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Hari Om. Good evening. Welcome to all of you. Today marks the completion of our Anuṣṭhāna retreat. Some of you have been with me for five weeks. There must be good experiences. Yoga is not only for a few weeks or a few years; it is a part of our life. It is like a sport. When athletes do not practice for one month or two, they still have the talent, but the body does not give support. It is the same for a dancer, swimmer, marathon runner, or football player. Similarly, yoga is usually like this. We need our nourishment every day, and our body needs movement every day. If we lie in bed thinking we are very tired and decide to sleep for a whole week, we will get up from the bed ill. We often speak about how we have five different bodies, not only this one physical body. All five bodies have their own nourishment. The first is our physical body, which we call the body of nourishment, the Annamaya Kośa. Ānna means nourishment, food. The translation of ānna is the grains. We can think of it as bread. Bread is made from grains, from different kinds of crops. From the grains we make wheat flour, and from the flour we make bread. It is said that bread is life. We should not throw away bread. This is also said in the Bible: do not throw away bread. It means do not waste food. If you see one corn or a grain of anything on the floor, do not step on it. Either eat it or put it somewhere for the birds to eat. In India we say that on each and every grain of corn, rice, maize, on every apple, banana, cherry, in every fruit and vegetable, it is written: "Who will eat this?" There is a very nice story that indicates this. On every grain is written who will eat it. Dāne, dāne, par likhā hai, khaane waale kā nām. On every grain is written the name of the one who will eat it. I will tell you the first story. (Mahāprabhujī’s stories you can read in Līlā Amṛt.) It is about a small, nice village. Everyone had a nice little garden with flowers and fruit trees. When the weather was good, people sat outside. One day, a lady was sitting outside her house on a little platform, cleaning rice. A sādhu passed by, looked at her plate of rice, and smiled. She asked, "Swāmījī, what happened? Why are you smiling?" He asked, "What are you doing?" She replied, "I am cleaning the rice to cook this evening." He said, "That is why I was laughing. Just now you will cook the rice, and only one grain of that rice is, by destiny, for the king to eat. I am wondering about the destiny that on every corn is written the name of who will eat it—ants, flies, mice, other animals, humans, or birds." The lady said, "Gurujī, I doubt the king will come and eat my cooking." He replied, "I do not know how this one grain of rice will go to the king." She said, "Okay, Swamiji," and carefully collected all the rice and cooked it. Her husband came home after work, and they ate dinner. From all the rice, one piece remained hard. Sometimes it happens; it does not cook through. Her husband had a cavity, and that rice went into his tooth. He did not tell her. He cleaned his mouth, brushed, and went to sleep. The lady looked everywhere but found no rice left. The next day, her husband, who was a merchant and gave loans to the king, was summoned. The king told him, "Come tomorrow at seven o'clock with all your records, as some taxes have to be paid." The merchant told his secretary (the chartered accountant) to be there at 6:30 so they could go together. The next morning, the merchant dressed quickly and went with the secretary, taking many books to present to the king. The king said they would look at the records later and offered them tea. The king was sitting on a higher seat, a big mat, with the merchant and secretary sitting one step down. They were drinking tea when suddenly the secretary made a movement, and the grain of rice came out from his cavity and fell about five centimeters from the king on his āsana mat. Neither the king nor the merchant saw it, but the secretary knew. His heart was beating fast, thinking the king would punish him if he saw. The rice dried in the air as they talked. After their discussion, the king put his hand down to sit up and felt the rice under his palm. He said, "Oh, it’s rice." We call it Anadevatā—"Anna" means grains, "Devatā" means God. Anadevatā. Therefore, it is said: do not throw bread; respect your nourishment, your food. The king took the rice in his palm. The merchant asked, "Your Highness, what did you eat?" The king said, "No, there was a grain of rice. It was rattling underfoot; it is not good to leave it, so I ate it." The merchant said, "Yes, king, this was in your kismet (destiny). How it came, I do not know." The secretary did not dare say it came from his mouth. Business finished. The merchant came home, and his wife asked, "How was it? You didn’t have breakfast?" He said, "My dear darling, I had my heart in my hand. I was sweating through and through." He told her the story. She said, "I knew this! And you didn’t tell me? Tell me what happened yesterday." He said, "One grain of rice was very hard; it was not cooked through and went into a cavity between my teeth. I could not get it out, and then it happened like this." She said, "Yesterday