 Yog Yogeshwara Bhutabhseva Shanno Itir Dayachuchadavo Inavamshotam Natrama Bhavasagrami Dhanon Nalina Dhaleksana Sri Raghunan Sitaram Stritjan Poshakara Bhaktvarada Kannadika Vasavanuta Ramadasa Poshakara Vandhanam Ayodhya Rathasarchita Makhabayamu Sanghave Dasherati Raghurama Dasherati Say this after me. Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Namaskaram to everyone. Today is Ramanaami, a very important celebration in this country, but everybody is staying home. Well, celebration is not about doing a particular thing. You can only celebrate something if you know how to be playful. Where there is no playfulness, there cannot be celebration. There can be grand yoke of situations, but no celebration because without playfulness, celebration cannot happen. Well, why is it that we remember somebody, celebrate somebody, after a few thousand years, six to seven thousand years, why are we still remembering these people? What is their significance? Well, over a period of time, with people's investment of their emotions, slowly a great human being becomes a god, which is an unfortunate weakness that people have. Any wonderful human being comes, we want to make them god, our sons of god or messengers of god, so that we can nail them on the wall and we can go about our business the way we want. If you see them as human beings who lived extraordinary lives, most human beings will have to put their heads down in shame because if another human being could live like this, why am I like this? This question will naturally come up. So we make them gods so that we can go about our business just the way as usual. One week of staying home, just one week of little bit of seclusion, Rama went for fourteen years of Vanavas, social distancing. There was no epidemic for political reasons. Everywhere in the popular WhatsApp culture right now, once again the Lakshman Rekha that was drawn for Sita not to cross and she crossed and what a disaster unfolded is going around, it's very appropriate. Right now the social distancing is a kind of a Rekha. Rekha means a lion, that you should not cross. Those whether you cross is inadvertently out of ignorance or by intent, results are same. This is the nature of the existence, whether you do it with evil intent or out of ignorance. If you do a particular act, the results are same when it comes to the physical world. The inner world is different. So in the material world, the results are same. Whether you fell off the coconut tree by accident or by intent, same number of broken bones will break unless a coconut also decides to fall after you and breaks your head. So Rama's life is so celebrated today, but during his lifetime, his life was a serial disaster. As a young prince, an accomplished young man, a brave warrior, marries a very beautiful young woman, but due to political reasons, he has to take this princess. She's not a tribal woman, she's a princess. He has to take her and go into the jungle. Well, I think once again they're playing Ramana and Sagar's Ramayan in the television, I believe there's a lot of controversy about that also. In that television serial, you will see it is made to look like Rama and Sitar and a honeymoon in the jungle. Well, that's not how tropical jungles are. I've lived there. Well, if you spend two-three weeks in the jungle and come back, people in the town won't recognize you. You will become like that. Head to toe, there will be insect bites and there are lots of challenges. Today the amount of wildlife has come down, otherwise this is tiger country, this is elephant country. And they don't really... they're not very pleased about you walking around in the jungle. You must be extraordinarily careful and conscious, otherwise either you will get crushed or you will become a wonderful breakfast for... to somebody. So in these conditions, he takes this young wife and goes and lives there. This is not a honeymoon or a picnic, this is a punishment. As if that was not enough, this Sri Lankan people, nothing against you, they came and kidnapped his wife, whatever the reasons. Everybody has justifications but it happened. Well, he's a king. He's not that kind of a man, but he's a king. A king means in India or anywhere for that matter, they were allowed unlimited number of spouses. Men are looking depressed. What, Sadhguru? One? Unlimited how? But kings were like that. So he's not somebody, okay, this one is gone, find somebody, he's not that kind. He loves his wife, he values her, so he pursues her. You must understand, from Uttar Pradesh to southern tip of India, not a easy journey. He was Ram in Ayodhya. When he entered Andhra Pradesh, he became Andhra Pradesh Karnataka, he became Rama. He came to Tamil Nadu, they made him Raman. But just two of them, him and his brother, looking for his wife, not a easy journey. No Google Maps to guide, just by people's guidance you have to go totally unbroken terrain everywhere. He reached here and then he saw the man who's kidnapped, his wife has a formidable army and fully organized. But they're just two of them. So they sought the help of Tamil people. I must say something about Tamil people here, because this is a land of very exuberant, enthusiastic, devoted people. They did not look up even now in this culture, at that time not at all. There was no god up there, there god was here in the earth. So they're very earthy people, full of involvement, vigor, but no fancy ideas. I wish we had lived like that, but now lot of fancy ideas have come. People have made you feel like there is a place, another place somewhere which is better than this. That's why we are making a mess out of this. So Tamil people were like that, then they're still like that. In many ways. I'm not saying this to insult other volunteers and others, but this is my observation in the last 40 years of working with volunteers. Everywhere, in every country we have fantastic volunteers, but you will see always Tamil people are little extra vigour. You want to do the most difficult things that nobody wants to do, you will see it was always Tamil people who will take it up and do it. There is a certain sense of innate commitment and devotion, which is probably culturally cultured over a period of time for thousands of years. And even when Rama came, he found that, that they became so dedicated to this new man who came from somewhere. And they put themselves to it, they built a small causeway to cross to Sri Lanka. And they fought the battles, they won the battle, he got his wife back and went back. Then he went for one year of repentance. So