“I’m not using any magic pills to bring you here. I have only taught hard discipline, self-discipline—it is the only way I know. I have practiced all my life. I have no magic formula, no secrets. I have no secret, magic mantras in my hand. What I have learned is hard, selfless sacrifice all my life. Even when I was four years old I walked four miles to school in the morning and four miles back—eight miles I had to walk. I had to cross flooded rivers and streams, paddy fields. I led a hard life. I never knew what life was except discipline. Also I was in the military for two years, discipline again. I went to Master’s ashram and there I learned discipline. That is all I can give you. I can show you how to discipline yourselves, how to be a master of your own destiny. Your destiny is not in my hands or in anyone else’s hands. Your destiny is in your own hands. My destiny is in my hands. I can show you how to stand on your head, but you must learn to stand on your own two feet, only then can you help others. That’s why you are here, to learn this discipline, to gain this knowledge. The greatest knowledge of yoga is discipline. Discipline means controlling this wild horse, this wild mind. There is nothing secret about it. You don’t have to go anywhere to discover that the enemy is within. The enemy you are fighting is not outside. Where is it? It is within. It’s your own mind. Mind alone is the cause of your bondage. Mind alone is the cause of your liberation. Your goal is the supreme Brahman, the supreme atman, your soul. It is within you. It is not far away up in the heavens or below the earth or under the polar ice or in the Himalayas. It is within you. It is closer than anything you can think of, nearer than anything you can think of, nearer than your senses, your intellect, your mind. And it is eternal, pure and unchangeable.”
Obstacles will come when you are on the spiritual path. The entire universe is going to try to stop you because you are going upstream and everything is going downstream. You are opposing the forces which are pushing you downstream. For all these years, all these thousands of lifetimes, you have been going downstream. Now you are pushing upstream. Upstream is not easy. Your hands are aching, your muscles are aching. Before, in the downstream you are pushed along by the water like everybody else. To go downstream is easy, no willpower is necessary. But to climb up even five feet tremendous energy is necessary. It is the same on the spiritual path.
Training in yoga is a way to increase your strength to go upward. But the more you go upward the more the current will push you down. There will be so many obstacles. The higher you reach on the spiritual path the more obstacles there will be. Don’t think that there will be less. They will increase. You will be bewildered. Before you started practising asanas, pranayama and japa your life was easy and comfortable. Now everything becomes very horrible. You start to blame everybody when things are going wrong. But you don’t understand that things are not going wrong. You are actually progressing. No pain, no gain. This is a law of the universe. Everywhere there is pain if you want to gain something. What yoga gives you is a method to go against the current. We have to go upward. There can be no going backward. It is not going to be easy, but don’t stop. As the purification goes on you will feel the benefit.
At an early age you can put tremendous effort into your Sadhana. If you wait until your children are grown and you have a big bank balance you’ll never do it. Unless you have tremendous will power when you are younger you will never be able to sit for asanas, pranayama and meditation when you are older. Your mind will have been with your wife, your husband, your children and your career for all these years. It cannot just run after God at a later date. Increase your will-power. There will be temporary setbacks and depression, but when there is depression just change a little bit: take a walk, a swim, repeat some mantras, go to the temple. Do an additional fifteen minutes of pranayama, meditation, japa.
Do not neglect your practice. Take it seriously and practice with full understanding. Understand why you are doing all these things. Don’t practice mechanically just because Swami Vishnu says so. It is your life. You have to put in the effort and then you will increase your will-power. Anything that you have done is never lost. You can use it, just like money that you have earned and put in the bank. If depression comes take a few deep breaths and the strength will come and you will become strong and powerful.
Peace and joy will come and you will attain freedom.