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Part 1: The Path of Selfless Service: Karma Yoga and Gurusevā This evening, Svāmī Niranjanpuri will speak to us about Karma Yoga. I must say, after years in Jādan, he is an expert at it. No one works longer than he does, from early morning until the positive evening. Svāmī Jaśrāc Purjī is a master of positive thinking. No matter how complex and chaotic the problem you take, he will take the good from it and reveal it outwardly. But sometimes it is simple. Śānti, śānti, śānti. "Prabhuh śrī gaṇeśāya namah. Vakratuṇḍa mahākāya sūryakoṭi samaprabhā. Nirvighnaṃ kuru me deva sarva-kāryeṣu sarvadā." Hindu mythology states that the god Gaṇeśa has a human body, an elephant head, four arms, and many attributes. Every attribute, every symbol has a deep, symbolic meaning. So, for Hindus to relate to it in some way, they first have the physical description—how they know Gaṇeśa, how they imagine him. But because we are more students of yoga than practitioners of Hinduism, for us the second part of the mantra is more important: the one that addresses the cosmic tattva, that strong positive quality which is capable of balancing the negative elements. It is an excellent entry potential into any work, into a new activity, and it opens the intellect. So it is actually a great mantra to begin any Karma Yoga practice with, or for when you encounter any difficulties during Karma Yoga. Or when you are nervous before an exam and you sing this mantra from the heart, it helps. If I am nervous in this situation now and sing it from the heart, it helps. Thank you, Gaṇeśajī. What is Karma Yoga? We all understand the basic definition. It is voluntary selfless service for the benefit of another. The others can be animals, or any people who need it. By alleviating even a little of his suffering—forgive me, his duḥkha—you are practicing Karma Yoga. When you feed a hungry person, that is Karma Yoga. When you give medicine to a sick person, that is Karma Yoga. When you help the helpless reach where they need to be, that is Karma Yoga. But our help is always limited; it is temporary in time. Because that hungry person, once satisfied, will be hungry again in four hours. And therefore, the highest Karma Yoga is Gurusevā. Because the guru, the saint, is the one who has come to dispel our ignorance. And ignorance is the cause of all suffering. So if we participate in the mission that the saint, that our master has in this world, then we are actually part of something incredibly noble. On the yogic path, the sequence is generally Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Rāja Yoga, Jñāna Yoga. And often we somehow fail to understand and realize it, and we try to skip the first two steps. But that will not help us much, because if our antaḥkaraṇa—our inner psychic apparatus—is not purified, then our practice as Rāja Yogīs and Jñāna Yogīs will not be very successful. I remember one Svāmījī Sācāṅg, where in this context he quoted Gurujī. Gurujī’s words were: "We cannot meditate for eight hours, but we can work for eight hours." And therefore, Karma Yoga is our primary spiritual path. For most of us, it is more true that we cannot meditate even for half an hour. But with the blessing of the master, we can work for eighteen hours. Karma Yoga is a complete spiritual path that can lead from beginning to end. We all know the story of Holī Gurujī, who attained the highest knowledge through Gurusevā. And what Svāmījī has been doing for all of us for the past 40 years is nothing other than the highest Karma Yoga. When God incarnated as Rāma or Kṛṣṇa, He was not confined to a meditation room, but lived His entire life practicing Karma Yoga. And if we take the biographies of modern saints, they all reached where they reached through Karma Yoga. So why shouldn’t we reap it as well? And sometimes it is a bit our mistake that we treat it as a weekend affair. In the morning, when we practice, we tell ourselves that we are doing spiritual sādhana. And then we will practice Karma Yoga so that we feel well. And we do not have the approach that it is actually a spiritual science. Because Karma Yoga brings us three wonderful achievements of spirituality at once: self-knowledge, purification, and direct contact with the divine. If we are fully immersed in Karma Yoga, we always encounter problems and ourselves. We learn about many of our weaknesses and hidden potentials—about what we spoke of two days ago during the entire morning lecture. Through Karma Yoga, we purify not only our karmas but truly the entire inner apparatus. It is difficult to prove to people because you cannot tell them that right now many of their negative karmas are out. It is not exactly transparent. But if, for example, you stay in Jādan for a year or half a year and then return to the world, you see a significant change in yourself. You feel it, and quite possibly others see it too. And this is the result of that purification. In Karma Yoga, things often happen that are somewhat supernatural, and which you cannot explain otherwise than by the presence of something higher. And in