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From the western part of Rajasthan, a certain item has a second use: it serves as protection against burglars. You leave it just inside the door, and when intruders enter in the dark, they immediately trip over it. I have a little story about Kāṭhū’s stone. About a year ago, I was in a village about forty kilometers from Kāṭhū, providing water during the drought. Quite unexpectedly, it came to light that this was actually the village where many of Mahāprabhujī’s relatives originated. They showed us a house where Mahāprabhujī used to come and stay when he was young. It was extremely interesting and unanticipated, because no one had mentioned that these things would be there. They shared two stories about Mahāprabhujī that were truly fascinating. Once, they said, someone from the village was standing with Mahāprabhujī at the Dūna. Mahāprabhujī was pointing toward the hills in Kāṭhū—which you will know well if you have been there—and he said, “There’s gold in the hills, and it will make everybody crazy.” Now everybody understands what that meant, because in the Kāṭhū hills there is a type of stone that is a brilliant yellow-gold in color. As much as they can dig out of the ground is being exported to Europe; it is worth a fortune. At the time Mahāprabhujī spoke those words, no one had any idea what lay beneath the surface, for it is not visible from above. And now, literally, because of the land values, the people of Kāṭhū are fighting and have gone completely mad over the land and the money involved. The other story he told was about a boy living in the village. Mahāprabhujī came there when the boy was about twelve years old. Mahāprabhujī’s problem immediately vanished, and he gave the boy the blessing that all his life he would be able to use that same treatment, and people with joint pain and muscle pain would get better. It would continue, and he could also pass it on through the family, provided they did not exploit it to make money. That family still runs a small hospital in a village about forty kilometers from Kāṭhū that provides the treatment. I have not seen it, but I have heard that there are always forty or fifty people waiting in line in the morning. When I told Yog Māyānandjī about it, she said, “Oh yes, yes, I’ve heard about that place.” Because part of the treatment, if it is more serious, involves doing the treatment here and then going to the Bāghīcā in Kāṭhū, sitting underneath the banyan tree, and doing mantra there. So Mātājī said that regularly people come who have been there; they come to do their mantra, leave praśād, and then depart. It is interesting to hear about these things connected with Mahāprabhujī that are still quietly continuing in the village—continuing, and continuing, and continuing. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. I was asked to tell stories about Gurujī. However, before Gurujī, I wanted to relate one story about Swāmījī. Some of you have heard it, I know, but many perhaps have not. It took place a month or two ago, before I came here. I think it was one of Swāmījī’s little preparation exercises. We were in Jādaṅ, after Mātājī’s samādhi. Swāmījī was extremely exhausted, quite unwell, and he was staying in his room. He said to me, “You should give a webcast.” I immediately thought, This is a very bad constellation, because what happens when Swāmījī says that is, he will definitely be sitting up in his room watching the webcast, while you are sitting down in the Bhakti Sāgara delivering it—and probably something is going to happen. So we began. The webcast had been running for about five minutes or so, and I was speaking. The video team was sitting there with the camera, everyone seated around. Maṅgalā Māṇājī was sitting in the corner when her phone rang. She only ever answers the phone in satsaṅga when it is Swāmījī, so when she answered, it was clear that something was about to unfold. “Yes, yes... yes. I’m continuing to give the webcast—or trying.” Maṅgalā Māṇājī stood up and came over to the video team, and they had a discussion. You know, when you are giving a webcast, there is a camera, a laptop, a modem—all the equipment you see here. Just for fun, we might have asked them to reenact it. (We won’t, but we could.) Because they began to move all this gear across the floor. They tried to do so without disturbing me, crawling across the floor. Divya Purī had the camera on a tripod and was trying to move it without shaking, because the webcast was live. Essentially, the camera traveled from this pillar to that pillar. They settled, and we continued the webcast. Then Maṅgalā Māṇājī’s phone rang again. Naturally, she answered and spoke with Swāmījī. She got up and walked back to the video team, and they started moving