with the one pot, kalaśa, amṛta kalaśa, and this amṛta kalaśa, amṛta is the nectar. If you get one drop, you are holy and immortal through and through. And all this Kumbha Melā takes place there where the amṛt was dripping somewhere. But what is that amṛt? Prāṇa. Pure prāṇa. And therefore, sāttvic vegetarian nourishment. At that time, there was no question about chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Now, in the last 50 years, unfortunately, all this poison is created. And therefore, wherever this chemical fertilizer is used, the prāṇa is not there. There is some kind of growing ability, but not that healthy prāṇa. That will kill some functions in the body. Therefore, the fruits, vegetables, grains, and milk products, our drink, all is manipulated. And therefore, our feelings and way of thinking have changed. Now these children are talking in such a way that sometimes parents can't imagine. Yesterday was a question about a four-year-old boy. The parents don't know what to do. That's it. And also many complications, many diseases come up. So prāṇa, the life, not a source of the life, life itself. Prāṇa is God. And therefore, Mīrābāī's bhajan many times he told, "Kṛṣṇa prāṇa adhāra, my prāṇa." You see so many bhajans of Gurujī writing about Mahāprabhujī, "prāṇa adhāra," so source of the prāṇa, our life is based on that. That is gone, everything is gone. Therefore, prāṇāyāma, āsanas, and healthy nourishment, these three will grant us healthy prāṇa, and our mantra and prayers. Prāṇa, and that is what they call Kuṇḍalinī Śakti in chakras. So next time we will continue this. Today is too much, talked too much, spoken. Please analyze the prāṇa. What is prāṇa? Take a drop of water on your hand sometimes, anywhere, and feel this drop. That's immense of prāṇa, immense of Śakti, and the life inside. Or take one grain, or hold one grain in your hand, and meditate like you have some life in your hand. So in Vedic tradition, when we enliven a statue, God is a statue, from the stone made, then we put the whole night a statue in the grain, the wheat or rice, completely covered, and light on it. And then outside is yajña or ceremony. So that in this statue is not anymore a statue. The life entered in it. Through mantra, ceremonial, through this. So there are many, many things. So, you know, unfortunately, some religion in this world, some religions in this world, have killed the humanity, roots. You know, they cut all the branches. Made the naked, human soul is naked. Without tradition, without culture, without this many things. That's it. And that's why humans are suffering. So therefore, respect the salt. Respect the bread. Respect the vegetation. Respect the life. Respect the bees. You know the bee? Oh my God. They produce for you nectar. So sweet nectar they bring for you. Respect them. Don't pollute the vegetation. Because that honey you will eat. So that is a science of life. It's not that you have a beautiful big apple. So very soon we will all use an astronaut diet. Two pills. So one pill for breakfast. Three for lunch. And two for dinner. No work. No time for kitchen and anything. No cleaning dishes. So your employee, your break for lunch time, one tablet, drink water, please work. Coffee time, one tablet, all the computers. Humans are getting distance from humans, from humanity, from humankind. So, eating is a social event. It's not that you are going to drink a coffee and how nice is coffee. It's a friendly, social event. How nice you sit with someone and you talk with understanding, that's something beautiful. It's not a coffee, but it is that meeting, and that's a social health, and that's it. Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Weekend seminar