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Part 1: Reflections on Mahātmā Gandhījī and Śānti Oṁ Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaḥ Sarve Santu Nirāmayāḥ Sarve Bhadrāṇi Paśyantu Mā Kaścid Duḥkhabhāgbhavet Oṁ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ... Good morning, all dear ones. Today is a very auspicious day, and we are bringing the memory of a great personality from the last century, a man of the century who changed not only India but the whole world. He changed the minds of millions and millions, or billions, of people. Each and every thought of that respectable, divine soul who passed away, Mahātmā Gandhījī. You see, there is only one God, whom we call Mahādeva, God of the Gods. But leading a normal life, doing the seva, the service to all, he got the name Mahātmā Gandhījī. Mahan Ātma—Ātma everyone has, but one who has that feeling within his own heart, dedicated to the whole world. One of the philosophers from Germany said, "The day will come that people will see such a great personality walked on this earth." It is said that we don’t count your beauty, your body, your wealth, etc. But your knowledge. Knowledge is that knowledge where there is equality, where there is no duality, and that Gandhījī brought together. But there are two streams: asurīśakti and daivīśakti. When the devīśakti is waning or coming to the light, bringing the light, then asuras would like to destroy again that work. But it is said, if you want to throw the dust towards the sun, it will not reach the sun, but that dust will fall on your head. There are some practical examples of Rāmātmā Gandhījī, the father of India. What a very simple but powerful example. The first example was Gandhiji’s ashram, because he was known as a saint, Mahatma, not a politician. In the ashram in Sabarmati, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, at the bank of the river Sabarmati—very near our ashram was also there; many, many, many times I have been there—Gandhiji lived very simply. Simple living and higher thinking. He was an example of that. He renounced everything. So Gandhijī said, "Renounce and enjoy." If you want to enjoy life, then renounce. Renouncing something is not easy, because greed is like our own skin. And it’s painful when the skin of someone peels out of my life. I know our dear Naginbhai. He’s working very hard in this and that. And today he brought me in his beautiful old car. They call something like a Rolls-Royce. It’s okay, names are everywhere. But if something happens to his car, he will give all work, stop his meetings, and we’ll go and look what happened to his car. He can’t renounce this car. He cannot renounce his shop and myself too. It’s not easy to renounce, easy to speak. Who is the king of the king who has renounced? And he has nothing. And so, Gandhijī had that practical example, not only giving the example, but he lived as. He spoke now: how to know how a person is really doing like that? So there was one example. In Ahmedabad, Sabarmati Ashram, one young lady came, 30 years old, and she had one son who was about 12 years old. He liked Gandhījī very much, the boy. So one day, that lady comes with a child, and she asks Gandhijī, "Gandhījī, this is your grandson." In India, it is always said, it doesn’t matter whose child that is, we will say, "My son, my child, my grandchild." Because we see all as our own children, then we will not do anything wrong with our children. That culture is gone. Indian culture unites, connects, doesn’t destroy, unites, doesn’t disconnect. Any lady, any woman, she’s about 70, 75, 80 years old, anyone in India, they will call her mother. "Mother, come and sit here." Though you have never seen her before, automatically. So when you address somebody as a mother, you will never do anything wrong with this lady, take money away, or this or that. If the same age as you, ten years older or younger, we will always say, "Behen, behenjī, baithiye, sister," and once you say "sister," then you will not do anything wrong towards her. And if there is some child who is twenty or thirty years younger than you, you will say, "Betā, our betā." "Come, come, my son. Come, son, come, my son," and they all will feel proud and released from any fear or anything, that we have accepted this person. And so, when you are somewhere else, let’s say you are in Oakland, but you were born here in Wellington. And you know that from your street, that girl, same age, and one day when this lady will come to Oakland and you are there, she was younger than you, she will come and bow down, and he will bless her as a sister? No, it will not. Nobody will. Say, hey, ladkī, no, a girl, no, sister. So that was the culture, or which is that culture? Now it is in nobody said "mother," they said "madam." And madam is actually, it is Śrīmatījī. And Śrīmatī means madam, who is your wife. Yes? But I am not going so far. Okay? So one lady came and asked Gandhījī, "Gandhījī, my child eats too many sweets. But he respects you and he follows you. Can you tell him not to eat too many sweets?" Gandhijī looked at the