You have to respect anger in the same way you respect electricity. You have to learn to use your mind in such a way that it doesn’t harm you – as you have to learn to use electricity so that it doesn’t harm you. But the benefits of electricity, and the benefits of thought – how amazing are they! What you can achieve with thought! It’s extraordinary! That’s what the Vedas, the Gita, and the great Sages talk about.

Yoga philosophy then is to help us put things into perspective. It is to help us become the master of our destiny, instead of being a slave to our destiny … And yoga actually originates from the Vedas. There are many great philosophical writings from India that I am sure you are aware of, but the Vedas stand above them all because they are ‘the breath of the eternal.’

There is a stigma here, because when we talk about mental health it implies ‘something is wrong with me’, but actually, according to the Sages of India there is something wrong with all of us – from the point of view that very few of us actually know who we are. Vedic philosophy explains that we have been in the wheel of birth and death and offers insight into the big picture of life.

Kirtan is soulful meditation that uses traditional Indian instruments and devotional voice to create a pure sound that goes straight to the heart. It is considered by Saints and Sages through thousands of years to be the easiest and most enjoyable way of entering a meditative state.

Everybody wants to be joyful. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who has ever said, “Swamiji, I want to be miserable. I want to suffer. I want to be unhappy.” Even someone who is performing nefarious activities believe that by doing so they will get some kind of joy out of it. It’s misguided thinking, but everyone wants to be joyful. This is a fact. Bhakti Yoga teaches the genuine, profound way of joy and love. If you learn of it, then bit by bit, step by step, you begin to realise, “My goodness, we are all equal, we all have the same potential - we just have to choose whether we want to learn about this and practice it.” It’s simple.