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Good evening, everyone. A special welcome to those who arrived only this afternoon. Now it looks a little fuller; yesterday it was half empty here. For me, it is always very nice to be with so many bhaktas. You are my family—just to make you aware of that. It is very nice to be together with so many friends. Welcome also to those friends who join us through the webcast all around the world. We continue our celebration of two events: Dīvālī, which is at the same time the incarnation of Mahāprabhujī, and the Mahāsamādhi of Holy Gurujī, Swāmījī’s master. Dīvālī was actually two days ago, but we are still celebrating it. All Indian festivals are celebrated for several days. Holy Gurujī’s Mahāsamādhi, according to the Western calendar, will be on Monday, the 31st of October, and according to the Indian lunar calendar, I think two days later. This afternoon we saw the lecture from Swāmījī, which he gave yesterday on Dīvālī. It was a full lecture, really encompassing everything about Mahāprabhujī’s light. This evening I was thinking we could go a little deeper on a certain point which Swāmījī touched. But before we do this, let’s sing a bhajan. Swāmījī, in his Dīvālī speech, spoke about many different aspects of the incarnation of the Guru in the world—about Mahāprabhujī’s incarnation and what it means for us. In the end, he came to one point which I think is quite important. We live in a special time: the Kali Yuga. That is what Swāmījī spoke about. What does Kali Yuga mean? We know there are four Yugas, huge time periods—like four seasons, you could say—of which the Kali Yuga is the last and, in terms of qualities, unfortunately the worst. What we learned in history was basically a history of wars. That is actually very poor. That is Kali Yuga. When we look at the newspaper, the internet, or the TV news, what is the news? At least 90% are negative news, and we have already gotten used to that. That is the news. But that is Kali Yuga. Now, more importantly, what does it mean for us? What we experience now in this world is not there by chance. Nothing is by chance; it is karma. So all this destruction, the ecological catastrophe, the economic catastrophe, and all these things—this is karma, collective karma. If we do not know our karmas, it is like a backpack we carry on our back that always goes with us all the time. Everyone sees it, but we do not see it. So we have contributed to these Kali Yuga karmas. That means we have Kali Yuga karmas. Practically, it means we also have Kali Yuga qualities. And when we are disciples of a Guru, we are Kali Yuga disciples. Just that we see, really, the point that Swāmījī spoke about so nicely. I will try to make it a little clearer. Now think of the Guru. First of all, when he comes in this time as an incarnation, he also has to live under the physical conditions of the Kali Yuga. So when everything is polluted, the Guru also has to breathe this polluted air, drink the polluted water, eat the polluted food, and deal with Kali Yuga disciples. That is a hard job, huh? So I think slowly we get clearer about what it actually means when the Guru incarnates in this time. The Guru comes to help us so that we can purify ourselves, so that we can achieve liberation. But it is obviously a tough task. In one Buddhist book, I read something that I liked. It said, “The Guru is your spiritual friend.” And the next sentence said: the duty of your spiritual friend is to attack you. That is an interesting statement. Did you ever think from that point of view? It is the duty of the Guru to attack us. What does it mean? He is not attacking us with a knife. He is not hurting anyone for the purpose of hurting. He is attacking our ego, because that is the whole point of our qualities, of our karmas. Swāmī Śivānanda—who was actually a medical doctor before he became a saint—said that just as a medical doctor performs surgery to remove ill tissue, in the same way the Guru performs an operation on the disciple to remove the ego. I think now it becomes clearer what this “attack” means. So now the doctor really comes with a knife and cuts into your flesh. If you are not prepared for that, you will see. But he does it for a purpose: to remove the impurity. That is a way of healing. Now, when the Guru wants to help us in the Kali Yuga with our Kali Yuga karmas, that is not an easy operation. Therefore, sometimes the Guru has to use, I would say, unorthodox methods. Mostly, the Guru guides the disciple by giving guidance, giving general instructions. These are all the lectures which Swāmījī gives, and this is, of course, the yoga and daily life system which he developed. But he is also here, very personally. And be sure that whatever interaction there is with a Guru, it has something to do with us. It has something to do with our karmas. That is now a problem for a Guru. When he now, as it was said, attacks us—attacks our ego—then