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Oṃ dīpyotiḥ para brahman, dīpaṃ sarve mohanaṃ, dīpanaṃ sajate sarvaṃ santya, dīpaṃ sarva satyam. Rāja Dena Guruśā Moṅyā Charaṇamkī, Rāja Dena Dayālu Moṅyā Charaṇamkī, Charaṇamkī Prabhu Charaṇamkī, Padakamamkī. Rāja Dena Guruśā Moṅyā Charaṇamkī, Rāja Dena Dayālu Moje Chara, Naime Naime Chara. Idā nā prabhu ichā nā, idā nā dvā rājā dena. Guruśa moje charā rājā dena, dayālu moje charā. Noi pada kāṁ prabhu charā, noi pada kāṁ kī. Rājadhena Guruśa Moje Chara, Rājadhena Dayālu Moje Chara, Niyatināki Prabhu Sampatinā, Maṅgataki. Rājadhena Guruśa Moje Chara, Rājadhena Dayālu Moje Chara Chara. Padaka Prabhu Charaṇam, Padakam Rāja Dena Guruśa Moje Charaṇam. Rāja Dena Dayālu Moje Charaṇam, Nay Dāsī Guru Charaṇam. Prabhu Mukti Dasi Guru Charanam Rajadena guruśa moje charanom Śrī Dīpā Prabhujī Caranna, Śrī Dīpā, dayā-lajā-mā, yehi vināti lāndāki Prabhu, yehi vināti lālandāki. Rājā de la guruśa moye cara nohom ki, Rājā de la dayālu moye cara nohom ki, Carada Prabhu cara nohom ki. Paraka malohom ki Raja de la guruśa moye chara nohom ki Raja de la dayalu moye chara nohom ki. I missed last night’s satsaṅg, but I heard it was about the Pañcākṣaram Stotram. That reminds me of Śivarātri this year. As many of you know, Śivarātri is the big night for Śiva worship. About ten days before Śivarātri, I was in the school and went into the third class. It’s always a bit dangerous to go into the third and fourth classes because they know so many mantras by heart. As soon as you come in, they start and don’t stop, and they know them really well. It’s beautiful. Ten days before Śivarātri, they started singing the Śiva Mānasa Pūjā, which is like an internal pūjā for Śiva performed in the mind. It’s a really beautiful set of quite long ślokas, describing the whole process of a pūjā with all the offerings and actions. These kids were singing it with such śakti it was shaking the walls in the room. You know that feeling when your hair stands up? It was really like that; I was quite stunned. I just said to them, "You know, it would be really good if you do that on Śivarātri." The day of Śivarātri came. Some teachers and students had organized a function, preparing from the day before. It was beautiful to see. They made a śivaliṅga out of mud because they didn’t have one in the school hall. They mixed dirt and water, shaped the Śivaliṅga perfectly, let it dry, and decorated around it with colored powder. It was beautiful. Some karma yogīs were there for the pūjā. In the days before Śivarātri, it developed more. By the day, teachers had organized costumes for children. One was dressed as Śiva, with Pārvatī, Gaṇeśjī, and Kārtikeya—the whole family was there, plus some guards. Others were dressed as paṇḍits. They came into the hall chanting "Hara Hara Mahā Dev, Hara Hara Mahā Dev" and came onto the stage. Then all the students from the third class started chanting the Śiva Mānasa Pūjā. As they did, they arranged for one boy to perform all the actions described in the śloka. When it mentioned offering a Bilva leaf, he offered a Bilva leaf. They offered nutmeg, chandan, water, milk, yogurt—everything. It was like a full pūjā on stage. For me, the most beautiful part was the thought of making that Śivaliṅga just from whatever was available, from the dirt. Spirituality isn’t about having the perfect situation or perfect tools for pūjā. It’s about the feeling, dedication, and love inside. You can have a statue made of marble, stone, wood, or plaster. But once the pūjā is done—what is called prāṇa pratiṣṭhā—once the prāṇa is put inside that statue and it is inaugurated as that deity, it doesn’t matter if it’s marble, stone, or cement. That’s Gaṇeśjī, Śivjī, Pārvatī, or Kṛṣṇa. Whatever deity had the prāṇa put inside, that’s that. Similarly, it doesn’t matter who we are or where we’ve come from. Once the Guru puts that light inside, it’s now that light. It’s not an Australian light, a Croatian light, or a Hungarian light. It’s not male, female, tall, short, or round. It’s just that light. Swāmījī often says in satsaṅg: do not ask what is the background of the practitioner, the sādhu, but ask what is his knowledge. The second part says you value the quality of the sword, and it makes no difference how beautiful the cover is. Obviously, we’re not going around using swords, but what is important is the feeling we give to our practice, our sādhanā. The outer cover of who we are, the personality we’ve brought from previous lives, family, or culture, may be there. There may be things about it you don’t like. But if you’re really practicing, what you’ll ask of all your guru brothers and sisters is that from inside, there’s genuine feeling and devotion. That’s what matters. I came back just as