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She cannot offer the most special type of feast, but she can offer something simple, infused with love. She cannot promise everything will be decorated with gold, but she can ensure the simple things are there. The same is true for all of us when we perform seva. We may not be able to offer the perfect seva, but what we can offer, we can offer with our whole heart, giving the best we possibly can. We may not be able to execute perfect sādhanā, but what we can do, we can do with our heart and with all our application. None of us are master musicians who have practiced all their lives, like a superstar. But when you sing a bhajan from the heart, its value surpasses even that. In everything—whatever it may be, like in that bhajan we were saying—"I don’t have special things to offer, but in their simplicity, they are special." They are special simply because of what I wish to give, as it comes from my heart. You may know the story of Sabarī from the Rāmāyaṇa. She was a tribal woman who wished to offer food to Rāma. The only thing she had to offer was a type of fruit, a berry. These berries could be incredibly bitter or sweet. She wanted to give him only the sweet ones, so she tasted each one to check. In Indian culture, it is improper to eat something already touched by another's mouth. Those with Rāma said, "You cannot take this; it has already been eaten." But Rāma said, "This is served with so much love; how can I possibly refuse?" As Swāmījī always says in his lectures, "Nāpa Bhavmehe"—the value of something lies in the feeling with which it is given. So, I wish to say that when we are doing seva, coming to the ashram, attending satsaṅg, or performing our sādhanā, we should not become stuck in thinking that if it is not perfect, it is not worth doing. The beauty and the specialness lie simply in giving the best we possibly can. Now, as it is Gurujī’s birthday, let us return to stories about Gurujī. This story is perhaps a bit like the one with Draupadī and her sārī. It shows how the smallest things we do for Gurujī are remembered. I was once sitting with Gurujī at someone’s house in Ajmer. A man arrived, and Gurujī immediately recognized him, though the man looked embarrassed, approaching very cautiously like a young boy who knows he is in trouble. Slowly, the story unfolded. Thirty years prior, Gurujī had been in Ajmer, and this man had taken mantra dīkṣā from him. He had never visited Gurujī since. Yet, upon seeing him, Gurujī said, "Yes, I remember. You received dīkṣā from me in such-and-such a house." The man replied, "Yes, Gurujī." Gurujī continued, "And you gave me a dark brown woolen shawl." "Yes, Gurujī." Gurujī even remembered the exact amount of rupees given as dakṣiṇā. The man confirmed, "Yes, Gurujī." How is that possible? It was thirty years ago, and Gurujī had never seen him again, yet he remembered every detail. You might think that with so many people coming to Gurujī and taking mantra, such a small offering would go unnoticed. But there it was before me, showing the bond formed when one takes the mantra. We may forget, but Gurujī does not forget even the finest details. After this pleasantry, Gurujī began his examination. He asked, "Why haven’t you been to see me for 30 years?" The man said, "Gurujī, I see you every day." Gurujī replied, "No, you don’t. You haven’t been to see me in 30 years." The man insisted, "Yes, Gurujī, every morning I perform my āratī thinking of you, and I come to the ashram and do praṇām." Gurujī then asked, "Why don’t you come to the ashram or to Jaipur at least once or twice a year for Guru Pūrṇimā?" The man explained he was too busy with his family, work, and children. Gurujī said, "Come on, you could take some time." Again, the man said, "But Gurujī, I come every day." Gurujī then said, "Okay, good. Close your eyes. Now, imagine it is morning. You are doing your āratī. Then you have a delicious breakfast your wife prepared. Your children greet you and go to school. You go to work and have a completely successful, golden day. Business is perfect, with many customers. You return home to a ready dinner, your children greet you, and you talk with them. Imagine that perfect day. Now open your eyes. Come on, now come with me to Jaipur." The man protested, "But Gurujī, what about my breakfast? I have to go to work. What about my children?" Gurujī said, "But you just did the whole day." The man was confused. Gurujī explained, "If you can visit me every morning by just closing your eyes and coming to the ashram, then you can also, for one day, do it with your family." The man sat there whispering, "Oh Gurujī, oh Gurujī." Gurujī said, "At least once or twice a year you must come." Of course, he said yes. I do not know if he came, but the lesson is there: we need to keep in contact with Swāmījī. Of course, we maintain that contact from within. But when you have an ashram, satsaṅg, seminars, and classes, it refreshes that memory and your sādhanā. Also, through webcasts or other means, when Swāmījī is in contact, it is different from just holding it inside. Perhaps a stage comes where it is not necessary, but while we are all children on the path, we need that contact in one way or another, also through bhajans and programs. The second story is about a man from near Nepal, a truly amazing bhakta. He was so poor he could barely feed his family. He came to Gurujī for mantra dīkṣā. Gurujī gave it and asked, "What is your wish?" The man said, "Gurujī, I am sorry to ask, but I need money