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Aga Me Baga Lagane Vale

A bhajan describes the Guru creating a beautiful garden within the fire of worldly suffering. The fire represents the inner heat of desires, attachments, and the threefold sufferings caused by karma. This unchangeable karma is one's fate. The Guru brings cooling rain, which is the nectar of divine teaching. This rain yields the immortal fruit for those who work in the garden through spiritual practice. However, success depends utterly on divine grace. The Guru, full of mercy, bestows liberation and destroys the fortress of ignorance, transforming suffering into bliss.

"Mahāprabhujī created a beautiful garden in the middle of the fire."

"Those on whom the Guru is showering the rain of mercy, they alone can eat this fruit of immortality."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Good morning, everyone. How are you? How is the program? Are you satisfied with the schedule? Good. So, in the morning at this time, we will always have a lecture. Different people will speak, and if any of you would like to give a lecture, please also tell me. For today, I thought we could sing some bhajans and speak a little bit about them. You know, since April, I am now a Satsaṅg member. This is my new home, after many years in India and four years in Canada. Swāmījī gave me the very beautiful and very responsible duty now to travel. It is actually quite exhausting, but it’s beautiful. When I am really exhausted and come back here to Satsaṅg, I just go into the garden, and I am so happy. I think it is really like a paradise here. With all this nature around, one automatically relaxes. I was thinking, we actually have a bhajan about that, about the beautiful garden. Maybe this will one day become like the hymn of Satsaṅg. Garden in Hindi means bāg. So, the bhajan has a title. It is a bhajan of Holī Gurujī. And agni means the fire. So he says, "My Gurudeva, Mahāprabhujī, created a beautiful garden in the middle of the fire." So, what is this fire? In India, there is no problem, no? It is hot. You feel like being in fire, but the meaning is not this physical fire. It is the fire element in us, which we can also call passion. That is fire. We are like burning in the fire of desires and attachment. This causes stress in everyone nowadays. That is also this fire. This bhajan is similar to the one we all know: "Śrī Buddha dīpadāyālu dhātā lākaṁ karaṇaṁ prabhujī." It is on the same melody. So, Holī Gurujī says Mahāprabhujī created such a wonderful garden in the middle of the world, in the fire. Lāk means a hundred thousand, meaning many, many, many. "Again and again, I greet you, my Gurudeva." Here comes the word bhāgya. Bhāgya we can translate as karma, or more precisely as fate. Swāmījī explains nicely that bhāgya comes from bhag-gaya: that which has run away. You cannot control it anymore. Like you have a stone in your hand, you have thrown it, and now it has run away. You cannot catch it anymore. That means you have created the karma. You cannot stop it anymore, and inevitably the effect will come. This is this bhāgya. So now this karma, which we have created, has become our destiny, and we can just see what comes to us. That is our fate. We can only perceive what is coming back to us; that is our portion. But Gurujī says that Gurudeva is the one who can awaken this. Awaken here in the sense that he can modify it, he can change it. And by awakening here, we think, "Who can change? Who can fix it?" As Swāmījī sometimes explains, he can bring the good parts of our karma to the top and give us a good chance to go on our spiritual path. The first verse explains more what this fire is. This fire, this agni, is the fire created through the three tapas. This is a triṣamitā, harum, tapa. You all have heard about the three tapas: ādhibhautik, ādhyātmik, ādhidaivik. These are simply the different channels through which our karma affects us. That means this bhāgya, this fate, affects us on the physical level, on the mental level, or on the astral level. And he says, "This fire is bhārī," this is big, so we are all suffering because of our karmas. You know the word saṃsāra? Saṃsāra is this worldly life. Saṃsāra is a village life. Saṃsārī is the one who is entangled in this worldly life, just living for worldly purposes without thinking beyond that there could be something deeper. So, all people living such a worldly life are called saṃsārī, and they are suffering only because of their karmas. But the Guru comes, and he brings the varṣā, that rain. The rain brings cooling relief. And what is this rain? The nectar, the divine teaching. Opening our eyes to the value of human life, to the purpose of human life. So, amṛta, we could say it is the spiritual teaching. This is a fruit. Phala is fruit. And amara means immortal. So, the fruit of immortality. When you eat it, you become immortal. You see how beautifully, in a poetical way, Holī Gurujī expresses it here. He speaks about the garden, and now he speaks about the fruit in the garden. Maybe we should look a little bit around here in Satsaṅg; maybe we will find it here also. So this divine rain, the rain of divine teaching, this actually brings the fruit of immortality. But of course, to get something in the garden, you have to do some work in the garden. Here comes the word lagānā. And that means to sow