back. The webcast was still going on. They got back there with the same crawling across the floor. I was trying to be serious, fully aware that Swāmījī was watching all this from upstairs. Everything settled down. After three or four minutes, the phone rang once more. Maṅgalā Māṇājī stood up and went back to the voice, and the whole entourage began to move again. They got back over there and settled. Maṅgalā Māṇājī sat down, and of course, after five minutes, she returned to the video team. At that moment, Avatārpūrī came through the door of the Bhakti Sāgara. Avatārpūrī had been upstairs with Swāmījī. Clearly, when the video setup was over here, Swāmījī had sent him down to tell them to move it over there. But in the meantime, it had already gone over there. And Maṅgalā Māṇājī was already receiving a new telephone call from Swāmījī. So next, Maṅgalā Māṇājī and Avatārpūrī were arguing. Avatārpūrī said, “Swāmījī said to move it over here.” Maṅgalā Māṇājī replied, “Swāmījī is on the phone saying to go over there.” Avatārpūrī insisted, “Swāmījī said this way.” Maṅgalā Māṇājī countered, “Swāmījī is saying that way.” Eventually, she handed the phone to Avatārpūrī, and he declared it should go that way. Then they moved once more. After she finished writing something, she came very slowly around the back so as not to disturb the camera, and she stood just here, holding up a sign. At that, the video team started laughing hysterically. She stood there with the sign, and on the paper was written: “Swāmījī says, ‘Don’t be disturbed.’” But beneath that it added: there may be a storm coming, so everyone should go and close their windows. At that point, everyone in the Bhakti Sāgara—except Divya Purījī, who had the camera—went out. The webcast was live; I was talking to nobody. A couple of them closed the windows of the Bhakti Sāgara before leaving. No one came back that morning. Somehow we managed to finish. In the morning, Swāmījī came down to the Satguru Dabhā to meet all the people who were arriving on account of Mātājī. Incidentally, the topic of the webcast had been how to stay in peace. When there was nobody in the room, he leaned toward me very casually with that little half-smile and said, “You know, when you’re speaking, you really shouldn’t let external circumstances disturb you.” Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai. It is the only time I have known a webcast to be replayed within an hour inside the ashram. Divya Purī and the other boys who recorded it called everyone who wasn’t present and said, “You’ve got to come and see this.” Upstairs they were all watching it again. So there you have it: when you are in Kriyānuṣṭhāna and you hear some noise from outside, just remember—it can get much more disturbing than that. Another story I wanted to share. In 1996, I was in Jādaṅ for the first time, planning to stay three months. Before that, whenever I traveled, I suffered quite severely from homesickness after a few months away from Australia. At this time, if I am honest with myself, I was simply homesick in Jādaṅ. When you are homesick, the food tastes bad, everything looks bad—dirty, dusty, too many mosquitoes. So I made my plan, with a long list of reasons in my mind for why I had to return to Australia. I went to Swāmījī, not to ask permission to go back, but to inform him that I was leaving. I could not imagine how I would stay. One day, we were out in the fields behind the White House—where the mountain is now—with Govind Purī from Croatia, digging holes to plant the legendary Spanish olive trees. There were a hundred and eight olive trees; two remain. We were digging holes as sunset approached, and I was still in that mood, which some of you may recognize from your own time in the ashram: This is stupid. What am I doing this for? I want to go home. Govind Purī leaned on his shovel, looked at the sunset, and said, “Oh, that is so beautiful.” You know the Indian sunset—that huge orange ball descending, and it seems to go down so swiftly. So he looked and said, “It’s so beautiful.” I looked at Govind Purī and thought, You idiot. What could possibly be beautiful here? But then, after a few moments, I considered, Well, it is. It really, truly was so beautiful. At that moment, something completely melted. That blockage about going home simply vanished. Thanks to that moment—and to Swāmījī for leading me to it—the issue of homesickness has never returned. People ask, “Do you miss Australia?” I don’t. And when I go there, they ask, “Do you miss Jādaṅ?” I say, “No.” It is gone. The next day, something else happened that was very interesting. Before coming to the ashram, I was a physiotherapist. When I studied at university, the instructors always called me to demonstrate how inflexible a human being could be. They would