last night’s satsaṅg was finishing. Niranjan Purījī was singing "Jai Jai Śrī Deveśvara Mahādeva." I had the good luck, honor, to be with Gurujī when he wrote that bhajan. It was in Strylki, the last time he was there, on Guru Pūrṇimā. Many will recall he wrote three bhajans then—three that got finished and one still floating a bit. I’m glad it’s not finished; maybe Gurujī has to come back to finish it. One was "Jai Jai Śrī Deveśvara Mahādev" about Swāmījī, another about Alak Purujjī. For me, "Jaya Jaya Śrī Deveśvara Mahādev" was special because of the second and third lines: that from the local area and overseas, everywhere, people should come to do your seva, Devpurījī. For me, that was a special statement from Gurujī, ignited by the feeling in Strylki at that time. If some of you were there, it was an amazing atmosphere on that Guru Pūrṇimā. So many people were there, with Gurujī and Swāmījī present. I don’t say I understand what Gurujī was feeling, but I had the feeling he was overwhelmed with the beauty and spirit of it all—seeing how many people practice in this paramparā. I would say it was in that feeling that Gurujī wrote this bhajan. As I was sitting in Gurujī’s seva beside him, I had the chance to watch the view Gurujī was watching: people everywhere getting ready, doing seva. It was beautiful to watch—such discipline and such a feeling of cooperation. You could see how smoothly things were moving and preparing. Gurujī was sitting in the field on his bed, casually watching everything and doing his mālā. For me, these two things go together: Gurujī saying everyone should come from all countries to do seva, and the śivaliṅga made from mud. It just doesn’t matter about background. If we put our hearts into this practice Swāmījī has given us, something very special will come out. Gurujī says in the next line of the bhajan: "manase dhyāve to sabha kuch pāve"—if you, with a pure heart and pure thoughts, concentrate on Devpurījī, on Deveśvara Mahādeva, then you will get everything. You will find everything. Your manas icchā phal lev, the wishes of your heart, you will get that fruit fulfilled. Then he says that those who are sad will also be made happy. You can come from anywhere, any background, having done whatever in your past. If you come with purity of heart, it can happen. Those few lines, for me, summed up what was there in Strylki at that time. Gurujī was writing the bhajan, changing it a little, writing and changing again. To be there and watch this bhajan unfolding in that setting was something so special. I think everyone there can remember the feeling when Gurujī first came into the ashram here in Sri Lanka. It was so special. I don’t know how many people didn’t have tears coming from their eyes. I think that included Gurujī. That year, he enjoyed so much being there and going up to the Jadan Hall. Another memory that comes back when I think of Strylki is one of the people in Śeṣa when Gurujī was there: Bhakta Nanjī from Czech. Gurujī only ever spoke a few words to me, but I remember them well. The first was "Bhakti Nānjī, Škoda," because he always used to take Gurujī up to the courtyard in his Škoda, an old model. When we got to the courtyard to go up the stairs, Gurujī would get out and say, "Škoda, good car." Every day it was the same. Satsaṅg Saī would come, Gurujī would call Bhakti Nanjī: "Bhakti Nanjī, Škoda, ready." Up we’d go, then "Škoda, good car." I guess Bhaktī Nānjī remembers that very well. Everyone who had contact in that small way was so blessed. Other parts of the bhajan talk about stories of Devpurījī from the Līlā Amṛt: helping the poor get wealth, helping those without children have children, giving life back to someone who passed away. Sometimes when you read those stories, some seem so far-fetched they can’t be possible. But anyone like Harī Purujī, who spent time in Kailāś, knows your take on reality gets different when people actually involved in the stories come to the ashram. They’re now quite old, but they come and tell stories of when they were with Devpurījī and those things which are in the Līlāmṛt. Yesterday I was in Ajmer, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from here. I remember driving there once with Gurujī. He said, "That’s the hospital where Mahāprabhujī had his eye operation." If you know Ajmer, there’s an overpass; it’s just underneath. Every time I go past, I remember Gurujī telling me that. Go to Mount Abu and the stories of Devpurījī from there. When I stayed in Abu in 1999 with Gurujī for some weeks, people from the Mandir where those stories occurred came to tell me the stories. I’d say, "Yeah, I know that story from the Līlā Amṛt," and they’d say, "Vīrya, what’s this Līlā Amṛt? Can I have a copy?" They’re coming from