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Hari Om, everyone. You may recall that last night, Swāmījī gave me the duty to speak about and sing this bhajan concerning Kusanga. Personally, I much prefer to speak and sing about Satsanga. So, I somewhat avoided this bhajan, but now it is Guruvākya—the Guru's word. Perhaps it is good to delve into this topic for a moment. Let us proceed step by step. This bhajan is "Manā Sabha Koyuri, Kusangyong Kesang." We will begin with the refrain and then discuss its meaning. It addresses our manas, our mind: "Oh my mind, you have lost everything." You know the words kusaṅga and satsaṅga. Saṅga means to be together. Satsaṅga means to be together with people searching for Sat—the Truth, Reality, which also means searching for God. In Hindi, "ku" is essentially always negative. So, it is negative company—negative in various ways. It is not so much a judgment but a clear statement pointing in the direction of Māyā. We could also say: Satsaṅga is that which uplifts our spiritual energy, and Kusaṅga is that which brings it down. It is not a judgment but something for self-analysis: When I go there, when I am with these people, how does it influence me? How do I feel? What kind of desires does it awaken? In which direction am I going? In this way, you can always ask yourself: Is this Satsaṅga for me or Kusaṅga for me? Furthermore, Swāmījī emphasized yesterday several times that Satsaṅga is that which unites, bringing us to oneness, and Kusaṅga is that which divides, bringing us to duality—which often means quarreling. As Swāmījī puts it in other words: Love is that which unites, and hate is that which divides. The refrain continues: "Satguru śaraṇābhachana be Mokahaya." Satguru Śaraṇa means the shelter of the Guru. When do we come into the shelter of the Guru? It refers very clearly to the moment we become a disciple. A disciple is also called a śaraṅgati—one who has gone into the śaraṇa, the shelter of a Gurudev. That is a very clearly defined moment: the moment of mantra initiation. What happens during mantra initiation? It is a moment of mutual commitment between the Guru and the new disciple. The commitment from the Guru's side is the promise, the vow: "I will guide you." I will guide you until you reach the aim. That is a profound promise, for who says we will reach the aim in this life? The Guru's promise is valid for perhaps many, many lives, until we truly reach that state of consciousness which he, the Guru, possesses. Now, what is our commitment? Our commitment is to follow—to follow until we reach the aim. That, too, may be a promise for many lives. This is Guru Śaraṇ Baccan. Bachchan means the word; here, concretely, the vow, the promise. It is the promise you gave when you were initiated into the mantra, when you became a disciple. Now it says "bemuka hoye." Bemuka means something like unspoken, as if you wrote something and then crossed it out. So, the promise you gave before the Guru during your initiation now becomes invalid. You inherently feel as if you are no longer a disciple, as if you no longer have a Guru. The moment you start thinking like that, you do not truly know the consequences. This bhajan exists to make us aware of them. The second line of the refrain gives the first statement about that: "pariyo bhajanme bhaṅg." We usually know bhajana just as our singing of songs, but its deeper meaning is essentially anything you do in praise of God, in search of God. Bhajana means any kind of sādhanā. It means reading spiritual books, inspiring others, speaking about God. It means what we are doing to sing the glory of God. But the most important point—and we have this very clearly in other bhajans of Holy Gurujī—the most important point of bhajana is mantra japa. That is the form in which we remember God, remember the Guru, and become close to him. Now it says there will be a bhaṅg—an interruption, a disturbance—in that bhajana. The mantra is our daily practice. It is exactly what we received during initiation. It is the one means we need to achieve our aim; nothing else is necessary. Swāmījī also gives Kriyā initiation, but he has often said you do not really need it, because with the mantra you already have everything you need. So, this is the one technique we must practice lifelong, day by day—yoga in daily life. The bhajan says there will be a disturbance in that. Because the mantra is your connection to the Guru; you received it from him. Naturally, any time you repeat your mantra, you also think of the Guru. But now, your inner