 It is essentially a fight for freedom, for the continuing existence of spiritual freedom on this planet. Namaskar. So on the 22nd of January, there is a very big celebration for the opening of the Ayodhya Temple and I wanted to know why you are so for this very grand opening and resurrection of the temple and then at the same time not such a big fan of religions. The history of that Ayodhya Temple is symbolic for this, for the Indic civilization and the way it has lived and handled what has happened to it. A thousand years ago began the Islamic invasions with the Arabs coming to India, the Turks and so on. And this went on and on and they just rampaged and ravaged and destroyed everything they saw. Before they came the wars that happened in the Indian subcontinent were very gentlemanly wars. The kings met on a battlefield, their armies fought each other and they fought on little sunset when the conches were blown for the day and then sometimes warriors from both sides used to meet to talk with each other, have a meal with each other even. And the next morning the conches were blown and both armies fought each other again. And finally a victor was declared and the victor took over then those villages or those towns that were part of the war booty. So nothing was destroyed in the villages and the towns. Everything was preserved. They didn't go, you know, burning and raping. All of this started with the Islamic invasions of this great subcontinent which had devised a clever means of fighting without destruction of the surrounding areas. So when these invaders came the whole subcontinent was in shock because they never experienced something like this. And this was of course based on what had been sanctified by the very Quran itself and more difficult for the people than anything else was the fact that they just destroyed the temples and they destroyed them on purpose and with the idea of breaking the spirit of the Hindu people who were not really Hindus, they are Sanatanis, those of the eternal way, eternal Dharma. And the Sanatanis fought back as much as they could as well as they could. The main interest was to defend the temples because the temples were considered to be where freedom emerges because the temples were not like the mosques of the churches. They were not buildings which were then devoted to the worship of the Lord. They were places which were consecrated, divinities were invited into the idols, into the murtis, these murtis were brought to life and then each one worshipped these idols according to who they felt connected to. So some worshipped Ram, some worshipped Shiva, some worshipped Devi, Durga, some worshipped Parvati. So you had this entire panorama of gods. It was a chance to actually connect with something which is the divinity within yourself, expressed outside of yourself and then reminding you of that in yourself. So it was a highly individualistic, it is even today, way of living. You were free of an imposed top-down culture that the founder religions are known for, Christianity, Islam and others also. So when they came and they started destroying all these temples, the local people used to go and they used to take the idols and hide them and then the temples were destroyed. For the invaders it was the building that they wanted to destroy. They hadn't realized that it was the murtis in there that were much more important than the buildings around them. And so these priests and all the local people used to go, they used to take the idols, sometimes they were heavy stones, hide them and then they'd come and build the temple up again once the invaders had left. With the Somnath temple they did this some 17 times over a period of 500 years. This Ram Janma Bhumi temple has been in dispute for more than 550 years, out of which I think over 100 years in the courts in India. And what is the dispute about, it's about the fact that the Hindus have been worshipping there for millennia and they have considered that to be the place of the birth of Ram who is one of the avatars of Vishnu, a very, very important figure for all Hindus all over the world. And he was called Purushottam, he was considered to be the ideal human being, all the challenges are human being faces, he faced in his life, how he overcame them, where his weaknesses were, how to also look at all of this in oneself, he was a very important figure, he still is and he has lived for thousands of years, he has been here before almost all religions. During one of those Islamic invasions they broke down that the temple built over the place where he was born and they constructed a mosque and then of course there's been a battle to regain that place for 550 years, an action to place where the mosque was destroyed and the case was in court for 20 years and then the temple was built. So why am I for that whole thing, in spite of the fact that I know the dangers of religion, the thing is you're not talking about a religion here, there's nothing top down that is being imposed on the population, nobody tells you you'll go to hell if you don't worship Ram, nobody tells you you're gonna not have your 72 virgins if you don't bend down 5 times a day, this is not a religion, when I talk about