child, looked at her, and Gandhijī always was making like this, moving his lips. He said, "Come after one month." That lady was a little bit disappointed. Just to tell two words, "Don’t eat too much sweets," the boy would have given up. But he said, "Come after one month." Well, after one month she came again with the child. And Gandhijī remembered. He said, "Beta, son, don’t eat sweets, it is not good." He said, "Okay, Bapu, yes, grandfather, I will not do it now." The lady asked the question to Gandhiji, "I’m coming to the death point. Why did you wait for one month? It took so long a time to tell him, ‘Don’t eat the sweet.’" He said, "Yes, betī, my daughter, because..." Because, at that time, since then, I was also eating too many sweets. So if I eat too much sweet and I tell this innocent child not to eat sweets, I feel guilty. So since that day until today, I have not taken a little piece of sweet in my mouth. So that this innocent child, I don’t feel guilty to this child. So be an example. Second, hard work. There is also another example. During this time of the British, they were all fighting to become independent. So somewhere in Assam, the eastern part of India, there was a train, and Gandhijī was sitting in the train, and it was going through the mountains and hills. Gandhiji was sitting, and Gandhiji had one secretary with him, and they were sitting, and a few more people were sitting in the train. In the cabin or in the train, it was the last buggy. It separated. The train was going up to the mountain, and the last carriage separated. Now it’s rolling back. Dangerous now. So, the assistant of Gandhiji said, "Gandhiji, look what happened." He said, "Oh yes, but I have something to dictate. You write down." He said, "Right now, between life and death," he said, "that’s why use the time before you die. Something we can work." So that was that. What hard work? He worked his whole life. He walked from the east to the west, and from the west, north to south, from Africa. Till there are many, many countries everywhere, Gandhiji. So his work, hard work, but he became an example: simple living and higher thinking. So everyone remembers him till today, and we adore him and we respect him. And he’s known as the father of the nation, Mahātmā Gandhījī, so we respect him very much. So, Gandhījī’s examples, there are many, many... Many, and Prem, that he loved everyone, animals also. He had one goat, and he loved the goat very much because he was drinking mostly goat milk. And children, he was running with the children. The children were pulling his stick, and he had to run behind them to play with the children. So it’s like a child, or like a grown person of knowledge, wisdom, and spirituality. Also, Nagin, thank you very much for organizing this event, and we are happy our acting ambassador of India here to New Zealand is in Wellington. So, John, thank you for coming, and I wish you all... The best, and thank you, Kim. And, of course, you know more than I do about Gandhījī, so there are many, many examples. So, it is: he is the ocean, and we are the drops. But as much as we tell, it is still too little. So, thank you. All the best, God bless you. Thank you, thank you. So, my committee consists of mostly senior citizens and two members, or three member books. So I followed his promise then. But like His Holiness said, Gandhījī was an example, and he did it in his own way. And he took the whole nation with him. But he started himself the first step, that he wanted India to be free from the clutches of other empires. And that thought came into his mind on its own. And he moved the nation with him. And now the whole world is moving with him. If you see Abraham Lincoln, if you see, as it is, the Dalai Lama, if you see His Holiness. Gandhijī moved the whole world; now the whole world is moving with his ideas, his ideals. And, of course, His Excellency’s representative, Sanjītjī, will take you to the śānti, the topic of today, on śānti, Sanjītjī. Aap sab ko mera pranaam. Nagin bhai, thank you for having me here. Your Holiness, aapko bhi special pranaam mera. Swami ji, aap sab... And for everyone, my respectful greetings. Now, you and I, we have one thing in common, apart from our dress. The commonality is that none of us knows what I am going to say next. Because the notice was rather short, I didn’t know where to come, but the love Nāginbhāī has, the respect he has, and the respect His Holiness commands—you know, that love and that respect has brought me here. Thank you very much. It is nothing to clap about; it is a fact. I’ve come here. I don’t know whether I have shared this with you or not. In our school, when I was in class 8—in class 8, that would be millennia ago, maybe, when I was 14 or 15. In our school we had a competition, a sort of competition. You were given the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, and you were supposed to answer or give an exam after reading that book. So I started reading that book. Initially, you know, that was my age, or everyone’s age, of reading comics and all that stuff. I started the