the seeds, to plant, to work in the garden. So those bhaktas who are working in the garden, planting the plants, caring for the plants, they will get this fruit of immortality. So, what does it now mean to work in the garden? That is our sādhanā. As we say, an ashram means you are welcome to work—work on yourself, do the sādhanā. So when we want to have a successful garden, two things are required. Our own effort is that we put the right seed and we care for the plants. And this is our sādhanā. It is our sādhanā, but even then it is not in our control. It depends then on the weather, on the mercy of God. Without Guru Kṛpā, our sādhanā cannot be successful. Now the Guru comes. He is the dātā, the benefactor. So we pray to God, and full of mercy, He comes and bestows the mercy on us. And He saves the living, the people who are like burning—burning in the fire of the tṛtāpa. And that’s another play with the words, because tri-tāpa does not mean just the way how the karmas affect us, but tāpa literally means heat, fire again. So he comes full of mercy, and then jīvanmukti dī lāne vāle—he gives jīvanmukti. He is full of mercy and grants us jīvanmukti. Therefore, he comes as a jīvanmukta. Jīvanmukta means liberated while in the body, living liberated. Now he enumerates the qualities which we have to work on. These qualities which make us suffer: kāma, the desire, the passion; krodha, the anger, when you don’t get it or you lose what you wanted; mada, when you have got it, then pride; moha, the attachment, you don’t want to lose it; and two more: lobha and īrṣyā. Lobha means greed; you already have a lot, but still you want more. And īrṣyā means jealousy; you want what others have. And then it says here, jāgīra jamāī. Jāgīra is a land which was given in olden times by a king for free to someone who did a great service to the king. So Jāgīra Jamāī means the Guru gives this garden like a free estate to you, for our service, for our seva. That is the situation: Swāmījī creates such a beautiful garden here, such a beautiful ashram, and gives it to us for free. And not just as a physical place, but whenever we have satsaṅg, we feel this inner relief. This is this garden also. And the next line is really like it’s for Satsaṅg. It says, "Avidyā ke gaḍa ko girāne vāle." Gaḍa, this is a castle, a fortress. And avidyā, you know, that is ignorance. So the Guru destroys this strong fortress of ignorance. And destroy does not necessarily mean to break it down, but you can also transform it. And this is exactly what happened here. I remember that in July, Pārvatī told us a little bit about the history of Satsaṅg Ashram. And if I remember right, she said that this was actually a prison here. So, definitely not a nice place. And when they came here, first everything was inhabited by rats. And look how beautiful it is now, what a spiritual place. How much peace, how much inspiration we get from it. And whenever Swāmījī is there and we are in his presence, we feel exactly that. Whatever troubles we had in our mind, when we are in the presence of the Guru, it feels suddenly everything is falling away from us, and we get a new orientation for our life. Jispara satguru kṛpā varṣai, vohī amara phala nirbhaya khāī. Those on whom the Guru is showering the rain of mercy, they actually can eat this fruit of immortality. And now there is a small, important word: vohī. It emphasizes those, meaning only those who have the mercy of the Guru, they alone can get this fruit of immortality. It means, without the guidance of the Guru, we don’t have a chance. Amṛta phala kulutthane vāle. The Guru is the one who gives away this food, not looking even at its value. The word kulutthane can also mean someone who doesn’t really understand the value, and he is giving everything just away. But here it means the Guru, though it is so precious, freely gives it to us. It is the fruit of immortality. Now Holī Gurujī addresses Mahāprabhujī, Śrī Dīpadāyālu. Śrī Dīpadāyālu antaryāmī. Mahāprabhujī is the beloved one of my heart. Jñāna ghaṭalī āyā svāmī. He brings the ghaṭā, the cloud. He is the master who brings the cloud of wisdom. He removes all the sufferings, the heat, the fire, the suffering because of our bad karmas. Āpaka tāpa mitāne vāle. He removes all the suffering, all the heat, all our karmas. Jīvanānandake ānanda varṣi. He is showering bliss all the time. Nisadina antara ātmā harase. Nisadina means day and night, all the time. And harase means to rejoice, to be in bliss. You have this in the word, for example, Harṣa Devī. Also in this bhajan, "Suno śakyasat guru garaya kali kali harṣa vāta harṣa vāta," this is also about being in bliss. Harṣa vāta means to be in bliss. So Holī Gurujī says, "Day and night, I am in bliss." Jāla ko jalāne vāle. Mahāprabhujī is the one who burned this net of worldly attachment. Āga meṅ bāga lagāne vāle. Mahāprabhujī is the one who creates for us a beautiful garden in the middle of the world fire. Lākaṁ praṇāma. Millions of greetings to him. So now, let’s sing. Do we have the rhythm group first, please? Dholak player, who would play the dholak, who would give the rhythm? There is no bhajan singing without dholak and rhythm, please. Whoever, but please. Okay. Melody, as I say, is easy, you know it. Very easy to sing.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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