religion I talk about these founder religions that are top down that control populations in order to manipulate them to suit the aims of greedy capital, this is not something like that, you're talking about a way of living, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of temples and different gods and goddesses and each one does what they want and you see that even in the Guru, Padapujas that happen here, some people do the arthi like this, some people do it like this, some people do it like this and then often we have western students asking what is the right way, there is no right way, the right way is your way, so this is the freedom of communing with that which is not limited by your senses, communing with the trans-rational, communing with the transformative in freedom and that is what is being defended here, it is the freedom that is being defended, there's no such thing as a Hindu, it's a sanatani, it's those who kind of flow with that eternal thing that's going on here and it's a dharma that is followed, each one has their own dharma, you even have a Chaurya Shastra, a special treatise for thieves on how you can be a thief and do it dharmically, so you know there's no moral system you have to adhere to, it's each one's individual journey and it's that freedom that is being defended against these religions that have started to impose themselves on this freedom, you know each one of these westerners sitting here are standing up for dharma by sitting here, when they go to their countries they live that dharma, this is dharma, it's Guru Vada, it's an ancient system, it's Guru Shishya Parampara you sit, you listen to someone who maybe knows a little bit more than you, you do so in humility and it's a humble and amazing experience, where do you have this otherwise, in which system? Of course there are, you know we had the Essenes where Jesus also learned and spent time with, those were these esoteric systems of learning, but where is that freedom in any of these religions? So when I stand for Ayodhya, Ayodhya is a symbolic clarion call, it's a shankanaad of the rebirths of Bharat, after a thousand years of being suppressed and being oppressed by these invaders. So it's the shankanaad, that is what that temple of Ayodhya is and on the 22nd is the Pranpratishta inside the Garbhagriha, which is the central point in the temple, the Garbhagriha means the house of the womb and the Pranpratishta will be done on the 22nd during those 80 seconds when the stars are in perfect alignment. He's called back into his body after being sent away for 550 years. He's called back, he's welcomed back into the body and this is that same Ram who has been exiled, he has lost everything, he has lost his kingdom, he has lost his family, he has lost his wife, then he regained her and that story is the story of the human condition and how you become more and more an ideal human. So during that moort meaning that auspicious time, he will be called back into that moorti which is there and it is the regaining of that freedom from religion, the freedom to just believe in what you feel connected to and not what you're told to, the freedom from fear, from what religions do, they just impose fear, how else do they do it? And so the whole battle is a battle for freedom, it's not about fighting a religion, it's not about the Hindus fighting the Muslims, it's not about a building, it is essentially a fight for freedom, for the continuing existence of spiritual freedom on this planet because everywhere you go, religion has taken over South America, North America, Australia, all over the world actually, Russia, that entire area of Eastern Europe, Western Europe, it's all controlled by these religions, so this is a step, it is a blowing of the conch that this subcontinent is not going to allow that anymore, it is not going to allow these religions to impose their top-down cultures anymore, it is freedom for the entire world, it is freedom for everyone who should not feel guilty because they feel connected to this or that or the other or whatsoever or a tree or a stone or a river, so everyone has a stake in this, not just a few people who are fighting for that temple and they sent from Ayodhya, they sent to 664,000 villages all over the subcontinent, they sent Akshat rice from the temple, before the actual Pranpratishta happens they distribute rice, consecrated rice, it came to Marjim, this is a big moment in the history of the world because it's a rebirth of freedom, hundreds of thousands of people around the world, everyone who does yoga, everyone who's connected in some way or the other with Sanatana Dharma, they are all aware of this and what's happening, so it's not me sitting and supporting a religion there, it's me supporting freedom, I mean would you prefer to be free to just choose which Goddess and which God you're dancing with or tomorrow you're worshipping a river and day after a tree, would you like that freedom or would you want to be born in a religion where that is blasphemy, where that is not allowed and where you might even be imprisoned, there are many countries in the world where a satsang like this is not possible, it's not allowed, it's a battle against those forces.