at 5 p.m., a Gurujī was passing by. When he saw me cleaning rice, he smiled. I asked him, 'Gurudev, why are you laughing?'" And she told the whole story. She said the Gurujī told her that on each and every corn is written who will eat it. Who was harvesting? Who was working? Who was cleaning? Who sold to the merchant? He sold from wholesale to retail; the rice went from the border to some family, and the husband and wife wanted to eat it. But Gurujī could see one grain of rice—that is called Trikāl Darśī (seer of the three times)—and so it happens. She said, "I knew, but I did not want to tell you because you would say, 'Are you stupid?'" He said, "It does not matter if I am stupid or you are. The king put this rice as holy; he first greeted it and then ate it." It is not a question of being poor; it is a question of for whom this food is and whose luck it is. So now there are two things. Either we should not leave anything on the plate and eat all, or what we leave on the plate and throw somewhere, some other animals or someone will eat. These corns, seeds, rice—they are also grass seeds. In this seed is Jīvātmā (the individual soul). When we eat, it goes into our body and cycles. Some seeds grow; we get children, multiplying, etc. Many are just digested, moving in our blood, in digestion, different hormones, in blood, flesh, and bones. This is a factory, a laboratory. Everything is tested and developing. That is called Anadevatā. In India, in a place like Nagpur in Maharashtra, or Rajasthan, there is another story. From Mahāprabhujī’s ashram, about 600 or maybe 1000 kilometers away, there was a merchant of all kinds of grains. He liked to taste them. There were black chickpeas, chana. There are two kinds: one brown and one small, black one, which is the best. He put one in his mouth, but before he could bite, he made a movement, and the chana went into his nostril. When you do Sūtra Neti, you put a catheter through the nose and take it out. This grain went into his sinus. Of course, grains expand with humidity and become very painful. He went to a doctor who said he had to operate. He was frightened of being cut. A man, a goldsmith from near Khatu, said, "If you go to Mahāprabhujī, this disease will go." He said, "It is not a disease." The man said, "It does not matter." At that time, there were no cars or airplanes everywhere. He took the train; it was very painful. He came to the ashram. There were no telephones. Mahāprabhujī was living in the Khatu ashram, outside in what we call Duna Kachras (you can read this in Līlāmṛt). Mahāprabhujī was sitting. Holī Gurujī was there. The man came, and when he was about five meters away, Mahāprabhujī welcomed him by name and said, "You have this problem, and that chana is in your sinus. You wanted to eat it, but it is not written in your kismet. There is a family from the Christian area, and they have one white chicken. It is written that she has to eat it. How can you eat it?" The man said, "But the doctor said I have to operate." Mahāprabhujī said, "No. Eat something, then immediately take the next train and go to that street, to that Christian person, and ask where that chicken is. Just see the chicken from close. That is all. Your disease will go." So he went there. He went to the Christian man and asked, "You have one chicken, white color?" The man said, "Yes, he is in my garden. Can I see?" He asked, "Do you want to buy my chicken?" The merchant said, "No, no, I want to see only." He went, and the chicken came towards him. The chana came out and fell on the ground. The chicken took it and went away. That was kismet. What was yesterday is past. What is the future, we do not know. But now we have that which we know, and in that is also destiny. Destiny is playing with us. Nothing we can do, and we do not have free choice. What happened will happen. But it is said nothing is forever. Time will go; we will die. So this body, called Annamaya Kośa, the body of nourishment, we shall take care of. We do not know which kind of food will affect our entire body. Sometimes something is very powerful. A small tick sticks you where there is humidity. It is very small, but the kind of infection or poison it has can infect our whole body. Similarly, whatever we are eating, we still do not know how it will affect the body. Sometimes the food we eat, the body does not accept; we will vomit because that food is not written for us. Therefore, our āsanas, physical postures—and not only that, just doing this or that posture—no. Look in your book, Yoga in Daily Life, and read all of it carefully. Read one posture one hundred times. Study. Feel. Think. Which organs? Which joint? Which muscle? Which nerves? Or the nerves, glands? How long we should do, how long we should not do? This is our knowledge; we can say this is our personal science, research. Therefore, we generally say in this language that it is not the quantity but the quality. Not many movements, but proper exercises according to your age, your health, what kind of difficulties you have. Now search the postures as well as the Prāṇāyāma breath techniques. That will develop our brain activities, our memory. It will reduce our stress. So that posture which makes you relaxed and