our case, through Karma Yoga, we come closer and closer to our master—not only through that inner connection, but also in the physical world, because Svāmījī places great emphasis on Karma Yoga. And then to those disciples, He may reveal either His infinite grace or give them some very direct teaching. He uncovers their hidden faults, of which they were completely unaware, and helps them understand and, in fact, overcome them. I would like to share a few experiences or stories from Jādan. Some of them are personal, so I will have to speak about myself. But believe me, the motive is to show the beauty of Karma Yoga and to reveal the Guru Mahimā, our master’s glory. When we had the last Skype session with Svāmījī on Monday, remember, Svāmījī encouraged us to go to the park and pull weeds, or remove stones, and do such things. In Jādan, it was repeated to us several times that for a certain period, this was our main sādhana together with Svāmījī. For example, at the time after Holī Gurujī entered Mahāsamādhi, every morning after the morning prayer—which was in samādhi sometime between six and half past six, the time we all normally used for our own sādhana, for yogic practice—we went for a walk with Svāmījī for an hour, an hour and a half, every day. Except for the days when Svāmījī was away from Jādan, it went on for almost two months. But it was more like Svāmījī was walking along the path, and we were running around him, following what he showed us we should do: "Pick that grass over there, we will bring it to the horses. Remove those stones from the path, or the tractor will get a flat tire. Gather the fruits from the babul tree, we will bring them to the Gośālā and feed the cows. Uproot that weed." And occasionally Svāmījī would offer an explanation: "Uproot them completely; you are not pulling weeds, you are uprooting your karmas." There was a group, so one time after the morning prayer, Svāmījī said to them: "If you miss your morning āsanas, do not trouble yourself over it. You can practice them at any time during the day. But if you have missed the opportunity of Gurusevā, then you have missed something. Because Gurusevā is the highest thing people can do in their lives." And then we understand that indeed Karma Yoga is what takes precedence on the spiritual path over our morning practice. That was quite an interesting period when Svāmījī was very focused on work. Every day he had to receive dozens, or even hundreds of people. But among all the visits, he only gave clear, direct instructions on what was to be done. With the help of the group that was there, he completely renovated the interior of the Omāśrama. Several so-called dry walls or dry stone walls made of large blocks were erected there. Because for the Holī Gurujī Bhandārā, which was in two weeks, about ten thousand people were expected, and that Bhandārā was to be at Omāśrama. Our workers worked in two shifts, 12 hours each, so the work continued 24 hours on Holī Gurujī Mahāsamādhi. And it continued uninterruptedly for almost four weeks. I was fortunate that after my daily commitment in the office, I was preparing and bringing tea to the workers at night: at eleven, three, and six. At eleven, the tea was ready, so I took it once, but at three and six, I had to prepare and bring it again. And then we had a prayer with Svāmījī, after which we went for a walk with him, and then it was a normal working day in the office. And then, when I calculated how many hours of that interrupted sleep there were in between, it always fit easily on one hand. And I realized that it is by no means my ability. It is about what Śrī Jaśrāc Purjī said: that when you are running on the last drops of your fuel, the master shows you that you still have a ten-liter reserve. And it continues in such a way that when you reach the bottom of your reserve and have your last liter left, the master gives you ten liters for free. And if you work with great enthusiasm, for that next last liter, the master gives you twenty. And in the end, it doesn’t matter who gave how many liters, but your car, your vehicle of spirituality, made a journey burning eleven liters, so it moved far, far away. Svāmījī always gives priority to work and duly appreciates it. He says, "I am always ready for work." When the talāb was being dug in the Āśrama, it actually took four seasons, over four years, with the talāb being dug for about three to four months each time. Once in winter, that is to say, on January 26th—and India celebrates Republic Day on January 26th—that celebratory academy of our children was to be in front of the Svastika complex. And right behind the Svastika is actually the talāb. And there they were blasting with dynamite, digging with a large excavator, and trucks were driving around. And it caused terrible confusion. And we asked, "Svāmījī, we have to stop it tomorrow so that the noise does not disturb the children’s academy." And Svāmījī responded: "That is not noise, that is music. Work is worship, work is prayer, and it should be done twice as much." The work in the talāb was always from dawn till dusk. Because it was