All right, thank you very much for the introduction. Thank you guys, very much for coming. Nice to see you. I know some of you were here last night. How many people were not here last night? About fifty-fifty. Good, thank you for coming back and thank you for coming tonight.
We are going to be discussing love. And a lot of people when they see this lecture title, they automatically assume it’s going to be about hearts and flowers, and romance, etc. But it’s not, sorry. (laughs) It’s going to be very practical, we are going to explain the difference between real love and apparent love but in a very, very complete way so it’s a lot involved. This is kind of a… how we say, involved technical lecture. You see, love is not so simple, a very deep subject.
It’s coming from the platform of bhakti yoga. Some of the things I will be mentioning tonight, especially in the beginning, will be also from the last night’s lecture. So if you were here last night, you get to hear it again. And no matter how many times you’ve heard it, I’ve heard it more, I promise.
As it also was last night, we will begin our program with very easy meditation because this will help us to relax, it will help us to understand the subject a little more clearly. And also you get to learn the meditation and take it home with you.
The type of meditation we will be doing is mantra-meditation. Mantras are spiritual sounds called transcendental sounds. They originate in the spiritual world and descend into the material world. Because they come from the spiritual realm, they bring with them great spiritual power. When we contact this sound vibration, automatically we receive great spiritual benefit. So this is the most effective of all meditations and also the easiest.
In your little package that you’ve received, there are two cards which have mantras on the cards. So, if you take your cards, now we will be using the one that has the mantra GAURANGA at the top. There is GAURANGA and NITAI-GAUR here, but we are just going to use the first half of the mantra GAURANGA. And you will see that it’s divided into four syllables GAU-RA-ANG-GA.
To assure that we have our pronunciation correct, we are going to practice saying that now. First I will say the mantra, then everyone can respond. Ok? Everybody ready?
GAU – RA – ANG – GA
GAU – RA – ANG – GA
All right, very good.
Our process is also very easy. This is a deep breathing process. Often this meditation is referred to as GAURANGA breathing. We begin by breathing in through our nose very slowly and gently, but also very deeply. We want to take the air all the way down to the lower abdomen. And as we inhale, silently in the mind we chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA. When our body is filled with air, we’ll begin to exhale and out loud we’ll chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA. And then we inhale again and repeat. So we do this several times.
Before we begin, we want to relax; relaxation is very important. To help us relax we will take a big breath and let it out. (shows) In yoga breathing when you exhale like this, you partially close the throat, so the air is kind of slowed down and it makes kind of a hissing sound (shows), kind of like when you blow on your eye glasses to clean it. (shows) This is controlling the breathing. And this does a lot of things which we don’t really need to go into now. When we exhale after our inhalation for relaxation purposes, we let the tension, the anxiety, the frustration go away. Just let them go away.
While we do our meditation, we want to listen very closely to the sound and put the mind on the sound, meditate on the sound. Ok? That’s what we’ll be doing. All you have to do is follow my guidance.
It’s good to sit erect in your seat, this helps us to breath, feet flat on the floor is actually the best. Remember throughout the meditation to relax, continue to meditate on the sound. When we finish, just sit quietly for a couple of moments and feel the effect.
This is a one word mantra, you can learn this mantra almost immediately. So when you’ve learned the mantra, you don’t need to read it, you can close your eyes and enter more deeply into the focus on the sound. And when we finish, just sit there with your eyes closed so there’s no distraction and feel the effect.
All right. Everybody take a big breath, let it out and relax. Now very slowly, gently and deeply inhale and chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA in the mind.
GAU – RA – ANG – GA
GAU – RA – ANG – GA
GAU – RA – ANG – GA
…
Haribol. You can see this is a very easy meditation to do. Maybe you also found it quite relaxing. This is an excellent way to begin your day. It’s also an excellent way to end the day. So take your cards home with you and you can practice on your own.