book, and after one half a chapter, I laid it down. Then again I started. When I started it the third time, I got very interested. Honestly, I’m speaking the truth. I read that book. There was, you know, a sort of—I don’t know how to define it—but imagine a person who can reveal the innermost, the most intimate details of his life, learn from them, and even teach you so many things. It is... I’m sorry, I’m... Short of words, but it is something to, you know, treasure. He has clearly stated his failings; he has never overvalued his successes. He was the simplest person around, I think, if I’m not wrong. Even Winston Churchill named him the Naked Fakir because he had only his dhoti and his shawl or cupboard, and here we are. I acknowledge, me also, I like to have a tie and a suit and all that. So, like His Holiness said, it is not easy to renounce. It is very difficult to renounce. But I think I am straying from the path here. Naginbhai said I should speak on śānti. Well, śānti is something I have been trying to pursue all my life, especially after marriage. It has not been easy, but I am trying to convince my wife to give me more. Shanti, she says, "My name is not Shanti." But in the context of... we begin our prayers with "Oṁ Śānti," everyone should be at peace. Everyone should find peace, whether it is inner peace or world peace. I am not here to teach you about śānti. I am just sharing my own thoughts about śānti. So there is no gainsaying the fact that His Holiness can, of course, give you more; He can teach you more; He can teach us more about śānti and praying. But as a common man, I feel that these are very troubled times that we live in. In the past 100 years, the world has seen some major conflicts. There has been such a lot of blood that has been shed over just a few meters of ground. Is it really worth it? Millions have died. Millions are going to die if this continues. We read in the newspapers every day that the chances of conflict are increasing. I have been to some places, which even today, I have been posted in Libya, and what I have seen is difficult to describe. The amount of pain, the amount of suffering people are going through in the world, we can only hope and we can only pray that there comes a day when there is world peace. I do not know what we can do about it, I can only say that for me, I will try to play my part as part of the government organization of India, a country which has always believed in peace. And in my opinion, and to my understanding, India is, I think, one of the very few countries of the world which has never been the aggressor. We have always been at the receiving end. Peace is right now a little bit elusive, but I am not pessimistic. I would like to leave this world a better place for children like those, for my child, for your children, so I hope there is peace, and I can only say, "Oṁ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ." Thank you. Thank you, Sandeep Jī. Thank you. Thank you, Your Excellency. Acting High Commissioner said, "Śānti within us, Śānti within the family, including your wife and your husband, Śānti within the world." But I’m glad to say, on a positive note, that something has been practiced, and particularly if you look at Donald Trump. And North Korea and China, though he may not like Donald Trump, but I’ve been following him, and he follows Gandhījī. How I say that? Before he became president, he was on my Facebook because I’m involved with the Jammat Mahātmā Gandhi. So Narendra Modi ji and I were saying four weeks ago that he will not attack North Korea. You know why? Because he believes in Gandhijī’s principle. He follows Gandhijī’s principle. And secondly, he follows the business. If you look at, and he announced last week that he is not going to attack North Korea. He is going to go there and talk to Mr. Kim, which is good news for today’s session, is that śānti has been spread in the world. Not in the past by a lot of leaders, but the world is moving towards creating that path of Śānti and creating a path of business. That’s what he’s getting. That business of Śānti is a big business. In fact, there’s more resources available if you follow the path of śānti, the peace, because you still need the people. You need people to work, like Swāmījī, His Holiness, is spreading his message about yoga, Āyurveda, peace. Now I would like to invite our panel member, Jñāna. On a topic of prayer, Gñānajī, John Joyce, thank you, thank you, Nāgambayajī. Praṇāms, Swāmijī, beloved sir, and your excellency, and the members of the panel, and everybody else here. Welcome to Wellington, to Yoga and Daily Life Center, and to this panel discussion. My subject is prayer, dear to my heart. So to speak, you know, first of all, the story about Gandhi, because it’s one of my favorite stories about Gandhi. He was visiting a school, and the teachers and the school children were out. They greeted him. And the teachers came up to meet Gandhi, and Gandhījī asked them, "What do you do?" And one teacher said, "Well, I teach mathematics." And Gandhi said, "Very good." And the next teacher