feelings toward the Guru have changed. It becomes hard for you to repeat this mantra. It is as if you hate Coca-Cola, but you received "Coca-Cola" as your mantra. What will you do with it? Your inner feelings will be upset every time you repeat the mantra or even think of it. I know people I have spoken with who recently changed their mind and said, "No, I do not want Swāmījī anymore." I asked them, "So what about your practice? What about your mantra?" They said, "Oh, do not worry, I will continue." But this bhajan says you will not. This is an illusion. We think in the moment it is just a small thing when we change, but in the end, everything will be destroyed. That is exactly what this bhajan says: "manasabha koyuri." "Sabha" means everything. It starts with a small thing, but in the end we realize we have lost everything. The First Verse: What is Lost Let us go into the first verse. It begins enumerating all that is influenced, all that we lose through Kusaṅga. The first three words are: Dhī, Dhyāna, and Bhakti. Dhī means wisdom, but in the sense of spiritual wisdom. We do not lose our intellect; we remain clever. But this spiritual wisdom gets replaced by worldly cleverness. Dhyāna is meditation. What is meditation? It is not something we can do. Meditation means surrender, letting go. It means bhakti; it means faith—giving ourselves into the hands of Mahāprabhujī, or into the hands of Śrī Devapurījī, which are the hands of Swāmījī. To come into meditation is like falling asleep: you cannot make it happen; you can only let go and surrender, and then it happens naturally. Similarly, you cannot meditate by intellectually saying, "Now I will meditate." You can only allow it to happen through surrender, by opening yourself. But now, this inner relationship with the Guru is disturbed. How can you surrender to a Guru whom you no longer accept? So, your so-called meditation becomes an intellectual exercise at best. The maximum you can say is, "I am sitting and closing my eyes." But whether this is meditation, you will know. This is because you have lost your bhakti, your devotion. Through this, you lose your inner connection. Without bhakti, all that remains is dry technique. One often thinks a yogī is someone who just practices, but many practice and achieve nothing if they practice without the inner connection. It is dry; it does not bring results. How often has Swāmījī spoken about this? I recall that once, even when Swāmījī was leading Kathūpanām—which is just a physical exercise—he said he knows that some of his disciples had the darśan of Mahāprabhujī while practicing Kathūpranām. This is because they had so much love for Mahāprabhujī. Kathu is Mahāprabhujī's place; it is like worshipping the Guru. So, we can achieve everything if we have an open heart, if we have this inner relationship, if we have bhakti. If this is not there, it is just gymnastics. The verse continues: "Chutagai satsaṅg." You have left behind the satsaṅg. Practically, this means you also no longer like this atmosphere. It feels boring, and other things feel more interesting. Or, more importantly: "satā paramārtha sukha rīta bhulo." Paramārtha is the aim of life—the highest, final, spiritual aim. Sat, you know, is the Truth, Reality, which are actually names of God. And sukṛt: kṛt means to do, and sukṛt means to do something good. We could say these are kind and good acts, or in our language, good karma. All of this you are forgetting. It leaves your mind because when you enter Kusaṅga, the ego and selfishness grow. You begin thinking basically only of your own interests and your short-sighted aims in life—comfort, career, and so on. Thus, you forget the Truth, Reality, God. You forget the aim of your life; you do not even think about it anymore. And you forget that you should do something good. This means you start doing only selfish karmas and no longer selfless ones: helping, supporting, protecting. "Chal reyo kudang." Chal means how you walk, how you go. You can also understand it as how your life is going. Kudang means in a strange way, a bad way, or in the wrong direction. You start going to places where you should not go. You become confused, and your whole life goes in another direction. All this is the effect of Kusaṅga. The Second Verse: The Erosion of Qualities Let us go to the second verse. It speaks of losing Dhīraj, Dharma, and Dhyāna—you lose everything. Dhīraj comes from the word "dhir," meaning slow. When something goes slowly, it can be challenging for us. For example, when standing in a queue for