to feed my family. I need to earn." Gurujī said, "You should go to Mumbai. There you will earn all the money you need." He had no money for the trip and spent three months saving just for the train ticket. After saving, he returned to the ashram in Nepal for Gurujī’s blessings. Gurujī said, "Oh, you are going to Mumbai," and then gave him a prescription for medicine, asking him to go to a village about 8 km away to fetch it. The medicine cost all the money he had saved. He bought it, brought it back to Gurujī, and said he would have to save again. He left and started saving once more. After a few months, he returned. This time, Gurujī asked him to get something else from somewhere else. Again, the money was spent. Yet, from his side, there was no question. Gurujī asked for seva, and he did it. He went home and began saving again. He returned a third time after a few months. This time, Gurujī gave him blessings and said, "Go." That story is perhaps 20 or 25 years old. That man is now extremely well-off in Mumbai. He arrived with basically nothing, yet everything he did turned to gold. He built several small businesses, and the stories of how they succeeded are incredible. He told me one story that sums up the blessing with him. He was importing Pampers. Suddenly, there was a shortage in Mumbai, coupled with a craze among the wealthy for their babies to wear only Pampers. This was about 15 years ago. He ended up selling one packet for 3,000 rupees (about 50 euros), while the normal price was around 2 euros. The demand was immense because he had the only stock. He sold wholesale to other shops desperate to have them. The day he sold his last packet for 3,000 rupees, a ship full of Pampers arrived in Mumbai, and the price immediately dropped back to 120 rupees. He had no stock left, so it did not affect him. He constantly has such unbelievable stories. But he knows where his success came from. Gurujī would often call him when organizing functions, needing something. On his side, there was never a question. The flow keeps giving; it comes and goes. Now, every year around February or March, he calls, determined to sponsor one of Gurujī’s functions, like a mahāsamādhi anniversary. If I tell him the sponsorships are already taken, he gets upset and says, "Can’t you get them to cancel? Give one to me." That trust he showed at the beginning, when Gurujī sent him three times—each time he had to collect everything from scratch—is kept in mind. Another bhakta from Jodhpur was a jeweler with a big business. Gurujī once called him out of nowhere and said, "You need to give a donation of about two thousand euros to a gosālā today. I do not care if it is the gosālā in Jodhpur or elsewhere, but do it today." The man had the opposite mentality. He said, "Oh Gurujī, I do not have any cash. It is not a good season." Gurujī said, "Okay. If you do not have any cash, what can we do?" It was no problem for Gurujī. Two days later, the Income Tax Department raided the man’s house and found over 200,000 euros in unaccounted cash. Of course, he immediately called Gurujī, crying for help. Gurujī said, "I was helping you two days ago, but you said you had nothing in the house, so I thought you had no problem. I knew they would come. If you said you had no cash, then it is no problem when they come. What to do?" It is hard to listen sometimes to what Swāmījī or Gurujī says. Sometimes it seems against logic, but if we cannot take the message when it comes, we miss the chance and the power of that Guruvākya. There was a saying Gurujī always used, which for me was also like a joke, but it is very special: "Āve to welcome, nā āve to bhī ūṁ," meaning "If they come, they are welcome; if they do not come, the crowd is little." Gurujī mixed English and Marwāḍī, and it was very comfortable. For me, it was like a mantra for how Gurujī lived, and how sādhus should live. You all know Gurujī as sitting there doing his mālā, happy in peace. But if anyone came, it was immediately satsaṅg. If they came, they were welcome. If they did not come, the crowd was less, which also meant more time for mālā. It was the same with food. If good food was there, Gurujī enjoyed it very much. But if the food was exceptionally good, one could get stuck eating and end up with a stomach ache, unfit for mālā. I always felt with Gurujī that if the food was good, it was welcome. If it was not good and he did not eat much, it was better for doing mālā again. In that way, the crowd was not less there, but it was less here, so he was free. It is much better for sādhanā. The same applied to money. If someone gave a donation, he would worry deeply about using it properly, taking great care it was not wasted. I laugh at myself because in Śrīlañjī, I went for a morning walk and saw some lights on. I could not help but go and turn them off because it was already daylight. Anyone who walked with Gurujī in Jarān would remember he would see a light on in the svastika or elsewhere and say, "Run and turn it off quickly; it is wasting electricity." You would spend the morning walk running here and there to save these small things. People know Swāmījī also takes care of such small things. It is a rare quality. For Gurujī, whenever money came, a great responsibility came with it to use it properly. So if it came, it was welcome, and he would use it properly. If it did not come, the crowd was little—he did not have to think so much about it, and it was better for doing mālā. If he was invited to programs and travels, it was welcome because Gurujī’s