said, "Well, I teach English." And the person said, "Yes, that’s very good." And the next one was, "I teach history." And he said, "Very good." And then he looked at the children and said, "And who teaches the children?" Because we have so much pride in what we do, don’t we? And we lose the love, really. We lose love. Where is love in all of this? The teachers are there to teach children from a point of love. And the love that comes through becomes automatic, and they will learn automatically if we approach something from love. So I was just thinking, the gathering here is a wonderful example of love. First of all, we have satsaṅg. Satsaṅg is love. That’s what satsaṅg is. Satsang is love. One of the key aspects of love is truth. The highest, perhaps, form of love is truth, and satsaṅg is truth. We have a wonderful example of love and expression when Madhāramjī played the flute. Couldn’t you feel the love, the vibration? That came through love was very apparent in how he approached his instrument and how he conveyed it to us. It just came through with love, the beautiful, very beautiful. So we have the vibration of satsaṅg and the vibration of music. And then we have the third and biggest vibration of love here in our midst. Excuse me, Swāmījī, but if you could close your ears. Swamiji’s love, this is what draws us all here. It’s what we’ve all been looking for for lifetimes, for years, for lifetimes, is love. And we’re looking for love in its highest form. We do that because this is what we are, we are love, but we don’t really know that yet, so we constantly look for it outside of us, and we try many things: relationships, the first type of love, and we experiment with different relationships. We buy ourselves a car or a new dress or another job, and we’re constantly looking for love, and then... We find that doesn’t really work, and we start to become a little bit dissolute, disappointed. Part 2: The Living Embodiment of Love And then someone comes along who actually emanates the very thing we are looking for, though we may not even know it yet. All we know is that we are attracted. When Swāmījī first came 24 years ago—and he has been many times since; as Nāgābāī said, perhaps 28 times—he came because I was very fortunate to be asked to invite him. At that time, there was no "Yoga in Daily Life" here in New Zealand. I invited him on the suggestion of another lovely sannyāsī of Swāmījī’s, but I did not truly know him. When I went to the airport to greet Swāmījī for the first time, I was looking for someone who looked like Gandhijī. That was my idea of a sannyāsī: a person who has renounced things, wears white, is skinny and small, because I presumed such a person did not eat or do normal things. So I was looking for this man at the airport who was white and wore hardly any clothes, exactly like Gandhijī. I could not see anybody. The crowd from his flight from Australia had all gone. He had come through immigration, and what remained was this amazing, beaming ball of orange. It was so sweet, and so much love was emanating from this person. I knew immediately this was the person I was to meet. I had only seen a photo, so I recognized his face, but what was so apparent was his love. He was, and is, the embodiment of love. The greatest thing for us is knowing that achieving such a state is possible. We hear about it in our scriptures; we read about it in our lovely writings; our history and legends are filled with this love. Yet we often see it as examples like Romeo and Juliet. But when you experience it firsthand from someone such as Swāmījī, you know this love is there, available, and possible. Here is a person who lives the very thing he teaches. That is very, very, very rare. I have never come across anybody else like that in living form. Perhaps we could all say the same. It is a very rare thing. Maybe there are only a handful of such people in the world, but they are here to bring us this wonderful example of what is possible for us. And where do they say this love arises? Not from our relationships, our jobs, the color of our skin, our gender, or who we are. They tell us that love arises from within us, inside of us, prim. This love is the joy emanating from such a person. As soon as he was there, we saw him. It is this wonderful, spontaneous example—frustratingly spontaneous sometimes. When I first tried to organize things, I had filled Swāmījī’s whole day because I was used to the Western, intellectual, mental approach. But Swāmījī was coming from a completely different point of view. He was relating to the person he was with at the time. He had a heart connection, and if that person needed more time, he gave them more time. This is love in practice. It is the embodiment of the very thing we are all looking for, whether we know it or not. In everything we do, we are looking for it, and we will never rest until we find it. Our great blessing is that we have such a person living as an example for us, who is right here now, who teaches us through his behaviour and who and what he is. This thing we try to find out about, we call