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The name of the Divine is always with us

The sādhanā of purification prepares one for the bridge built by the Divine Name. Guru Pūrṇimā is the supreme celebration, drawing all disciples to the Guru's presence. Preparations involve both spiritual practice and physical service. Human knowledge is limited, confined mostly to Aparāvidyā, not the highest Parāvidyā. The fundamental drive is the fear of death, prompting the longing for liberation. Sādhanā is an internal Kumbh Melā, a difficult gathering where one's latent qualities surface for purification. This process, often arduous, ultimately brings lightness and change. The earth is a karmabhūmi, a field for action, where one cannot remain inactive. The mantra, the Divine Name received from the Guru, is the ultimate protection and support, greater than the person.

"The name will remain, but the person will go."

"Wherever your name is written, it will never go down."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Dear friends, sisters, brothers, all who are watching the webcast, We are here in Śrī Mahāprabhujī’s āśram, in a beautiful surrounding, with beautiful bhaktas and disciples. And our most respected, beloved Gurudev. He is not available at the moment, so we are doing here as much as we can. Here in the Ashram, all preparations are going on for the biggest festival, the biggest celebration for us in the coming year: Pūrṇimā. This is Guru Pūrṇimā. It is really Christmas, Easter, Dīvālī, Janmāṣṭamī—all festivals together. It is Guru Pūrṇimā. All disciples, all yoga practitioners, all bhaktas, all śiṣyas, whoever can make it possible, are trying very hard to come to the place where Gurudev is residing. From far distances—from America, Canada—whoever can, is coming here. Our Gurudev Swāmījī has prepared everything so nicely for us. He started to reconstruct everything, to build a beautiful podium like we have at the Kumbh Melā. And everybody who can is helping. Besides the sādhanā, besides the yoga practice, people are really helping: grass cutting, painting, cleaning, cooking, preparing everything. We act with our small knowledge. We don’t know so many things. We have only learned a little of this Aparāvidyā. We don’t know anything about the Parāvidyā, the highest knowledge, the highest wisdom. Many things are missing. Our consciousness, our view is still limited. So we know only that we feel this love and this devotion to our Gurudev, and from this we try to do. To understand how our Gurudev, our Swāmījī, is in reality—we don’t know. I don’t know if I can tell this. But I will tell you that we all have, somehow, a strange feeling from death. Let’s say a little fear. Otherwise, why do we go to the doctor and use this thing and that thing to be healthy as long as possible? Otherwise, we would be like the stone baba, as Swāmījī told the story yesterday. He took down his scalp and gave it to the doctor and said, "Do something if you want, if you can." But this greatest vṛtti is the fear of death, and that’s why we are trying very hard to be without pain and healthy. Not only because of this, we want to prolong our life, to come as far as possible with our hard sādhanā. "Von der Wiege bis zum Grab." In German it is said like this, but I don’t know it in English. The hope is like a stick from the cradle to the graveyard. This is the hope. Gurujī describes in one beautiful bhajan here the mumukṣutva, to have the longing for mokṣa, the longing for liberation. And I, for myself, don’t know what we will do with this liberation. I don’t know how it looks because I don’t have experience. Maybe some of you know how liberation looks. Maybe this would be a good question for our Gurudeva: How is one when one is liberated? So this great fear from the dead. When they asked Swāmījī about dying, he said, "I don’t want to, because then we don’t see you." What they will do in this space, I don’t know where I will go. Still, I don’t know. We don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe you know. Then Swāmījī said, "Don’t worry, you will see me better than now." This was a kind of liberation for me. Now I know. Now we know. This is a kind of liberation. I think it goes part by part, but with every subject that we have, we can make a hook. Done. This is also done. It’s the Anubhāṣaṇa. It’s done. When we were on the Kumbh Melā—every Kumbh Melā, many of us were together, many, many—I didn’t count how many Kumbh Melās we had. Does someone know? Once