easily we blame the Guru. We actually project our problem onto the Guru. That would be like blaming the doctor, saying he has an interest in getting a part of my body by performing the surgery and taking something out. What do you want with this? On the physical level, it is very easy to understand, and everyone laughs when I say that. But when the same thing happens on the spiritual level, it is not so easy to recognize. Let us remember what Swāmī Jasrāj told us when he was here a few weeks ago. He was for quite a long time in personal seva for Holy Gurujī, Swāmījī’s master. Two things were quite clear about the way Holy Gurujī was treating him. The first was that he gave him very little sleep. That is quite a tough training, because in sleep we recover, we get energy. When we have full energy, then we have everything nicely under control. But when you do not get enough sleep, you know how you are emotionally then. Your emotions are on a very thin surface, and very easily reactions come out from you which you thought, “Is this me?” Yes, but it is coming from me. Only under normal conditions it would not come; you would be able to control it. It is like keeping the lid on a pot that is cooking underneath. Suddenly, the lid is removed and everything becomes obvious. What is there inside? What qualities are boiling there inside? That is the other point which Swāmījī mentioned at the end of his lecture quite strongly: our qualities—better to say, our negative qualities, which in Hindi is called avaguṇa. They sang, and Swāmījī translated, the bhajan: “Prabhu mīra, avaguṇa citta na ḍaro.” Oh, please, Lord, do not mind my negative qualities. So that is what is boiling underneath. And now the Guru makes an operation, first of all, so that this comes out, so that it becomes visible. When we want to work on ourselves, first we have to realize where we are and how we are. That was also quite a tough experience for me when I was in India. I mentioned it earlier. We had in Hamburg one lady whom I respected, but she was a little strange. She had, like, three different aspects of personality. On one hand, she was sometimes really the old wise woman, and I really respected and loved her. Sometimes she was crying like a small child: “Can someone help me?” And sometimes she was really hysteric, so you had to run away. I never could figure out how this fits together in one personality. So now, when Swāmījī sent me to India, I had there also some quite tough times. And then I experienced myself in exactly these three states. For example, I had one consultation with Swāmījī which I remember very well, where I was just crying all the time. And I also remember that once I made a scandal, shouting as loud as I could, very consciously. You would not really expect this, usually, from me. This is when the Guru boils you up, you know. The lid is removed, and everything becomes visible—what is inside. So the Guru finds different ways so that we first of all realize how we are and what we have to work on. One very, very strong way is this: little sleep, very little sleep. And actually, it is not by chance that Holy Gurujī used this technique—we can say technique—with Swāmī Jasrāj. Because that is exactly the technique which Mahāprabhujī used with Holy Gurujī. Do not think it was easy for him to live with Mahāprabhujī. But when everything was purified, then he got the full blessing, and then everything is forgotten. And we know Holy Gurujī only as a deep, deep bhakta and devotee of Mahāprabhujī, who never ever mentions Mahāprabhujī’s name without saying, “Dīpa Dayāla, the merciful, the merciful, the merciful.” Not a single time did I hear him say a cruel word, because he understood it was the operation to take out that which had to be removed. Now, Swāmī Jasrāj also spoke about another method which Holy Gurujī used in his daily interaction. He had to do many, many things for Holy Gurujī. For example, he was cooking food for Holy Gurujī. Holy Gurujī said, “Oh, very good, very good.” And the next time, he said again, “Excellent, excellent.” So, of course, you start thinking, “Oh, I am a good cook.” And that is the whole point, because that is ego. And as soon as this thought is there—one aspect of ego came out—the Guru knows the next moment to crush it. Like when I started bhajan singing, Swāmījī said, “Very good, very good, go on.” Until then, after some time, he started criticizing me in every satsaṅg—in public, of course. And in this way, Holy Gurujī was testing again and again and again Swāmī Jasrāj Purī. And it is very nice that you spoke so openly, because you said, “Always he thought, ‘Now I got it, I will not fall in the trap,’ and half an hour later again he was in it.” So all this is a training; it is not a torture. The Guru actually has no interest in that. That is the dharma of the Guru, as they said so nicely in the Buddhist book. The dharma of the Guru is to attack the disciple—that means, the ego of the