his brother Lakshmana asked, what are you repenting about? You killed an evil man, what are you repenting about? He said, yes, there were many negative qualities about him, his ego, his arrogance, his whatever all those things, but he is a devotee. I killed a devotee also, a great devotee of Shiva. I killed a devotee on one level, but that one year he went off into penance into Himalayas. Can you believe it? Being already out in the jungle for fourteen years, not fourteen days like corona, corona isolation is fourteen days that people are fighting and creating a nuisance in the country. Fourteen years of isolation for a king. Now he takes one extra year off because he killed a devotee, a man who stole his wife. That's the kind of man he is. As if that was not enough, political situations evolved, when the wife is pregnant, he has once again sent her into the jungle once again without him. Teperation. For a king, the queen is pregnant is a very significant thing because having a hair to the kingdom is a very big thing. Don't know whether she has a boy or a girl or what, no sonogram. He sent her to the jungle. There she delivers twins unknowingly. He almost kills them, gets into a fight with them. If you have to do something really terrible that you would regret forever in your life would be knowingly or unknowingly you kill your own children. He almost did it. And his beloved wife for whom he traveled over 3,000 kilometers, fought a battle and took her back. He never again saw her. She died without seeing him. This is a serial disaster life. For most human beings, if any one of those events that happen to him happens, they will get freaked out. They will become full of anger, hatred, angst, fear, all kinds of negativities. But he maintained absolute balance. He is even today celebrated as one of the best administrators among the kings of this land. So no matter what life did to him, how he was within himself, in spite of enormous pain inflicted upon him, he did not reflect that pain on other people. You have caused hurt to me, so I will cause hurt to you. This is not the way. Whatever happens to me, I remain peaceful in absolute balance and do the best that I can do. People who are questioning me during youth and truth, is he fair to his wife? Is this the way to treat the family? Well, if you are just another man, that's a good question. But if you have a king or a leader for the nation, a leader who puts his nation above his family is the leader that we want. That's a leader that we want, not someone who puts his family above the nation. So this is the leadership he showed. He could have easily discarded or not taken into account what comments and commentaries that were happening about him and his wife and has kept his wife with him because she matters to him. No, he sacrificed his family, his unborn children for the sake of the nation. This is a kind of leader that you need for any nation. And it is because of this balance, because of this sense of purpose and duty in his life, that we still celebrate him and worship him today is his birthday. But the South Indian people who served him, one of them went with him. Today he's become a superhero all over the country, Anuman. But after Rama's time, some people, little crooked in their head, projected South Indian people who lived here six, seven thousand years ago as monkeys. So South Indian people still little disturbed by that. They have love for Rama, but they're angry little bit with the way they have been depicted. But also they enjoy that no matter what they say, they anyway worship a South Indian man as the ultimate hero. Even if they want to win an election today, they will sing praises of Anuman even today. So South Indian superhero is still worshipped all over the country, literally all over the world. Even a president of United States was carrying a small figurine of Anuman in his pocket at one time. Yes. So today is Ramanaami, it's wonderful. You are just not even an one of us, just homestay. Don't act so funny because you see the birds are happy, all the other creatures are happy. Let me show you what happened in Pedder Road in Mumbai yesterday morning. See the video. That's in a... Aren't they happy that you are not there? So you can see in Isha Yoga Center, they're always happy because we are keeping social distancing, not just today, all the time from all the creatures, peacocks, snakes, everything else are very happy here because we've kept certain distance with them, allowed them to live their life, we've learned to live with them, all kinds of creatures. But not the case with cities. So on a busy street in Mumbai at 8.39 in the morning, if a peacock can dance, well you can't complain, the world is going bad. Well, well, well, a lot of people are going to get very upset with this. Do you know what is happening in the stock market? I know there is loss and pain there. Yes, a lot of people have lost their wealth, a lot of people could lose their livelihoods. If you don't manage well, it could lead to starvations. All these situations are there. But this is what life is about. Today is Ramanaumi. Let us take this one quality. When challenging times come, you're not facing the kind of challenges Rama faced in his life, simple. Maybe fourteen days, maybe twenty-one days, maybe forty-two days, you just have to stay in your own home. Hello? You can't complain about this. We're not asking you to go and fight a battle. We're not asking you to go and live in the jungle without any protection in your own home. Your problem is not about the situation. Your problem is your mind is in such a state that going to work you are complaining, sitting at home you're complaining. Let's change this. Now that this is confronting you, let us change this. Don't wait for that day. April 14th, April 15th, I'm going to be out. Maybe you will be, maybe you will be not. We don't know yet. We thought we will be but in the last two days, certain people have changed the whole dynamics of the virus in the country. So we do not know whether we will be out on 15th April or not. We will be partially out or fully out or not at all out. We do not know. But first thing is, this is one thing you must do, this is one thing you deserve that your experience of yourself is a wonderful experience. This must happen not because of what you do, not because of what you have, simply because of what you are. This one thing you must do to yourself. If you don't do this to yourself, you may have many things but you will never be at ease. You don't know what it means to