What we just did, GAU–RA–ANG–GA, that is transcendental sound. That is sound that comes from the spiritual world, that is the sound that affects the heart, the soul. This is food for the soul. It looks like another word, “Oh you can do Baa–na–na. What’s the difference? Gau-ra-ang-ga – Baa-na-na. One is as good as the other.” But it is not, because ‘banana’ is a material sound vibration, and ‘GAURANGA’ is non-different than the Supreme Lord Himself. That puts us directly in union, in contact, in yoga with the Supreme Lord. If you want to contact the Lord, who is the All purifying, then you will be purified. You contact the All pure; you become pure. You contact the contaminated; you become contaminated. So that transcendental sound actually purifies us.
It doesn’t mean you have to give up this; you have to give up that, “Oh I’ve got to quit my job, quit my school, quit my relationship, quit this or that.” It doesn’t mean that, you take these simple things, you add them to your life, and this purifies you, this brings you on an inward journey.
We’re always talking about outward journeys, but really we don’t go anywhere. It’s all horizontal travel; we just go from here to there. I get on an airplane all the time and I go from here to there – I’m nowhere, I’m just basically in the same place, there’s just a little bit of a distance. It’s nowhere, it’s horizontal travel, we don’t really go anywhere: same consciousness, same everything.
But yoga is about vertical travel and vertical travel means not in a spaceship, just going to a big planet up there. It means vertical travel of the soul, higher and higher in his consciousness, in his love, in his relationship with the Supreme Lord. That’s real travel. So yoga is about the ultimate travel. We’re all travellers by nature. We like to travel. That is why if we get on the yoga train, we really go somewhere. The mantras are actually the avenue; they are the way to do this. They are the path that take us directly home.
You see, we originated in the spiritual world; we didn’t originate here. I don’t care what the material scientists say, it’s not correct. We are spirit souls, we came into the material world and here we are. We came out of our own volition, because we made a big mistake – we thought we could be independent and be happy. “I don’t want to be connected with God and all the relationship and service, nah, I want to be independent.” So we made a big mistake, it didn’t work, here we are. We’re still hanging on to that concept on the wheel of birth and death, unlimited numbers of lifetimes.
But if some time in the human form of life we come in contact with this knowledge and begin to show interest and open the ear… this is what the ear is for, by the way. It’s not to hear hip-hop music, it’s to hear mantras, it’s to hear truth, and it’s to hear absolute knowledge. The ear is the most important sense of all; no matter what we may think, that is the absolute truth. When the baby is developing in the womb, the first sense to develop is the ear. He can hear long before any other sense is even close to being developed and the last sense to shut down before we leave the body is the sense of hearing. If we’re in a coma, every other sense is completely shut down, but the sense of hearing is still there. It gives us the maximum amount of time to hear the Truth. From the time in the womb I can hear the Truth.
There’s a great saint, Sukadeva Goswami. He was actually enlightened in the womb, and when he came out of the womb, he was already there. Maharaj Pariksit is another example; there are so many who were enlightened while still in the womb.
If you are pregnant, you can chant to your baby in the womb, and that baby is making spiritual progress before he’s even born. We teach pregnant mothers this technique; they can read these Absolute Truth stories of great personalities and the Supreme Lord. Their baby is actually making spiritual advancement; he’s a yogi in the womb. Yes, he comes out like this, I’ve seen babies come out and you can tell they’re special, really.
And the old man, now he’s so close to death that he’s just completely within, he doesn’t relate to anything externally. You can still go up to him and say, “GAU–RA–ANG–GA,” and that will actually help him more than anything.
If you know somebody, a loved one or whoever it is, it could be a person on the street you never saw before, he is dying of a heart attack in a car. Go up to him and chant mantras in his ear, I can tell you that is the best thing you can do for him, the best thing. That person will be purified, that person, the soul, can actually take an incredible journey simply because you did that. Again, we have done that; we know it to be true.
So they hear, it’s all designed. Everything is in our favor. God has said, “Now you have a human form, everything I can do for you is available, everything I can do for you is right here. All you have to do is have the desire to do it. I can’t do any more because I gave you free will. Eternally you have the freedom to choose to do this or not do it, to completely reject Me, to be an atheist, whatever. That is your freedom, you see, so I cannot do it for you. Here’s all the facility.” What do they say? “You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” It can all be laid out in front of you, but it doesn’t make you think, oh no.
So, if we somehow gather a little interest and begin to just look, chant the mantras a little bit, wake up in the morning, do a little GAURANGA (we’re going to do another mantra, too)… if you do these things, you’ll be on the way, you’ll be on the journey. And it can extend over many lifetimes, it can happen in this life. It can happen, it depends on our sincerity. But it can also be extended over many lifetimes, which is not recommended. But certainly it can happen, and it often does happen like that.