food, what we need then is dhīraj—patience. But when we go into Kusaṅga, the qualities of the mind awaken fully. One of them is: "I want everything right now." So, impatience arises instead of dhairya. Dharma you know; it means righteousness, duty. Essentially, it means the duty we have as human beings. Because we are no longer thinking about the purpose of life, we also get lost. What is actually the purpose of what I am doing in this life? Only as humans do we have the chance to practice, to follow a Guru, to develop bhakti, and to realize our true aim. In no other form can we do this. We have many bhajans about this point, so we definitely know it. But now we lose it. We start to live life like everyone else—just for family, money, enjoyment. We forget our dharma, the dharma of human life. Then we get lost in saṃsāra, which Swāmījī always translates as "that which has no sense." And we lose meditation. We spoke about this already, because then we have nothing to concentrate on in our meditation. All these worldly thoughts arise and occupy our mind while we sit trying to meditate. We start thinking about our desires. The verse continues: "Tamas and māyā, umang." Tamas is another spelling for Tamas guṇa. Umāṅg means strong desires. So now, Tamas guṇa takes over; desires awaken in us. In Tamas guṇa you cannot meditate; that is very clear. You need Sattva guṇa: balance, harmony. But now Tamas guṇa is dominant. Then your meditation has nothing to do with meditation anymore. We are now under the guidance of the mind, and the mind is always looking for enjoyments. This comes in the next line: "Viṣayā bhoga me phir bhaṭṭakto." Viṣayā are the objects of the sense organs. Bhoga means to enjoy. So now, like everyone in this world, you look: "Where can I have some kind of enjoyment?" Scientifically speaking, this means just satisfying the desire of one of our sense organs. I go to a concert because I want to hear something nice with my ears. I go to a gallery because I want to see something nice with my eyes. I go to a restaurant because I want to enjoy something nice on my tongue. I have sex because I want to have a pleasant sensation on my skin. These are all just desires of the sense organs. And we follow this. The mind follows this. Now the mind is the king, and we are its slaves. The worst part is we are not aware of this. So, the bhajan tries to awaken us. It says: "Now, enjoying all these sense objects, you are wandering around restlessly, aimlessly." Earlier it was said you lose your direction; your life's direction changes. Now you could say you actually have no direction anymore. Wherever you see, hear, or feel something enjoyable, there you run. So you become a slave to your sense organs. You run here, you run there, you run aimlessly around in a circle. And through all this: "kapati, nitya, kulang." Kapati, nitya means insincere, deceitful. And kulang—I just looked in the dictionary, as it is not a Hindi word but a Māwarī word—means a troublemaker, a villain. So you become a troublemaker, not only for yourself but also for others. And I think many understand what this means. The Third Verse: The True Source of Bliss Let us come to the third verse. It is a bhajan of Mahāprabhujī, so naturally, in the last verse, he addresses his Guru, Śrī Devapurījī. He says: "Śrī pūjā bhagavān deva purī sa mast fakīr malam." Śrī Devapurījī is a must-fakīr malang. Must, as you have it in other bhajans, means intoxicated. In a worldly sense, one who has drunk too much becomes completely crazy. But here it means intoxicated by the divine. To those outside, it may look like craziness because they cannot understand or experience that divine bliss—sheer bliss. Fakīr is a Muslim word; for us it would mean a yogī or a sādhu. And here comes also Malang: Fakīr Malang means truly a sādhu in trance, in samādhi. Now it is interesting; suddenly it seems the topic has changed. This is what I like in our bhajans: often we really have to think and figure out why this comes now. What is the context? How is it connected that we spoke all the time about the effects of Kusaṅga, and now suddenly he says, "My master, he is in samādhi and in bliss"? The connection is that it is important to understand a little more deeply the tricky, dangerous aspect of Kusaṅga. How can it happen that we truly fall into Kusaṅga? The point is joy. We are all searching for joy, for happiness in life—everyone, not just us. We have different strategies for how to achieve it. Mostly we think if we had a lot of money, then we would be happy. Or a happy