be at ease means you're in a disease. You may not have virus but you're not in ease means you're in dis-ease. If you're in dis-ease, you may be medically healthy but you're sick as a life. Let us use this time that we have. When there are no external demands on you, let us use this time to transform this one person. I am not asking you to transform the world. I took up this crazy job of trying to transform the world. See what a failure I am. Well today people say that we have touched over a billion people. But my intent was to transform the entire humanity. A billion people, a billion people is just still sixteen, seventeen percent. Maybe just about that or even less than that of the entire population. At this stage in my life, if I am sixteen percent, I will die a failure. For sure. But I will die a blissful failure. That's for sure. This happened for those of you who do not know. Some thirty-eight, thirty-nine years ago, I was just sitting in one place and I just burst into ecstasy for no reason. Every cell in my body dripping ecstasy. So I kind of thought, what is this? After some time I realized, if I don't just mess with my mind, I am ecstatic. Messing with my mind means just this. See, you have two significant faculties with you, which are unique to a human being. No other creature has this faculty. This is a very vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination. Now sitting at home, these are the two faculties that you are suffering, your memory and your imagination. You've suffered things which happened ten years ago. Don't think you're suffering life, you're suffering your own memory. You're suffering things that may happen day after tomorrow, already. You're not suffering life, you're suffering your imagination. So you're suffering significant faculties that you have, which makes you into a unique life on this planet. A very vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination. This is what you're suffering. When you suffer your blessings, not curses upon you. When you suffer the highest values invested in you, then what is left? What is left? This is what is the significance of Rama. Life can be a serial disaster outwardly, inwardly. You use your intelligence, your memory and your imagination and above all, this privilege that we are the most evolved creatures on this planet, it's not a small privilege. Number one spot, being a human being on this planet earth is, nature has delivered you to number one spot, that's what it means. Peacocks are dancing on the street of Mumbai. At least within your home, you can do something. Social distancing because I'm not asking you to do ball dance or tango. You just dance for the joy of it, do whatever the hell you want. But you are a human being, that means you know how to be. If you knew how to be, you would definitely keep yourself blissful, that's what you should do because this is something that you owe to yourself. This is one thing that must happen. This is your fundamental birthright that your experience of life on this planet is pleasant. This is what Rama represents and signifies. On this ramanamini day, let's take this up, that it doesn't matter how this corona story will go, how this damn virus will go. We still don't know because there are so many irresponsible human beings who do absolutely irrelevant and idiotic things. With all of them, we don't know what kind of game the virus will play with us. But what kind of game we play within ourselves, let's fix this today. It's very important. Satguru, this question is from Anoop. I have done my inner engineering and I wanted to recommend it to my family as well. However, due to the lockdown, we are considering the inner engineering online option instead. Can you please shed some light about inner engineering online and its benefits? Oh, why did you wait till lockdown? If you were immensely benefited by inner engineering, why did you wait so long to give it to your family? Now that you're locked up with your family, now you want them transformed. I appreciate the intent. But really, if you have gotten, if you have really imbibed inner engineering, in its essence, your family need not go through it. You go through it. By your very presence, you can transform. Obviously, such a thing has not happened. So they must go through it. Fortunately, the preparatory part of inner engineering is online, available online also. So let them do it. What are the benefits? Well, these... you can't call this Vanavas. What is the traditional word for a lockdown? Maybe there's no word. Anyway, you're homebound. This homebound experience for the next few weeks will become pleasant for you if all of them go through inner engineering online. Because inner engineering online is that part. Inner engineering process by itself involves the body, the mind, emotion and energy. What we need to do with the body and energy, we will have to do direct because that's a kind of a transmission that is not a teaching. But what we do with mind and emotion is a kind of a teaching that you can experience online. For most human beings, if the way they think and feel changes, you will see there is a tremendous change in their life. If right now, if you can think of what you want, not compulsively about something else, you would naturally be blissful. If right now, you can keep your emotions very pleasant. Oh, your home would be so pleasant. So all the psychological and emotional benefits which naturally translates into social behavior, these benefits are there. The energetic dimension and the physical aspect, well, that needs to be done as direct transmission that will not be taught online because there are many implications to that. The Shambhavi Mahamudra, you have to learn separately, but inner engineering online will transform the way you think and feel. Most human beings think this itself is ultimate transformation. If somebody can think differently and feel differently and they become pleasant human beings, people normally start saying he's a spiritual person, he's so wonderful. No, no, no, he's just a regular human being. Others are still evolving. If a human being is conscious, thinks what he wants, not compulsively, and holds his emotion the way he wants, this is just a human being. This is not something, he attained to something. No, he's just a human being. Others who cannot even think the way they want, feel the way they want, there's an evolutionary issue. So this evolutionary issue can be handled within the family with the inner engineering online program and in the country and in the world.