contract work through suppliers, we always had to check them. For example, we had to count every single stick of dynamite to make sure they were properly paid for, and we had to count every single truck that was leaving that lake. During the day, we had our Indian employee for that, but until eight o’clock and then from six in the evening, we had to do it ourselves, as Karma Yogīs. Also during Amāvasyā, which is actually the only free day in the Ashram—otherwise, the work is done continuously for the entire 30 days—once, during that Amāvasyā, I went up to count the trucks. Svāmījī was sitting by the library. I greeted him, and he asked me where I was going, what I was doing, and so on. And he said, "Now in such sunshine, you will get heatstroke. So you do it like this: take that plastic chair, sit up there, take your parasol, umbrella, and just comfortably make little marks there." But for me, it was unimaginable to think that I would be there as some kind of lord while they were doing the hard labor. And so I made my excuse: "But Svāmījī, I have to guide those trucks so they don’t fall down while reversing." And it was true that this is what we were doing. But the motive behind my negative response was completely different. And because you cannot hide anything from the master—he sees through each one of you completely—Svāmījī rewarded my dishonest approach with such a response: "Alright, do as you wish." Work on Omāśrama has come to a halt. It was an amazing race; three or four hundred workers were there every day, and it also continued until Guru Pūrṇimā. That was the famous Guru Pūrṇimā when Svāmījī and Holī Gurujī were together in Jādan. And around that Guru Pūrṇimā, half of the ponds filled with rain, so the work came to a halt. And then we actually had to wait three quarters of a year to continue, because more than half of the work was not completed. And so it began sometime at the end of March the following year, in 2004. This time, there were as many as 400 workers there. And it looked like a pyramid construction site: simply straightforward manual labor, with an incredible number of people moving back and forth. Then the entire talāb had to be lined with a special foil. This is the black foil; when you look on Google Maps and click on Omāśrama, you can see it exactly there—there is the black square of that large structure. And then there are, for now, such little tricks of the gray stone. This is the very slate from which the talāb is made. About 95 trucks of that slate and 20 trucks of red stone arrived there. And it was only in mid-June that the floor of that talāb began to be made. And it began to be a great race against time, because all around thunder and lightning were already flying, and it was raining—only in Jādan it was not. And that was the year when there were two Guru Pūrṇimās. The first one was in Jādan, sometime on the 1st or 2nd of July, and the second was celebrated around July 30th for the full moon, I think here in Střílky. Svāmījī, when he was leaving Jādan on the fourth day, told us: "God is with you. He stops the rain. But all the other people suffer. Please, place that base quickly. Because until you let it go, until you finish it, there will be no rain." By that time, we were already halfway across the floor. And we said to Svāmījī, "It will be in a week." And then he started calling; Svāmījī called about four days later, and after that, when he was in Europe, he called every other day. And he asked, "So how many more?" And we were getting closer and closer to that final wall, but the answer was always "two more days," because there were constantly some complications, some technological problems, and in fact the speed of laying the floor kept slowing down. And finally, sometime on the 16th, we finished it. And when Svāmījī called Jogeśjī, Jogeśjī was finally able to say to him, "Svāmījī, it’s ready." Svāmījī was very happy and wanted to perform pūjā the next day: pūjā for the talāb as a form of gratitude, and pūjā for rain, so that water may come. But two or three astrologers—I’m not exactly sure—told him that tomorrow is a very inauspicious day for pūjā. However, it was Amāvasyā and there was simply some unfavorable constellation, some incredible constellation. But Svāmījī said, "I want to have that pūjā, so we will do it with the children. Because they are not affected by it; they are not influenced by it." And in the evening, Svāmījī Jogeśpurī realized that there were still some specific tasks that needed to be completed. In the corner of the talāb, there is a building called the Waterhouse. And beneath it is a cistern, from which the water is actually drawn. And there was still just bare rock; it was simply forgotten somehow, or there was actually a thin layer of concrete, but that wouldn’t have stopped the water; it could have continued to flow further. So at the last moment, he organized the concreting, which began at half past eight in the evening and ended at half past eight in the morning. The workers themselves immediately started cleaning the talāb, because the pūjā was supposed to begin there in an hour and a