happy—that is what we call the effect of these āsanas and Prāṇāyāms on our Annamaya Kośa. After that comes Prāṇamaya Kośa. Prāṇa means the energy. We do not see the energy, or we do not see that we are tired, but we feel it. So Prāṇa is that energy which we also inhale and exhale. Prāṇa is that fine quality of our nourishment. You are hungry, you eat something, then energy moves in the whole body. We are thirsty, we drink a glass of water; immediately energy comes into the body, and we quench our thirst. We feel relaxed, very happy. So this Prāṇa has a relation to our diet or our nourishment. There is also, if you are consuming alcohol or beer or some different kind of drink or different kind of drug—tobacco, hashish, opium, many things—they all affect your body negatively. You may feel energy, but that energy is not long-lasting; it will develop into harm. That is called the Prāṇamaya Kośa, the body of energy. It can extend 100 meters, 200 meters, far away. This energy is expanding, contracting. That energy is circulating, and we do not know from how far a distance this process of circling energy occurs for one individual creature. With this, in yoga, they researched and gave Prāṇāyāma. That is called Prāṇ Vyāyam, Prāṇāyāma. The exercises are purification of the Prāṇa through our nostrils, because more energy goes with the breath in and out—oxygen and toxins. Then it is very important that we wash ourselves once, at least, or twice a day. There are those Prāṇas which are no longer useful; they are harmful for the body. Also, we are always harming ourselves with fashion. Best would be if we take natural material over our body. We shall try to avoid plastics, also in shoes. Similarly, our hair. We put different colors, coating our hair with different colors. In the last few decades, I do not see any elderly person, especially old ladies. They are all so nice, with blonde hair, or black, or red. Maybe this is the Annamaya Kośa’s effect, but that means your hair cannot inhale. We are blocking it. It is not only hair, but why so? God gave us many hairs on our head to protect and supply Prāṇas to the brain. It is your choice, but take natural things. Hair does not ask you to put on different things. Next time when I come, all will be with grey hair. This is your choice, please. So Prāṇa—all our hair on the body, wherever it is, is inhaling, exhaling. If we are all covered with something, we will die. There was a tradition in France when kings had guests of the same level; they put young ladies as a welcoming model. The whole body was padded with gold. This lady was without dress, only a golden lady. Of course she died because she could not breathe anymore. That was not enough. I heard this. Have you heard that? Our dear Rādhājī from Vienna knows all this. Or maybe we have two or three French people here. Thanks to God, now it is not done anymore. Now there is no woman who will paint you with real gold. But you can put perfumes, you can put natural oil. You can put a plaster of neem or haldi with a little water for a while; that is healthy anyhow. Prāṇa is a very big subject. Then, the third body: Manomaya Kośa, the mind. We live in our mind, and our mind has all desires, all expectations, all imaginations. We are sitting here, and your mother is on holiday in Tokyo, but you remember, "Mother is in Tokyo." So our mind is expanding; mental speed is very quick. How quickly you can go now, and you will be there before I finish this sentence. The moon—now you are there, you see? So the mind, the mental body, can be good and can be bad. What I think, you do not know. And what you think, I do not know. God has placed a wall between: we do not know the past, we do not know the future, and we do not know what you think. But there are two who think, who know what you are thinking now, in this time. One is yourself; you know what you are thinking. And there is one more in this room who knows exactly more than you what you are thinking, and that is God. God knows all, or you know all. That is it. So Manomaya Kośa. The mind can give us good things; the mind can misguide us. And the mind does not have a responsibility. Man marā, nāmamātrā mārī marmar gayā śarīr. The mind will not die. Man marā, nām mamatā marī, marmar gayā śarīr. Our greed does not die. Man marā, nām mamatā marī, marmar gayā śarīr. But the body will die. Āśā tṛṣṇā na marī. Hope and longing will not die. Kabīr Dās said: "They all will die, but not the mind." Man marā na mamatā marī, mar marā gayā śarīr, āśā tṛṣṇā na marī, kyeh gayā dās Kabīr. So these things will not die. Our desires, our mind, our greed—many things we cannot kill suddenly. They awake, so we cannot kill or destroy them, but we can practice discipline. So, Manomaya Kośa, Vijñānamaya Kośa (the intellect), and Ānandamaya Kośa (the blissful body). Prāṇamaya Kośa, Manomaya Kośa, Ānandamaya Kośa. Ānanda means bliss, but this Ānanda is the causal body. The causal body means the cause of everything. So these are the five bodies. We can somehow, not 100%, but at least in the majority, develop the discipline and practice our yoga. This Vijñānamaya Kośa and Ānandamaya Kośa—I will tell you beautiful stories about them in the next seminar. Namaśivāya, namaśivāya, oh, namaśivāya.