we should count it; at least six or seven or eight more we have to count. So every Kumbh Melā, it was always something. I don’t know if you had also this experience: at least every Kumbh Melā, this meeting, this gathering with all spiritual seekers there with Swāmījī, with Gurudev. That time also Gurujī was there. It was always something hard. And each Kumbh Melā I said to myself, "Never, never again. This is the last Kumbh Melā, never again." And maybe you have the same feeling when you do the sādhanā. It’s like a Kumbh Melā internally. Every time you say to yourself, "Never, why am I here again? Never again." When we are inside, when this drama is going on, it’s like a drama. Sometimes we feel like the chastest person in the world, in the universe. The greediest person, the most horrible, strictest person we face—all our qualities. And sometimes we feel just divine, just pure. Such a big difference sometimes. So it means all that we do with our mantra, with our sādhanā, with our trying, we bring it up. Face to face we have it, and this we finally purify. Then we can say, "Hari Om, finished, one hook." But now suddenly it is here again. Once, a child was at a well, without running water, just a water well. And there was so much algae inside, this green, slimy stuff, like in our lake here. I need not go back; we have it just here. And then we start to clean it. We go in and take out all this stuff, and the water becomes brown and dirty. And this is the same when we enter inside in our Kumbh Melā: gathering within our self, the purification. It makes everything so indescribable—our consciousness, mind, thoughts, feelings—everything is moved. But when we go home, out from here, from this atmosphere, from this surrounding, like when we come home from Kumbh Melā, I had the feeling, tons of stones I left behind. I had the feeling of being so light. Something changed. Something changed. The same is the sādhanā. Anuṣṭhāna. Especially the anuṣṭhāna. We are just purified. We just went through a purification. That is it. You come to that point. I had this point once; that’s why we should not do it alone at home, only in the presence of the Master or Gurudev, never alone. Once I came to that point where I said, "Now I will finish my life." And Swāmījī knows this; he knows everybody. And this is the purification. The desires, the expectations, the thoughts, all these feelings—all we have in our unconscious and subconscious is inside. Unconsciously, but mostly we act and react from what is in our subconscious. Very, very rarely, or very seldom, are we aware in the present and in the moment. Otherwise, we would just sit and be here. Once, this was always after sādhanā, the feeling like Gurujī always tells: one in all and all in one. There was this, and I said to myself, "I don’t know why everybody is going here and there and here and there. Where are they going at all? And why do we always want to have the position, the right, the first saying, and the last saying? 'I am the best one, you are behind.' Why?" It’s all one. There’s nothing to long for. There is nothing. It’s just a game. It’s just a show. This is the karmabhūmi, this earth. Swāmījī said, "This earth here, mother earth, there’s only one mother earth." Where we came? Karmabhūmi. To do the karma. Karmabhūmi. To do the karma, good or not good. I don’t know if there is a neutral. I don’t know if it’s neutral. I don’t know if there is a neutral karma. Hemlata, you are hot. Sit somewhere. Let’s go in the shadow. It’s hot. It’s not too hot in the sun? It’s okay? It’s too hot? Huh? Swāmījī would say the instrument has to go in the shadow. So take the instrument. So this is the karmabhūmi, to do the things. And there was the one sentence that came—who was this, Hemingway or Shakespeare?—"To do or not to do, that is the question." To do or not to do. And in the Bhagavad Gītā, God Kṛṣṇa said, he gave the answer: not even one second can we be without doing. Actually, we need not do anything, but do something good. So this was just a few words from my own experience. I don’t want to hide them, but maybe it helps somebody in hard moments. When we go to the sādhanā, years ago, the third day, latest, I said, "Now I will go." It was the third day, which is hard. Second, third. "Now, I will go." Now it’s a little bit better. The Saṅgham Hall is very good. There are no doors banging; there is a weak door, little traffic we have. But before, in Jadan hall, it was really tapasyā. Now it is very beautiful. Swāmījī