Greetings, unto each and every one of you who are devotees in the mysteries of existence, on this festive day of Babaji.

Babaji was not only the founding father of this line of Yoga — he was the interpreter, the lawgiver of this line of Yoga, which expresses the laws of existence. Where do we come from? What are we doing here? Where are we going? What is the purpose of our existence? He has given forth a series of techniques whereby you personally can find out the answers to these questions — in other words, through Self-Realization.

You do not need to have proven to yourself that you exist. You know that you are. In the same way, these same questions be answered through Self-Realization. It is very scientific. You don't have to believe or disbelieve. You don't even have to know what the results are. The techniques are as precise as measuring certain chemicals in a flask and getting certain results. It's as exact as the equations of mathematics.

The most simple form of Math is this: two plus three is equal to five. Two times three is equal to six. Three divided by two is equal to one and a half. Three minus two is equal to one. This is the most beautiful form of abstraction. We don't even have to know what three things are involved. We just merely have to know that this is the law of the most perfect of all sciences — the science of abstraction in its purest form.

And these are related to things in a symbolic way, in a symbolic manner. Abstract math is the most perfect of all symbolic sciences. The next most perfect way of understanding symbolism is through one of the sciences which has come down to us, known as Astrology. It was the laws of self-conscious awareness, applied to the heavens. This is Astrology as we know it today.

But there was a system of Astrology, before it was applied to the heavens. It was known as Kabbalistic Astrology. And in the understanding of this, its purpose was to be able to interpret and understand everything you were ever aware of, everything you are aware of now, and everything you will ever be aware of in the future: its relationship to you, and the various factors of awareness unto each other.

Kabbalistic Astrology, within itself, had nothing whatsoever to do with the stars, the planets, and the heavens. This came later. It was based upon the true understanding of Kriya and its symbolism. In the first place, it was expressed upon a system of 22 symbols. They were both phonetic and numerical in their value. There were 3 mother letters, 7 double letters, and 12 symbols. You know it by the science of Kriya Yoga as it has come down to you.

This system has come down from two different regions on the face of the earth — from India, through Babaji, through the earth lineage, through Yogananda - and through your guru, Goswami Kriyananda, unto each and every one of you who are studying as his personal disciple.

This is an excellent, unique, and unusual science, whereby you have some basic symbols that you can use to explain and understand everything that you have ever been aware of, everything that you are aware of now, and everything that you will ever be aware of. It explains — like in this manner: You had a dream last night. Can you prove to anyone that you had the dream that you dreamt? No. Do you have to prove to yourself that you dreamt the dream you dreamt? No. See, this is Self-Realization. You know what you dreamt. Others have to accept it on faith. But you can tell them how to dream, if they don't dream at this particular moment, so that they dream also. And if they dream, and you have a way of interpreting your dreams in a symbolic manner, they can do the same, and prove to themselves the veracity — the truth or the falsehood — of your claims. Not that they can prove you dreamt the exact dream that you dreamt, but they will know, through Self-Realization, the process of dreaming and the process of interpreting dreams.

So the techniques that Babaji teaches are the techniques whereby you awaken to different states of awareness. Through Self-Realization, you can prove these things to yourself. You don't have to accept what your guru teaches you. You don't have to deny what your guru teaches you. You can prove or disprove what your guru teaches you by following his dictates, by following the path which he is setting before you. You cannot let him take the path for you. He is only a director. He tells you — the road signs are along the way. He helps you so that you don't make mistakes, and helps you avoid the pitfalls on the way. He is your guide along the path of Self-Realization. And he teaches you these techniques so that you too might have an understanding of the purpose of existence, and give reasons and meaning to your life.

It is very important to have a guru to guide you along the pathways. That one absolutely needs a guru? No, I won't say that. But it sure is a great big help to have one who can instruct you in so many different things.

Some of the things he might instruct you in, may be only a means of disciplinary action for your mind. You might say, "Why do I need to know this? What value is it?" It might not have intrinsic value at the moment, but the very training, or learning it, has value. And this is the important point: discipline of the mind.

You see, you are learning techniques of meditation. And meditation is the controlling of Self-Conscious Awareness. It is self-discipline. The only path towards spirituality is self-discipline. And the thing that the guru has to do, is to show you the path of self-discipline. But you must take the path. Any way that he disciplines you isn't going to help you spiritually — it might help you in a psychic manner, very definitely, but spiritually. Spirituality is truly self-discipline. And the pathway, is a pathway of meditation.

And between one who meditates and one who thinks he meditates, there is a difference. And this is how you can tell the difference:

See, when a person is born, for the first few years of their life, they must enslave their mother and their father — or some being — utterly and completely. Otherwise, they cannot exist. And so the child, in its formative stages on this earth, learns the law of the most selfish of all types of love. What has it got to give? For as Freud says, it only has its bowel movements. So it is a very self-centered creature.

And it's extremely self-centered — roughly, in the United States, until it's about three years of age. Then it's beginning to grow up big enough, that it's getting kind of hard for its mother to lift up and haul it around wherever she wants to go. And she has been enslaved long enough, and she wants a little bit of freedom. So she starts punishing the child, because the child insists on the 110% — as they say — total attention from the mother. And the mother does not give it.

The child then goes into any form of a tantrum, or any form of action, in order to get its own way. It is only too willing to sacrifice its mother, its parents, its guardian, or whoever is raising it, for its own selfish desires and wants and needs. And so it is reprimanded, and said no to. It doesn't understand this. It has to learn something different — self-sacrifice, unselfish love. But it resents that in the worst form of ways.