love. With Gandhijī, it is the same. It is very interesting from Gandhijī’s point of view. What he was doing was loving when he was non-violent but tried to push the English out of his country. From the Englishman’s point of view, he was not loving at all. He was aggressive in his non-aggression. From their point of view, he was just a nuisance—bothersome, interfering with economics. A person who loves economics, who loves money, considers that the highest form of love, until they find out they are very dissatisfied and look for it elsewhere. So love is a perspective. In one sense, nobody does anything except that they are coming from love. Even the most violent person is acting from a point of love from their perspective; they are protecting something important to them. It is an interesting consideration. They are protecting something. So Gandhijī acted in love. We remember him in history because we now recognize, even the English recognize, he was coming from love. This is his greatness. Swāmījī is the same. In many years, when Swāmījī is not here, we will remember that Swāmījī also traveled, worked hard, and came with peace. All these aspects are manifested simultaneously: peace, hard work, love, and ahiṃsā (non-violence). Swāmījī is an example of all those four qualities. Gandhijī is an example of all those four qualities. True great people are examples of all four qualities. When we too have love arising in us and we share it with others, we will also be examples of those four qualities: peace, non-violence, hard work, and love. Thank you, Swāmījī. Thank you, Nāgāmāī. Thank you, Nāganā. Now I would like to invite Pūṇimājī. Pūṇimājī will speak on Ahiṃsā, or whatever you like. We are happy. Thank you, Pūṇimājī. I am Gurudev. Your Excellency, welcome, and to the panel: Swāmī Te, Swāmī Madāram, Swāmī Dau Pārī, Swāmī Lakṣman Pārī, and everyone else. How are you? I am Purnima from Australia. I have been asked to say a few words, so I am not sure how I will go, as I am not really sure what to speak about. I will do my best, so forgive me if it is pretty dry. I just wanted to say that when I think of Mahātma Gāndhī, I always think of him as a person who was really truthful, very dedicated, and self-disciplined. My image of him is that his life was not easy. He had to go through a lot of difficulties. I am pretty sure when he started out, he had a lot of thinking to do, and much of his life was spent in contemplation. He was a very aware man. Like us, I think we work hard, or we think we work hard, and then we find we get caught up in the world. What we are working for is that inner peace, that inner love, which is very elusive. We can get caught up in all sorts of distractions in our lives. Thinking of him, I think of that peace. How do we get that peace in our life? As you have been talking about in the lectures in Auckland and last night, we worry, and that worry eats us away. It is a bit like me speaking here today. The first thing is the worry. I am worried about speaking in front of everybody because I do not feel I have the level of knowledge needed to share. But all the time we are sharing with each other little ways of doing things, little ways of being, and that interaction helps us to grow more and more, especially on the spiritual path. Spirituality certainly teaches and exemplifies all of those qualities that we want to be, and it is very humbling to even just stand here next to Swāmījī and in the memory of someone like Mahātmā Gāndhī. We feel so small in comparison. But day by day and year by year, we finally grind away, with Swāmījī’s help, to polish ourselves into something beautiful. I have seen so many people within Yoga in Daily Life going slowly, slowly, but becoming so peaceful, so loving, so tolerant, and with a lot of discipline. I feel very blessed to know everybody here and very fortunate to have Swāmījī in my life every day. I think if we can just keep working away, day by day, step by step, stone by stone, slowly, slowly, we can also become someone beautiful. It takes awareness in our everyday life. I would like to just close now and say thank you to everybody. Yes, I will hand you over to Nāgāmbāī. Thank you. Thank you, Pūṇimājī. Now I would like to invite panel member Peter from Christchurch. Peter will speak on hard work, or a topic he would like to speak on, so he has full confidence. Thank you. Thank you, dear brothers and sisters here and everywhere. Thank you, Swāmījī, and High Commissioner, Nāgāmbāī. Greetings to you all. Yes, I have flown up from Christchurch. I have lived most of my life in Christchurch, or half an hour away in a small village called Darfield. About 20 years ago, Swāmījī came to Christchurch, and I was fortunately in the right place at the right time to meet him. We had a nice little group that came together in Christchurch, but they have all gone to different parts of the world now, so I do not see them much. Nāgāmbā initially wanted me to speak on non-violence, and I thought I was not very qualified for that because I always like to see the peaceful side of things and take the path of