half. By chance, here on the bulletin board—the one by Jādan—there is a photograph where Svāmījī is holding the Rainwater Harvesting logo. At 10 o’clock the pūjā began; 150 children from the school came there. There were some paṇḍits; they were chanting some mantras and a prayer. But alongside that invocation to God, there were children. So then they began to sing "mé ao, mé ao, mé ao." This is in Mārwāṛī: "mé ao, mé ao," and it resembles the sound of a peacock. This is how peacocks sing during the monsoon season. And the children were completely immersed in it, and for ten minutes it was impossible to even quiet them down. The pūjā was concluded, and we were happy because after three months we had our first day off. And in the evening around seven o’clock, it began to rain. By morning, there was a meter and a half of water there. And that year, although not much water fell and the tank did not fill, the rain—with which God waited—came according to Svāmījī’s prediction. A year later, in 2005, there was again such joyful Karma Yoga. It was the first road in Jādan, and it was a stone road leading upward. In Jādan, it was a journey of a hundred steps into the depths. Svāmījī Jogeśpurī told me, "Once we begin this path, you will be in charge of it." I was a little apprehensive about that. And then Svāmī Jogeśpurī and also Kriyā Śaktī both departed for Europe. That was in mid-June, so I breathed a sigh of relief that it was over. And a week later, one evening, the phone rang from Europe; I was just in the kitchen. And he says to Jogeśjī, "So Svāmījī wants you to begin that journey tomorrow morning." And I was making excuses: "But Jogeśjī, you are in Europe. What am I supposed to do here?" And it must be said that I am a botanist by practice. Svāmījī Jogeśpurjī did not consider this answer particularly significant. And instead, he replied: "We need to bring sand, stones, and a mixer there. And as for that engineering design, they simply said that." And then the next morning they gave me a little vision of how it should look. On the first day, we managed to cover about four meters of the path, and it wasn’t much—it was actually just a four-meter slab. Then we developed the technology, and then we routinely made four or five slabs a day. And I was incredibly surprised at how it is possible, where it comes from, that it succeeds. Because I was the only engineer there, and there was one supervisor—which means the one who oversees the workers—and fifty workers. But somehow the ideas kept coming, and it worked, and the path just kept going lower and lower and looked good. And as we went lower and lower, I was increasingly forgetting that this knowledge originally came from somewhere. Part 2: A Karma Yogi's Journey: Lessons in Service and Grace Then, before Guru Pūrṇimā, Svāmījī and Yogājī also arrived. We were almost finished, and then suddenly the situation there became complicated. I was already in a state of deep ignorance, because I thought I was the engineer of that path and had no idea how to manage the work down there. Svāmījī Jogeśpurījī did not have time for it. He left Gaṇānandjī from Germany in charge for professional guidance on how to proceed. Svāmī Jogeśpurījī left the āśrama, and when he returned, the path was complete. The very next day, Svāmījī set out for a walk uphill. I saw him through the window, preparing to go up. I thought to myself, 'Oh, Svāmījī is going on my path, I must go there.' So I quickly rode there by bicycle. There were still workers present, doing some cleaning tasks. Svāmījī had many practical questions about the path, but not once did he look at me. He always addressed the workers, and they answered. Suddenly a question came for which they did not know the answer, so I blurted it out just as it was. Svāmījī clipped my wings a little with just a couple of sentences. My pride was instantly shattered into fragments. When Svāmījī went up, I stayed at the very end of that procession. I think I was recovering from it until the next day. Then there was another walk with Svāmījī, and suddenly during the walk we found ourselves again at the mountain. I automatically placed myself at the end. Svāmījī had some Indian guests with him. When we reached the widest place, I heard voices from the front. Svāmījī was saying, "Such a good path. Have you ever seen such a good path?" I did not know what would come, but I felt very grounded and humble. Then Svāmījī called out across the entire crowd, "Nirañjan Purī, how wide is the path here in this place?" Now he acknowledged my involvement to me. I simply said with humility, "Svāmījī, here it is 6.5 meters, and that is the widest place." This repeated several more times. Several times more, Svāmījī went there with someone, and he always had a kind word for me. So it was actually a spiritual lesson. That same year, during Holī, Gurujī Mahāprabhujī’s Mahāsamādhi, we began constructing concrete paths. In the beginning, there was a contractor, but the very next day he was dismissed because the quality was simply terrible. So our workers from Omāśrama started doing it again, and I had the opportunity