family life, traveling, fame, winning the Olympic Games, or whatever. All these are different strategies to find happiness in the world. In the end, they fall into the category of simply enjoying with our sense organs. But we all know we cannot find lasting happiness there. Now, the problem with Kusaṅga is that it also offers us a kind of happiness, and it is very gradual. When we speak about Kusaṅga, we are actually speaking about Māyā—how, through Kusaṅga, Māyā gradually influences us. Let me try to explain with a practical example so we understand how it works. I will speak personally. I was doing karma yoga, and it was my whole joy. My happiness was in doing that. Often after midnight, I was still engaged in it. Then, in a partnership, my friend said, "In the evening, I think I would like to go to the cinema, or for a walk, or do this or that." My standard answer was, "Oh, that's a nice idea, but you know, I have to do my karma yoga first." And she understood. So I did my karma yoga, and afterwards we did the other part. But sometimes it did not fit together. I said, "Okay, maybe I can do it a little quicker." So I did the karma yoga still; no one felt any difference, but I did it a little quicker. But then sometimes this did not really work, so I had to do it a little differently, not as I usually would—somehow not with as much diligence, not with as much love. The next step: I would say, "Actually, I think I can do it tomorrow." Already postponing. And then the next day I would say, "But actually, why must I always do that? There are so many others; others can also do something." And then the last step: "Why am I doing this all the time? Let others do it." And you stop doing it. Do you understand how it goes step by step, slowly? And every moment you have good arguments, and in the end you realize you have lost everything. That is how gradually we can move from Satsaṅga to Kusaṅga; how, from spirituality, we slowly fall into Māyā. The dangerous point of Kusaṅga is that it has a power, an attractive power; there is something to enjoy. And only much later do we realize—sorry, the real joy cannot be found there. Much later, you realize the disappointment, but then it is usually too late. So this is the danger: that through Kusaṅga, we change our understanding of where and how to find happiness. As we have in the bhajan: "Milletahe satsa sukhe keval guru deva apke charanome." The true happiness you can find only at the feet of the Gurudeva. And now we start searching for happiness somewhere else. Here now comes the connection: why suddenly Mahāprabhujī speaks about Śrī Devapurījī and says he is a Mastavā Kiyāmalāṅg—in trance, in samādhi, in bliss. Because even if we find happiness in the world for some time, it is only temporary, always dependent on certain conditions. The easiest example to understand is eating. You are hungry, then you get a beautiful meal, and you are happy. But for how long? After some hours, you are hungry again, and you try to repeat it and repeat it. And if only once you do not get your meal, it becomes a real problem. That is the nature of all happiness we can ever find in this world. When Mahāprabhujī speaks about his Guru being in divine bliss, he wants to awaken us to go for the right aim. Do not think too narrow-mindedly, just of these worldly enjoyments. Go for the right thing—the bliss which is never-ending, which is infinite and independent of anything. "I, Mahāprabhujī, have therefore come into the shelter of my Guru." We have the same word, śaraṇ, which we had in the refrain. It means to surrender to the Guru, to become a disciple. We must understand this is not a normal statement from Mahāprabhujī. He was enlightened from birth; we know this from Līlā Amṛt. He did not need any Guru. But even he took a Guru, took initiation, became a disciple, and behaved as a disciple his whole life. Swāmījī, too, behaved his whole life toward Holī Gurujī as a disciple, only to give us an example of the right relationship between Guru and disciple—and that we should never leave that. "Rahe Hameshā Saṅg." I will always be in his company. I will never leave you. That is the final word of Mahāprabhujī. I think the present situation makes clear that this bhajan has quite some actual importance. When I try to explain that Māyā is so tricky, getting us step by step—be careful right from the beginning. And when you observe you are already going a little in this direction, just come back. Let us always be together and have Satsaṅg, not Kusaṅg. Deep night, I'm back. Vane ki chen.