non-violence. I am often confronted by students—I used to be a teacher for many years—and quite often students would have a little scrap or fight. I had to step in as a peacemaker, trying to bring one student to see the other person’s point of view. If each could see from where the other was at, as Ganyānanda was saying, that everybody has a different point of view and acts from that point… If the students could see that somebody else was being harmed by their words or actions, it brought them to a state where they could make peace. Sometimes it was not easy, and they had to spend a few hours in solitary to get the message through. Another aspect of non-violence is why I became a vegetarian after meeting Swāmījī. I used to be a farmer and cared for stock, but unfortunately, what farmers do is rear stock for others to consume. I was fortunate to no longer be a farmer and not conflicted by that anymore. Taking that step of becoming vegetarian took a little adapting in terms of menus and what I would eat. Many people would question why I was a vegetarian or how I could stay healthy. So I ask everyone here—I am sure everyone here is—but if you are not, it is a very good way to bring non-violence into the world: to look out for the animals and creatures who live on this earth. We all love our pets; most of us do. We should really extend that to all the animals we see and have under our care. My granddaughter, who is eight and lives in Christchurch, had an assignment on how to look after the environment. She was down by a creek and found a little water boatman swimming around. She wrote her assignment about it and wrote a letter to the mayor of Christchurch, Leanne Dalzell, saying we should all look after the river to protect the little water boatmen, that we should not pollute the rivers with plastics. For her age, at a very small school, she got a letter back from the mayor thanking her and saying she was very interested in water boatmen and had to Google all about them. The mayor assured my granddaughter she would try to keep the rivers clean in Canterbury. We still have a lot of work to do on that. We have a couple of large lakes near the coast. One is Lake Ellesmere, and it has always been a struggle to keep that water pure. The eel numbers have declined. There is quite a big push and awareness in Canterbury now about how we look after our environment. It starts on the farms and how people treat the rivers, but it also depends on other things like rainfall. All these flow down to the lake, which has been getting more polluted. Environment Canterbury is actively setting up a program with the farming community on how many nutrients and fertilizers they are allowed to use. It is getting more regulated, but it needs to be to keep the rivers pure and our environment clean. Christchurch is a very beautiful city with lovely gardens. It is a lovely place to visit and rest. You get a feeling of peace there, with the large trees and cicadas singing in the summer. Those who know the gardens will feel that lovely peace. Other things, like the love Gūnyānanda covered very well… Hard work and love often go together. I have an example in my dear mother. She needs 24-hour care and is in a rest home in Darfield. It is extraordinary how the staff look after the residents. They are there all the time for them. I know the staff personally, and it is lovely to see how much love and care they give my mother at this stage of her life. A lot of that is really hard work. They have to do some rather distasteful jobs, and they are not paid particularly well. A large amount of what they do comes from the love they have for these people and through the hard work they do. Recently, a couple of weeks ago, there was an example of hard work recognized in our small community of Darfield. A colleague in the St. John’s service—which runs the ambulances, an old order dating back to about 1100 AD—had done many, many hours of work over 35 years of active participation. He died of cancer, but his funeral was a celebration of his life. There were 350 people there from a small community of two or three thousand. It was amazing that so many came to show respect for the hard work he had put in over the years, serving and helping others, which he always did. Furthermore, the Order of St. John shares many of the values of Gandhi: service to others, peace, leadership, health, and kindness. It is nice to see in our Darfield station that there are now about 80 young cadets participating. They put on their uniform and practice various health skills, learning to help others with medical complaints or traumatic injuries. They are learning skills that will help them throughout life. It is really encouraging to know there are young people like that coming on who will be a wonderful asset to this world. I think everybody who shows the principles of Gandhi—love, peace, hard work, humility, non-violence, and listening to others, which I like to do—I should not be talking so long because I like to listen rather than speak. But because I have to do this, I am here today. So thank you very much.