to be there. The moment came when he suddenly wanted to have concrete paths throughout the entire Omāśrama. First we did it from the defense to the crossroads, then to the svastika, and then to Gośālā and Svāmījī. Later, when he left, he would call and ask, "How much did you concrete today?" "Today Svāmījī, twenty meters. We did four slabs." "Excuse me, that is five, because they are four meters apart. It was twenty meters." And Svāmījī says, "Well, that’s excellent, very good. Maybe tomorrow you’ll manage a little more." "And today, Svāmījī, one slab more, twenty-four." "Only twenty-four? And why not thirty?" In this way, Svāmījī simply emphasized the importance of the practice. When Holī was approaching, sometime in mid-March, we had arrived with that path somewhere before the STD, where there is such a wheel. It was complicated there; we had to excavate nearly three-quarters of a meter of soil because it wasn’t right, it simply wasn’t a good foundation. So it got delayed, and now we brought everything there, compacted the new soil, and it rained. It is not usual for it to rain at that time, but it was simply an unexpected complication. We absolutely needed to finish it before the festival. There was such an amazing confusion at that construction site. Then a truck loaded with gravel arrived. We had the mixer here, behind us is the Śivamaṇḍir, here was the mixer, over there is the STD, and here is the bicycle. We needed the truck with the gravel to come like this, circle around the mixer, and unload in a very small, confined space so we could begin the concreting. But because everything was soaked, the wheels kept slipping; it was standing still, unable to get there, still 15 meters away. I was in such a karma-yogic principle. So I said to the driver, "Just start it at full speed, turn it up to full speed, and just go, go." That driver was far wiser, more cautious than I was, but he was convinced. So the truck sped up, and now it was heading towards us and the mixer. When I saw those 23 tons rushing towards the mixer—that is 16 tons of gravel, and seven tons is the truck itself—I simply had a time lapse and realized what I had done. I thought to myself, 'My God, what will I say to Yogeś? That mixer costs 400 thousand.' At today’s price, it would be 800 thousand. In that moment, I realized absolute helplessness. Suddenly, it came from somewhere; I shouted out, "Mahāprabhujī!" It was not from the intellect, I swear; it came from somewhere within and it was not conscious. Then I had only complete emptiness. I was just passively observing how that truck at that speed missed the mixer by ten centimeters and stopped with a skid, so that after laying down only 20 stones, they fell where they were not supposed to be. No one can take away from me that Mahāprabhujī was driving that truck. Of course, I do not imagine Mahāprabhujī as the one who, in his form, took care of that truck. But that was the answer to my desperate call. These are the moments when one comes into contact with the divine, or through the master. In April, we broke through the concrete path to the workshop. In May, Svāmījī arrived, and the path to Omāśrama began to be concreted. Because it is hot in May, we prepared the path during the day and poured concrete in the evenings and nights until 11 o’clock. Then there was always cleaning up, and afterwards I would drive the workers by van to their village, Kāmalu, which is about 15 kilometers away. So I actually lost the satsaṅga, everything that was there. At that time, Svāmījī was recording a series about Kuṇḍalinī for an Indian television station and gave wonderful satsaṅgs. Then he would always sit with that group of our foreign students for about two hours somewhere outside every evening. I was thinking, 'Well, some have satsaṅg, some have sevā.' I was somehow internally aligned with it. I thought to myself, 'Once we are on the journey in Omāśrama, then I will truly enjoy Svāmījī.' As we approached the end, thinking it would soon be over, Svāmījī announced he was going to Nepal for two days. So I didn’t see him again. To make matters worse, when Svāmījī arrived at the end of our work, he said, "Why did you end up here? Why, what about the last 20 meters? I want to have it all the way up to the circular path." We had many arguments as to why it was not possible, but Svāmījī’s wish was unequivocal; it simply had to be all the way there. So we prepared it for two days—those were the two days when Svāmījī was in Nepal. Svāmījī returned for the last two days before his departure to Jādan, and we had two days of concreting. While pouring the concrete, I began to feel a terrible pain, realizing that this time I would not see Svāmījī at all, that I would not be at satsaṅg with him, that I could not sit outside with him. In the evening, at the end of the concreting, Svāmījī always sent me a jug of mango lassī. It was not about being thirsty and needing something to revive me; it was a kind of symbol, a token that he knows. We finished the concrete, and it was actually the last day in Jādan. He was supposed to leave around four in the afternoon. I