So when one learns the technique of meditation, the change that takes place in the person is from a selfish love — a self-centered state of awareness — to a state of unselfish love, a state of willingness to sacrifice the self for someone else. This has its highest probability of coming into existence when someone falls in love with someone else.

If a man truly falls in love with a woman, he is then willing — and only too earnest — to sacrifice himself for her welfare, for her pleasure. But if he should sacrifice her for his welfare and his pleasure, he is still back in the Mama stage of his existence: back in the youth, the childhood of his existence, and he hasn't yet grown up.

Meditation helps you to grow up, so that you're willing to sacrifice yourself for someone else. This is God's love. Remember, God is a state of awareness, a being, an entity, and it has one thing in its nature — it wants to give you everything it has, all that it has in its existence, and even give itself unto you. It asks you only one thing, one thing and one thing alone: let this God give you everything that it is, everything that it has, unto you. And you won't let it. You won't let it because you're tuning into the wrong frequency.

You're tuning into the frequency of selfish love. On a radio or a TV, how can you get channel 13 — or maybe 82 — on your dial if you tune to some other frequency? Instead of 13, you tune to 8. Or on a radio dial, on an FM dial, you tune to 72 instead of 82. You've got to tune into the right frequency to get what you want. You've got to tune into the frequency of God. And how can you tune into the frequency of God, the cosmic dreamer, if you are tuning into the frequency of selfishness? God is unselfish love. You must tune into the frequency of unselfish love to get into God Consciousness — not selfish love.

This is what meditation does for you. It is unselfish love. It is pouring all that you are, all that you have, at the feet of some other being that you love — that you love with your whole being, with all your mind, your soul, your spirit. This is real love. It is unselfish in its nature, and it is very active to tune in to God Consciousness. In this very sacrificing of self for someone else, you are drawing closer to the cosmic dreamer, to God — to the Christian concept wherein this being, Jesus, sacrificed his own life as a scapegoat, so to speak, for your sins. This is unselfish love.

Two buddies on the battlefield: one gets wounded, the other crawls forward and takes him across his shoulders, and at the risk of his own life, carries his body back to safety. That's unselfish love. And oftentimes, even in the worst sort of conditions like war — and all know what war is really like — sometimes, in an act of warfare, one person advances far more spiritually through self-sacrifice in this way than through a whole lifetime of normal living. Because he is willing to give up the thing which is most dear unto himself — his own life — to save a buddy.

And think how much farther a person can advance through love. Remember, I mean unselfish love here.

If we take numbers, we go back to the very basis of symbolism. We find that all even numbers are female, all odd numbers are masculine. Now, there's an infinity of numbers, so there's really an infinity of the masculine principle and an infinity of the feminine principle. And who can say one is greater than the other? Both are necessary for the balancing — for the equations to be equalled and balanced in all systems. Woman is as important as Man, and Man is as important as Woman. They are necessary, and through such union, perfect love can be found.

The unselfish love of God — it is the most potent way of bringing this about. And when a mother has a child, look at how willing she is to sacrifice her life, her whole being — years out of her existence — to raise this child. This is unselfish love. She isn't asking anything in return when she picks up this cute little bundle of joy. She's just a servant. This is something that man does not know and cannot really realize except by observation: the love, the feeling that a woman feels for her newborn child. This is unselfish love.

And you see the joy that comes of it? A man can feel this after the child grows up long enough, and he can identify himself with the child and realize that the child is a chip off the old block, so to speak.

But through the love of a man and a woman, a man can best realize the laws of unselfish love — the thing that meditation leads him to anyhow. But by living it, he can find it out even stronger, and advance much faster towards Self-Realization, towards God Consciousness, through the unselfish love with his mate — sacrificing himself for her welfare and for his children's welfare. The family is important, very important, because it teaches both the symbolic and the literal law of unselfish love. Remember, all things have both a literal and a symbolic meaning.

You learn this through being a family man, through having a wife and children. This is one of the important things of the laws that have come down to us through the Kriya lineage. Lahiri Mahasaya was a family man, and he showed the importance of being a family man. Kriyananda is a family man, and there's little doubt that I am a family man.

A woman is a very important part in a man's life, and a man is a very important part in a woman's life. Remember, none of us are perfect. We all have feet of clay. And if we spend just one-tenth of our state of awareness on the good points of our mate, instead of spending so much time on the bad qualities... (Remember, we all have feet of clay, we all do wrong things — and people fight and have an uncomfortable married life because they're focusing their awareness on the bad things that the other individual does.) The other individual is not going to be perfect. Behold: look upon yourself. You are not perfect. If you were perfect, you would not be in physical embodiment. You would be in a state of balance. And since you are there and you are listening to me, it proves you are not in a state of perfect balance.

But the important point is: you are listening, and you are seeking this balance. Because this balance — the purpose of existence — has a feeling associated with it. It's a feeling of bliss, a feeling of peace that goes before all existence. A deep, deep inner feeling of beautiful bliss and peace. It makes everything worthwhile. It gives meaning to life, to existence. And you can find it through unselfish love and through meditation. Unselfish love helps the meditative process to a very high degree, so you can know God Consciousness, so you can have Self-Realization.

This is what you're really here celebrating — the pathway to Self-Realization, the pathway to unselfish love, the pathway to the awareness of God.