disciple—because without crushing our ego, we can never ever reach our aim. And that is another aspect now for a Guru in the Kali Yuga, having Kali Yuga disciples. The Guru has now also to change, you can say, his strategy. The tradition, which you can see in many scriptures, is that when a disciple comes to the Guru, he gets nothing. When the Guru accepts a disciple, that means he accepts him to do seva. But he will not initiate him into anything until the process of purification—this purification of the ego—has come to a quite good result. And “quite good result” means humbleness. Only then did they begin to receive something. Only when they achieved good results, and through those good results, humility is transformed. There are many ways the Guru tests this. One small story about that: A disciple came to the Guru and wanted initiation. The Guru said, “Yes, but on one condition: you have to find some living being which is lower than you.” And he gave him some time for that. The disciple thought, “That is an easy one. There are so many low beings here all around.” So he thought for a moment, and then he went to the cow. He said, “The cow is an animal; I am a human. Surely that is a lower being than me.” And he was astonished that suddenly the cow answered him: “How do you dare to blame me? You are so happy every day to drink my milk. With this, you accept me as your mother. How can you say that I am lower than you?” Yesterday we spoke about the aspect of the worship of the cow, the worship of the Divine Mother. So he understood there is some truth in this and said, “Okay, okay, sorry.” Then he looked to the ground and thought, “But this grass—this is definitely lower.” But then the grass spoke to him: “How do you dare to blame me? I am feeding the cow, and you are drinking the milk.” There is some truth in that. Sorry. So he looked around and went around in India. He went some distance from the house—and this is traditionally actually the place where there is a toilet. So traditionally, you go a little outside, behind some bushes, and there is the toilet. Then he saw the excrement on the ground and said, “Now I have found it. That is definitely lower than me.” And he was shocked to hear that this also answered him: “Yesterday, I was beautiful sweets, and you enjoyed me. And through your body, I became in this ugly form. What I am, you have made me.” And he was shocked. Now he could not think of anything that was lower than him. And he went to the Guru and said, “Sorry, Gurujī, I must give up. I do not find anything.” And then the Guru was happy that humbleness had arisen in his heart, and he said, “Okay, now I see. Now you are ready for initiation.” That is, of course, a symbolic story describing the process through which we usually have to go before we get initiation. To make the process more clear, I will tell a second story. There was a king. He lived a very spiritual life, but he was also a little attached to māyā, as we spoke about in the morning. So on one hand, he meditated very peacefully every day. But on the other hand, he liked to sleep every day on a bed of rose petals—of course, fresh from that day. Many of his subjects observed that and were a little worried about the spiritual progress of the king. Until one day, something happened. One of the camel drivers was climbing up to the palace of the king, shouting and looking around so that everyone came together and said, “Look, look, look!” It was a kind of scandal. Finally, the king got to know and came out to look. Then the king shouted to him and said, “What are you searching for there on the roof of my palace?” And this man answered, “I am looking for my camels.” And the king said, “But that is absurd. For that, you need not climb to the top of my palace.” And then this man shouted back: “That is not more absurd than to search for God and to sleep on a bed of rose petals.” Thus, there was like an arrow in the heart of the king. And he realized that there is some truth in what this man says. So, silently, he went into the palace, sat down for meditation, and he realized this man is true—that it is really absurd. Luxury and spiritual power do not go together. And he made a strict decision: to renounce his kingdom. He shaved his head, took orange robes, became a sādhu, and left his kingdom. He was now searching for his Guru. After some time, he heard about a famous Guru, Kabīr Dās. So he went to him and actually found him. You all know about Kabīr Dās; we sing bhajans from him. He was not a swāmī; he was a householder. He was married and had a daughter, and he was living a very simple life as a weaver, making cloth. So now, when he came to him, he asked him to accept him as a disciple. And Kabīr just accepted him—but that was another time. He accepted him on the old conditions. That means he did not give him any teaching, no initiation, nothing. He gave him the chance to do Guru Sevā. That is what we pray every day: “Dāna, māna, dāna, āra, pāna, kare, Guru Sevā, pā, oṁ.” You have heard that, no? It is part of our prayer: “I dedicate everything to you: my body, my mind, my possessions, everything. And my only request is, may I get the mercy to do Guru Sevā.” So Kabīr Dās gave him that mercy, and practically it meant he had to do all the household work: cleaning, cooking, helping with weaving, and so on. So he became, in normal words, an unpaid household servant, hoping one day to get initiation. The years passed. After about five years, Kabīr’s wife thought, “That is quite a long time. He is serving us so nicely all the time.” So she went to her husband and said, “I think it is time that you should slowly initiate him.” But Kabīr Dās was not sure; they could not figure out if he was ready or not. So then Kabīr Dās suggested, “Let us make a test. You take the dustbin with all the dirt from the day, get on the roof, and when he comes out, then you throw this all on him. And then we will see his reaction.” So, the next morning, she went on the roof, and when he came out, she threw it on him. And he was so angry. He was screaming, “How do you dare? How can you throw all this dirt on me? This is only because I am not a king anymore. If I would still be king, you would be in the darkest, darkest prison.” So then in the evening, Kabīr Dās and his wife met again, and it was quite obvious he was not ripe; even a lot of his old king ego was still there. So, no change. He continued serving. After another five years, then Kabīr Dās thought, maybe he is ripe now. But now the wife did not understand. She said, “Five years ago when I suggested, you did not agree, but I do not see any difference. He is still serving us.” So again they could not agree, and they said, “Okay, let us repeat the test once more.” So again she took all the dirt, and the next morning again she threw it on him. That is also part of the disciple life. And now his reaction was completely different. He said, “Oh, I know. I am so full with dirt, so many karmas. It is just right.” So he was very humble. That means now he was ready, enough cooked. And then he got initiation. And the point is, when a disciple is prepared in this way, then the sādhanā does not take so long. So then the sādhanā goes smooth and brings results. After not so long a time, he got self-realization. That is a traditional way. But now I ask you honestly: if this would be Swāmījī’s way, who would be here? Who of us would have accepted that? To serve, to go through many different types of trials without getting any instruction, any teaching, any initiation? So now the Gurus react to that, and they give us the initiation quite freely. Just minimum conditions: do not kill, do not hurt, be vegetarian. And another minimal condition: do a little bit of tapas, have a fasting day once per week or once per month. And how many of us are not even able to hold these conditions? I do not look to anyone, but I have observed quite a lot in the last months that even these quite easy conditions are already too much for many of us. So the Guru nowadays gives us initiation quite soon, because otherwise he would not have any disciples. And he comes here to help us, so he has to accept the conditions. But it does not change the task. That means now, while we are disciples and while we are initiated and while we are practicing, now comes the purification process. And that is how our ego comes out, and we project it on the Guru. Think what I said about the operation. Now we blame the Guru. What you take from me? Be sure: whatever happens in the interaction between Guru and disciple has something to do with the purification of the karmas of the disciple. And when one hears sometimes confusing stories—because many now really project their problems on the Guru—then it is one very easy way to hold on: think of your own personal experiences. Because yoga is a practical path; it is not just a belief, a blind belief. We practice, and I believe everyone who seriously practices has some kind of experiences. And often the point is simply that we do not value them. Too easily we forget them, just as some side aspect. I tell you, I have had talks with many, many disciples and other spiritual people. And when one goes deep and opens really up in such a conversation, you will be astonished how many things people have really experienced. Sometimes I thought already that at least one kind of miracle everyone has experienced in their life. Now, usually we do not speak about our experiences, which is good because otherwise our ego would blow up. But it is sometimes good to remember one’s own spiritual experiences and also a little to share experiences which we have made. This is what I tried to encourage in the last seminars also: that we share a little bit of experiences which we have made. For me personally, I started some days ago ready to make a list about what I have experienced. Maybe a suggestion for you: maybe sit down