was thinking, 'Well, whatever, I like to do this, so once without satsaṅg, but in the afternoon I will see Svāmījī, sit with him for an hour, then he will leave, and then I will hold on until Guru Pūrṇimā.' Usually, Svāmījī is simply available to the Bhaktas before departure; it is kind of a farewell. But it was different. Svāmījī left the White House, and there was no farewell. He sat down in the white Toyota, in Gurujī’s Toyota, and sent us ahead to Bhakti Sāgar, saying he was in a hurry, that he would just briefly greet us there and then leave. I was terribly disappointed, and now I am leaving with the others to Bhakti Sāgar. But on the way, I see that the gate through which Svāmījī is supposed to pass towards the svastika is closed, and there is no one there to open it. So I ran there, opened the gate, and now Svāmījī’s car is arriving. I was just seized by panic. 'Now Svāmījī will leave, and I will not see him even at Bhaktisāgar.' When Svāmījī was passing by, the car suddenly stopped. He rolled down the window. "Nirañjan," he says, "sit." So I sat down inside, and suddenly I sank into his vibration, into his aura. The Anāhata opened, and the wireless connection was established. The master’s processor monitors the disciple’s hard disk. Data synchronization is in progress. Please wait. Svāmījī traveled around Bhakti Sāgara, where that group was waiting, and we went straight to Holī for Gurujī’s Mahāsamādhi. He went to say goodbye to Holī Gurujī. Before we arrived there, everything had been resolved and healed, without them saying a single word to me. But beforehand, it took those four weeks of hard work for one to be able to have such an experience. So, the time is now well exceeded, so the experiences come to an end. Isn’t that somewhat an accurate picture of Karma, Josef Jādanu? Because all of these were somewhat extreme stories. They were like pralines. Chocolate pralines. But life is not about pralines; life is about bread and butter. So normally it looks like in Jādan that a karma yogī arrives sometime between five, six, and half past six. He will perform his morning hygiene, practice his morning sādhanā. By eight o’clock, they have breakfast. They begin their service, wherever it may be. Lunch is at one o’clock. The midday break lasts until two or half past two. And then work again until about six. Dinner, personal time, satsaṅg. So the normal pattern is much more livable than those extreme matters. But still, it is difficult. Once, when Svāmījī arrived, there was a group from Europe. They came for Karma Yoga and a somewhat longer stay. Svāmījī told them at the satsaṅg, "Now you have arrived in Jādan. You know that there is sacred dust here. And within that dust is a unique energy. But it is tapasyā to remain here. Do not try to stop it. Do not try to change it. Let it come. Do not ask why and do not say no. Just let it flow, let it move. And this is the meaning of Karma Yoga." For many of us, it is not easy. When you come to Karma Yoga, it is different than when you come with a group. In the beginning, it is about being sleep-deprived. And you are dissatisfied. You have some strange inner pressures that are inexplicable. And you seem to have many enemies. And perhaps you will be given work that you do not like. But that is all that the ego dislikes. But the ātman feels there that it is in the right place. And it is simply a matter of that faith, that bhakti, to overcome it. And you will not get any further than if you devoted the same time and in the same state to that yogic practice. Karma yoga has two wonderful positives. Anyone can do it. If you are not able to do the lotus pose, you cannot practice the eighth part. When your mind is not quieted, you cannot meditate. But you can always practice karma yoga. And the second is that every step counts. In many areas of human activity, if you do not reach a certain level, you always have to start over from the beginning. But in karma yoga, you always move forward. In the sense that every step counts. Sometimes it drags you down mentally and spiritually, but in the overall trajectory, it means forward. All other yogas rest upon Karma Yoga. Every āśrama is founded on Karma Yoga. Be aware here, when there were 700 people here last week, six hundred of them were at the Anuṣṭhāna or that Haṭhayoga program. And a hundred practiced karma yoga. And out of that hundred, fifty engaged in activities connected with the future of the āśrama. Actually, it did not concern the group that is here. So the fruits of the labor of those fifty people sustain the remaining six hundred and fifty. The significance of one karma yogī corresponds to the significance of twelve other people. If I were to take it upon myself, if I were to come for the entire seminar, and if I wanted to challenge myself, I would go to Anuṣṭhāna. Because it is a problem to sit still, and it is terribly boring to endure one week with my restless mind. And if I wanted to enjoy myself and relax, I would go to a haṭha-yoga program. And if I wanted to make spiritual progress, I would follow karma-yoga. Each one must consider where they are on that