made everything so nice, so comfortable. It’s really become beautiful, this ashram here. Many of us, our Czech friends, they already have houses here, apartments here; they are living here. Because more and more, we will come here. One feels safe, like this little girl yesterday was singing this one song. I didn’t understand, but I heard a little bit of the translation: the daughter from the Saṅgam. She was singing, "I go there where I feel safe." It is somehow the translation. "Don’t take away this safety from me. I want to feel safe. Don’t take it away." And we have the great blessing that from Gurudev we got our mantra, which is always with us: the name of the Divine, the name of Gurudev, the name of Satgurudev. Once the question was: Is the name really so important? I heard the question: Why is the name so important? And then suddenly the story came to my mind about God Rāma. We know the story of God Rāma; you know all, no? We will hear once again. It’s a long story. God Rāma was the incarnation of the dharma, of perfect acting. Perfect. He was perfect in every aspect, five thousand years ago. Perfect as a son, as a husband, as a king, as a disciple, as a devotee. In every aspect, but he had to struggle a lot in his life. He and his three brothers were born in the kingdom of the king Daśaratha. And his second half was Sītā, the holy Sītā. And for some reason, they had to go for 14 years in the jungle in exile. And here, in this exile, Sītā was kidnapped to Laṅkā by the demon king Rāvaṇa. And God Rāma—I make it short—the story with his brother Lakṣmaṇa and his devotee Hanumānjī and the whole army of the monkeys (those beings who lived in the mountains; they were not monkeys, but they were the mountain people, or monkeys also) helped him to find Sītā. And they found out that Sītā was kidnapped to Laṅkā, but there was a big ocean in between. And there were kings also from Bali, and from this land, and from this land, because India was very big. Malaysia, Persia, and Turkey were Indian kingdoms. All the kings were there and helped God Rāma. And that’s why the king, I think it was the king who grieved, he said, "We can do something when we all help. We will make from stones a bridge, and we will write down the name of the God, Rām. Because whoever has the name of God written somewhere, Him He will not let go down. This one will not go down in this worldly ocean." The old monkeys were writing on the stones, "Rām, Rām, Śrī Rām, Rām, Śrī Rām," and putting them inside. And all the stones were fluttering and made a big bridge till Laṅkā. And then God Rāma was looking and said, "Oh, they all are working, all are working, look how." And Swāmījī told the story with the squirrel, no? The squirrel also wanted to work and dig the sand out of the ocean and made this between the squirrel. And God Rāma saw this and was touching this quill, and so, "You’re so small and so nice, and you’re all so helping, so nice." And since then, this quill has these white stripes. Because God touched it, this quill is holy. And then God Rāma said, "Even the squirrel is working. I should do also a little bit. It doesn’t look good if I don’t work, and all are working. I will do also." But he didn’t know the mystery behind, and he took also a stone and was putting it in the water, and surprisingly, the stone went down. And he tried again, again the same thing happened, and again. And then, very silently, he went to Hanumānjī and asked, "Hanumānjī, please, Hanumānjī, tell me why my stones are going down. All are fluttering, Hanumānjī. How is it possible that my stones are going down?" Then Hanumānjī said, "My Lord, please, whomever you throw from your hand can only go down, and wherever your name is written, it will never go down. It will always remain and will be fluttering. Your name is the greatest protection, support, and blessing." And that’s why the name is greater than the person itself. The name will remain, but the person will go. Everybody will have to one day go away from this karmabhūmi, to leave this world. Behind us, good or not so good deeds. The name will remain, so or so. Good. Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kīche, Śrī Śrīde Viśvāra Mahādeva Kīche, Śrī Alagpurījī Mahādeva Kīche, Śrī Svāmī Madhavānandjī Bhagavān Kīche, Viśva Guru Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānandjī Gurudeva Kīche, Sat-Sanātana Dharma Kīche, Hari Om.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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