and a little remember what you have experienced in meditation or in interaction here on your spiritual path. What we have experienced is not belief; that is what we know. And if now someone else comes and tries to confuse me, it does not matter, because what I know, I know. When I have a certain experience and then I write a bhajan, “Oh Swāmī, do you live within me?” who will change that? It is my experience. Now, people can tell me many, many stories for months, and it will not change what I know because I have experienced it. So sādhanā is important to become safe on our own path. And that is another point which Swāmī Jasrāj always reminded us from Holy Gurujī: that he reminded him again and again and again of the importance of sādhanā. But all this sādhanā aims only at one single point: humbleness. And that means devotion, bhakti, unconditional surrender to the Guru. There is no condition, there is no expectation. “Please give me the mercy that I can serve you.” That is all I want. That means we give our life in the hands of the Guru without condition, without expectation. And when this is really from the heart, then the Guru knows we are ripe. We cannot liberate ourselves through our own sādhanā. Mokṣa comes only through the mercy of the Guru. That is the essence of the whole teaching of Mahāprabhujī and Swāmījī. So this was what I wanted to share with you. Let me see if I forgot something. Good. Let’s sing another bhajan, please. Ah, yes. One thing I wanted to say—one thing I forgot. Sometimes this mercy comes completely unexpected. When we are inwardly open in our heart, it can happen any moment. Not always in the sense of final liberation, but that we get deep experiences which can transform our life, which give us a direction for our practice. And I was myself a witness of that. It was maybe around 1990, I guess, so more than 20 years ago, on one of the international summer seminars. There was one Hungarian girl—I remember her name, but I will not say it. I had some kind of, how to say, a little bit of… we were talking a little. So I had a little bit of some emotional feelings toward her; we shared some things. And I remember we actually had Mauna on that seminar, so we were not supposed to talk, and we did not talk much. But so much she told me that she had absolute travesty. She was in the Kriyānusthāna group, I also, and she told me, “It is so hard for me. I think it is absolutely useless for me. I cannot concentrate at all. I cannot sit at all.” And I just encouraged her not to give up. That was a seminar when Holy Gurujī was there. And the next day something happened to her. Maybe when I tell, some of you will remember that. We had the afternoon sādhanā, which starts with half an hour. Then, usually everyone goes out for a short toilet break and comes back. But she remained seated. That happens sometimes, that someone does not go out. So then we had the longer practice. And after that, everyone is really happy when they can get up and out, but she remained seated. Now, it was already two and a half, three hours, and she had told me yesterday, “I cannot sit at all,” but she remained. I just observed. Then we went for a walk with Swāmījī, then we had dinner. And after two or three hours later, everyone came back into the room, and she was sitting exactly on the same spot where she had sat, maybe five hours before. Then people became aware of this and gave a sign to Swāmījī, and Swāmījī said, “Just let her.” So then satsaṅg was going on, bhajans were being sung, lectures were being given. And she did not move at all. Then after, it was, I think, a quarter past nine—so after about seven hours—then a little bit of life came back, so she started moving. And because I had now some awareness of her, especially, as I said, I became very immediately aware of this. And when I went close to her to help her a little bit, I felt such bliss. It was like a cloud of bliss in which she was. Her mouth was very dry, so we gave her a little something to drink. And slowly, slowly, she actually came back here into this consciousness. So it was very obviously a samādhi experience. But she had no condition at all for that. It was just the open heart and the mercy of the Guru. Now, it was not her final liberation, but it was a great experience. And it was even a great experience for me, because I was a little bit related to her at that time. And I remember later we exchanged one or two letters after that. She wrote in broken German. And I remember one sentence which she wrote. To translate: “I would like always to live in this ray of light.” You see, it is such a great experience just through the mercy of the Guru. But the disciple must be ready for that. So let us work on that. Something can happen always needs two. Pārasa and iron must touch. That is the point. Every inner doubt, any inner resistance, any inner skepticism—that is the distance that you cannot touch. That is what we have to work on.