life was satsaṅg. But if there was no program, it was time for doing mālā. Our life constantly ebbs and flows between activity and space. Perhaps there is not much space sometimes, but we must be ready: when activity is there, it is welcome; we do it. When the chance comes that it is not there, we go back to our sādhanā, our practice, our awareness. A teaching from Gurujī that is most special to me was his explanation of kṛpā. He said there are four types of Kṛpā. The first is Devatā Kṛpā—from the gods, we receive a human birth. Gurujī explained that we get this chance, this priceless diamond of a human life, to do spiritual work. The second is Śāstra Kṛpā—from the holy scriptures and teachings. They awaken within us the spiritual fire and inquiry. As Gurujī said, the main thing these teachings do is awaken in us a desire to find a guru. The third type is Guru Kṛpā, which we all know about and Swāmījī talks of so much. Without Guru Kṛpā, we cannot attain realization. We need the Guru’s guidance, knowledge, and mantra for sādhanā. The Guru opens the door, shows the path, and guides us on it. Then he said there is a fourth kṛpā, without which nothing can be done. Of course, you immediately think that the bhajans say "Guru Kṛpā kevalam"—Guru’s grace is everything. Gurujī said that is true, because without it, nothing can happen. But the fourth is also necessary. The fourth is Kūṭ Kṛpā, which means kṛpā or blessing towards yourself. It means Swāmījī can give us all the tools we need for the path, but we have to bless ourselves by actually putting them into practice. There is a saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. The horse must do it itself. Similarly, we must give ourselves that blessing by putting the mantra and sādhanā into practice, not just expecting Swāmījī to do everything for us. Without the Guru, it cannot be done. The Guru gives the required equipment and guidance and opens the door. But we must walk. We must put in the effort, the tapasyā, to realize what we have been given. Gurujī said you must realize that both must come together: Guru Kṛpā and Kūṭ Kṛpā. Both are required for success. We all have the mantra from Swāmījī. He has given all the instructions for practice. He cannot practice for us. If we practice and have questions or problems, we go back to him, and he can solve them. But the practice and effort must come from us. Sometimes we get lost thinking, "Oh, Swāmījī will take care of this." Yes, he will take care, but we have to do our part. We must realize that while the grace comes from him, our part we must do. I would say the reason we are so lazy in doing this is perhaps we think we do not deserve it—to be that special or to go so far on the path. Why not? We have everything we need. It is not that the required things are not coming to us; just the effort should come from us. Swāmījī has provided the tools. The constellation is there: we have a human birth, the blessing of the śāstras, the search for a guru, and we have a guru. The one of those four kṛpās we must ensure is not missing, or is more present, is the last one. We must bless ourselves with that effort, practice, and constant sādhanā. Whether that sādhanā is karma yoga, haṭha yoga, rāja yoga, bhakti yoga, or bhajan—our awareness when serving in daily life, with family, or at work—is to apply ourselves in everything as best we can. It is almost like we always have the image of the lotus. Swāmījī gives us the lotus, but only through our effort does it unfold. So, let us make it unfold. Again, we start in small ways, like the teaching from Draupadī about the small piece of sārī that came back so much. Whatever it is, in small ways we start that process and keep going. Understand that even the smallest effort is worthwhile because it adds up. Be aware that even the smallest effort helps us, as it goes in the right direction. There is a beautiful little story from school textbooks in Rajasthan. A crow wanted to drink water. It found a matkā, an earthen pot, with only a little water at the bottom. The crow could not reach the water because the opening was too small and the pot was deep. So, the crow began picking up small stones and dropping them into the pot. It kept bringing stones from here and there, putting more and more inside. When it had almost filled the pot with stones, the water level rose, and the crow could easily drink. Every small thing we do, every action performed with awareness, is like putting a stone into that pot, raising the water we can drink. Sometimes what Swāmījī asks us to do may seem unrelated to our spiritual path. But what do stones have to do with water? They bring the water up. You will not drink the stones, but you will drink what happens after you put them in. For me, the essence of what Gurujī taught was that one thing about kṛpā. It was the key. He really sat there and told me face-to-face, "Remember this." What Gurujī taught me about kṛpā touched me from the bottom of my heart. He sat before me and said it, and I feel everyone should take it in. Take the treasure given by Swāmījī, keep polishing it, and ensure it shines. That is why I know each of us should polish and work on what we have received. Give yourself that blessing. In the bhajan meeting, we practiced a bhajan that fits very well now: "Mānamā namayā linu sattva guru shyām," as it is a Kṛṣṇa bhajan. Everyone knows Holy Gurujī, from the beginning of his life and lifelong, remained a special worshiper of Lord Kṛṣṇa. You could always make Gurujī happy by singing Kṛṣṇa bhajans.