say, “Come and stand at the front and please try to touch your toes,” and my hands would reach only to about here. The floor was a distant dream. Even though I had been practicing āsanas constantly and trying to change that for several years, only a small difference had appeared; the floor remained a distant dream. The morning after that event with the sunset and Govind Purī’s remark, I bent forward and actually placed my hands flat on the floor. As a physiotherapist, I could not believe it was possible, but all that stiffness had been stored in my brain. It was a complete awakening to how profoundly the mind affects what goes on inside the body. My scientific training told me things cannot change so quickly, yet I could feel and see it right in front of me: some knot had been undone, and then the flexibility was there. So, interesting. Can we have one, Bhajā? I had the blessing to be with Gurujī Sevā for quite some time, and the first day I began, we were in Nepal. At that time, before me, Gaṇeśvar Purījī—who is now in Jaipur—was in Gurujī’s sevā, and he was still there. There were also quite a few other people in Nepal who took care of Gurujī. So I came there at the same time to learn from them what was to be done and how to do everything. But there is a problem when so many people are doing Gurujī Sevā: there isn’t something for everyone to do. That first day, I simply sat and sat, from about four o’clock in the morning until the afternoon. Those of you who are doing Kriyānuṣṭhāna at the moment know how the knees begin to ache after a while, and this was truly an all-day anuṣṭhāna, because there was absolutely nothing else for me to do. Someone else brought the food, someone else brought Gurujī’s water and other things, helped him with this and that, took messages—and I just sat there. The pain in my knees was incredible. But you cannot move, because Gurujī is sitting there. The only respite came when Gurujī would rise to go to the toilet. The moment I saw Gurujī starting to stand up, I would be up so quickly, thinking, Ah! Gurujī would walk inside, and I would stand there just enjoying having straight legs for a moment. Once, as I was standing there savoring that relief, Gurujī came back, walked past me, looked at me with that beautiful smile he had, gave me a slap on the shoulder, and said, “Beto,” which means, “Sit down.” Then he just started laughing. That was the start of Gurujī Sevā. After a few days of that sort of treatment, I knew how to sit—at least for some time. Then he let me go and run around a bit, fetch this and bring that. Of course, when you are running around all the time, you think, He’s never going to let me sit down. The problem is, when you start thinking that, you never get to stand up again. There was one occasion with Gurujī when we did not eat for perhaps a day and a half because Gurujī was not hungry. We were traveling around from village to village, and since Gurujī was not hungry, he never asked anyone for food. I was. But I could not say anything; if Gurujī did not eat, I could not eat. After a day and a half, all I could think was, When are we going to eat? Fasting when you have decided, “I will do this fast for a set period,” is one thing; it is entirely different when you do not know when it will end. My entire thoughts were wrapped in this: When are we going to eat, Gurujī? Please be hungry. Finally, we went to someone’s house, and they asked, “Will you eat?” Gurujī said, “Yes, yes, bring it.” I was so happy. Gurujī sat on the bed, I sat beside him, and they brought food—really good food. I ate quite a lot, while Gurujī naturally ate very little. When I thought I had finished, Gurujī ordered four more chapātīs from the kitchen. He had them placed on his thālī and called for more sabjī and more halvā. When Gurujī has food put before you, you have to eat it—another five items. And so, within five minutes, I had gone from the pain of an empty stomach to the pain of an overfull one. It was actually my training for Hungary. But it did not stop there. We got back in the car and drove to another house. Within half an hour, Gurujī ordered food for me again. I was completely full. He said, “Oh, he’s hungry. Bring him something to eat and put it there.” Gurujī sat there drinking his chai while I was eating a second time, in such pain. Somehow I struggled to get it down. Of course, Gurujī said, “Bring him one more chapātī,” and so on. Then we got in the car and went to another bhakta’s house, and again, within half an hour, he ordered more food for me. Three times in one hour I had a complete meal, plus the extras Gurujī piled on. Within that hour, I had gone from thinking, “When am I going to eat? When am I going to eat?” to “I never want to eat again. I never want to eat again. Please, Gurujī, no more.”