path, what is right for them. One final analogy. In our system of yoga in daily life, the most practitioners from around the world come to Střílek each year. Those who practice yoga. There are thousands of them in a year, and do you know how many karma yogīs they are based on? Throughout the year, there are at most twenty of them here. So this gives us a clear understanding of the significance that karma yoga holds, and how precious is every person who is willing to give something at the āśrama. I would recommend to everyone who can give a weekend or a week to come, work, and take it as a spiritual sādhana—some kind of weekend retreat. To students who have completed their education, I would recommend that before entering into employment and the path of a householder, go and work for a year as pure karma yoga. Try to forget about television, the internet, and your mobile. Narrow it down to only what is absolutely essential. And try to stay in the āśrama as long as possible. That one year in the āśrama will return to you in your next life like a golden shower. Thanks to the svāmījīs for this teaching. I went through a period when I tried to create some order, some routine. Establish some regularity in your stay there, a regular time for your morning sādhanā, a regular time for work, and so on. But whenever I managed to establish some regularity, Svāmījī changed something. Whether it was time for prayer, or the time for tea changed, or the time when some karma yoga practice was taking place, and so on. So I adjusted my schedule again according to the new times, the meals, the karma yogī duties. And of course, every two days I arranged my new schedule, and then the times were changed back again. And so it continued for weeks and weeks. I say this because I think it is quite practical when people are busy and have a lot of work, changing jobs. In the end, it turned out that I made a kind of schedule for myself. It was a kind of plan, a way to plan. And that is, every evening I would sit down and say to myself, 'So what special thing will Svāmījī prepare for us tomorrow?' And then I was thinking about how I should arrange things around all that so that I can still manage some of my own sādhanā and so on. In the lifestyle that most of us probably have, it is likely impossible to arrange it the same way every day with such regularity. But for me, it was such that every day before sleeping, I sit for a moment and sincerely reflect on it, planning the next day, considering what possibilities are still there. It’s better to do it in the evening; I schedule it like that for the second day. Because if you were to do it in the morning, I usually plan for more sleep in the morning. But in the evening, when I do it sincerely with myself, planning it out, then yes, at this time and that time I will do this, and I will still manage to do that and that. Because when you have a fixed long-term schedule, then every other day you find some excuse, because something is happening that day and you cannot do it. But when you plan it day by day like this, you will find that a lot can fit into that day. When we speak about Omāśrama, here is a very short story. It is not from Omāśrama. There were three men who were carving stone for the construction of a temple. They all had the same work. They asked the first one, "What are you doing?" They have been building that temple for a hundred years. And the first one says, "I am carving this stone here and then I will pass it on to the next workers." They asked the other one, and he said, "Well, I earn money here to support and provide for my family." And the third one, who was doing exactly the same work, when they asked him, he looked up and with joy in his eyes said, "I am building a beautiful temple here." So for us, for everyone, when we practice karma yoga, when we exercise, we can only take it as what we are physically doing at the moment, what kind of work it is. But in reality, it is precisely that—it is the construction of that beautiful spiritual temple. You are building your own sādhanā, your own self. Perhaps by this, you are laying the foundations of your future. And then whatever you do, and you approach it like this, whatever you do becomes something unique. Because as spiritual seekers, whatever you do is part of something greater, something beautiful. So do not lose sight of the beauty that we all have the opportunity to practice karma yoga, we all practice karma yoga, we all engage in sādhanā. Perhaps today it seems like ordinary work or hard work. But it is part of something unique, what you are doing. And what you do, and of course, what Svāmījī does for us. In every temple, there is someone who carves those stones there—that is us. And then there is the master, the architect, the engineer who leads the entire work. I think it is clear who we are and who Svāmījī is. But both must be there for the temple to be built. So... Śrī Svāmī Purīṣya Mahādeva Kī Jaya. Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Mārāyaṇan Purījī Mahārāja Kī Jaya. Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī Satguru Deva Kī Jaya.