the same story but a completely different direction. They came to tell it because they knew Devpurījī was in the paramparā where Gurujī was. As Gurujī stayed in that mandir, they came to share their version. It’s beautiful when stories take life, not just from reading but from meeting the people involved and affected. Similarly, there’s a man in Jaipur, Shankar Lālji, who tells amazing stories about Mahāprabhujī. When he was 10 or 12, he sat with Mahāprabhujī in Bologuda Rāṣṭram. His mother was one of Mahāprabhujī’s closest bhaktas from a nearby village. He tells stories of being a ten-year-old boy sitting to eat next to Mahāprabhujī. Mahāprabhujī would not arrange his own food first but have them put chapatis on his thālī and then give them to this boy so it would be mahā-prasād, coming from Mahāprabhujī’s own plate. He said that happened many times. As you know, when we eat and they come with chapatis, Mahāprabhujī would say he didn’t have any, say "No, put it here," then "Put it there." Still, when he tells that story, he gets tears, saying, "What did I do to deserve that blessing? I was just a young boy running around and playing, but he took such care of me." You see the devotion and love he has; you can understand how he attracted that blessing. For me, the more you meet these people, occasionally they come more. Recently in Kāṭu, some people came and said, "We knew Mahāprabhujī, and he did this and this in our village." I think I told the story recently of the boy when Mahāprabhujī had a wound on his shoulder and asked the boy to help. That story I haven’t seen in any book; maybe I missed it. About two and a half years ago, I was in a village 50 kilometers from Kāṭu. There was an extreme water crisis during a summer drought. I went to check possibilities for delivering water for animals, especially cows and small deer. The situation was bad. I saw a cow lying on the ground with liquid coming out from the back. I asked what happened, and they said, "She drank water from the tube well." The local well water was so bad that animals got sick and died in two days. We arranged to send tankers of water by tractor until it rained. In this village, one person said his family knew Mahāprabhujī closely. He said a family member, when a young boy of twelve, was in the village when Mahāprabhujī had a wound on his shoulder. Mahāprabhujī asked the boy, "Can you treat it?" The boy didn’t know anything about medicine, but he knew that for goats and cows he took care of, they used a broken piece of a maṭkā, an earthen water pot that keeps water cool. He’d put it on wounds. Not knowing any better, he thought, "It works for cows and goats," so he put it on Mahāprabhujī’s shoulder. In a few hours, Mahāprabhujī took off the maṭkā, and the wound was gone, completely healed. As this fellow told me, Mahāprabhujī gave a blessing to that boy that the treatment would always work. That person said there’s a village about 20 kilometers from Kāṭu where that boy later lived. He had a medical clinic, now in the third generation. Still, every day, 40 or 50 people come for treatment with the maṭkā—not just for wounds but sore knees, backs, etc. What does a Western, scientific mind make of that? But if fifty people line up every day, something must be working. I was in Kāṭu ashram talking to Matajī, Yogmāyānandjī, about that. She said, "Oh yeah, I’ve heard about that too." She said when they have a more serious problem, they give the treatment and also send them to the ashram in Kāṭu to sit under the banyan tree and do the mantra. She said every one or two days someone comes, sits under the banyan tree doing the mantra, and goes again. Everyone says it works; it’s fantastic. It’s so interesting how you come across these stories out of nowhere. It brings that whole history and paramparā more to life. It makes you appreciate that the boundaries of what we say is possible or not are our boundaries. They are not necessarily the boundaries of reality or possibility. When faith is there, and as Gurujī says in that bhajan, with a pure heart and pure mind, you apply yourself to something. Gurujī says it’s important to have faith when you start something. That small boy, I imagine, had immense purity of heart when he applied that to Mahāprabhujī. That purity and devotion can make things happen that seem impossible, far beyond our capability. That is what Gurujī, through that bhajan, says: you will get the wish within you. But it takes devotion, trust, dedication, and purity of intention toward what we do. Divāna-sata-gurūna-makāma-stāna heli, Rāmajī Gagana Upama Nera Kahi, Ajay Samhita Kahi Sara Vakama. Śaṅkha Nāman Samatha Rahī Rāmajī Āṭapaṇṭakī Śaṅkha Nāman Jai Mahārāṣṭra, Jai Mahārāṣṭra,... Jai Mahārāṣṭra,... Jai Mahārāṣṭra.