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Being a devotee and possessing bhakti, your faults may still remain, but that bhakti itself will take care of them. One should concentrate on developing that devotion, on opening oneself, on opening one’s heart to that relationship. Often, we can get so caught up in small points about our practice. But being very technical and intellectual about it is very different from opening ourselves to Swāmījī and just letting him do his work. Yet, the difficulty in doing that is its intimidating nature, because we feel helpless. We become open to a wildness—like nature untouched by humanity’s squares and roads. Something that is not limited, as if the nature of the Lord does not exist within the structures built by man. That is where trust is necessary. Trust that this foundation has sustained things for so long with such purity, that Swāmījī’s love and his devotion towards his disciples will not let you fall. Somehow, that story from Mādhāvjī really touched me today. It is important to remember those connections you yourself have with Swāmījī and with Gurujī—the beautiful moments we have shared with our masters and the relationship we have with them. With Mahāprabhujī. In your meditation, in your dreams. Today, three locals also came and told stories of dreams they had with Mahāprabhujī in the last two weeks. The dreams were very relevant to what was happening to them. It seems to be one of those days and one of those times where Mahāprabhujī is actively helping. Or should I change that? Actually, it is coming to our awareness here because people are telling it. I’m sure it’s happening all the time. I wanted to translate a little bit of this bhajan from Gurujī, because somehow it’s on that theme. When Mādhāvjī told me that story about Gurujī weeping as he heard the Līlā Amṛt, it made me think of this bhajan immediately. Āja sukhadina, guruvara āilā mora ghara. Today is a blissful day because the Guru came to my house. The Guru came, and he brought all joy with him. It is not just about a physical house, but about his coming here. It is about an opening of the heart. In so many of the Upaniṣads, the same thing is written in different ways. It says there is a cave within the heart where a light resides, which is the guru, or that the guru is sitting within the heart. For me, these bhajans always operate on two levels in Indian culture. It is so special when the guru comes to your house, physically enters your physical home. But the real bliss is when you can open the door and let Him into the heart—to have that connection where he starts to live inside you. As Gajanandjī sings in his bhajana: "O Swāmījī, you live within me." Gurujī says, "When I had that darśan, when I met the guru there, then all of my pāpas, all of my mistakes, all of the wrongs I did were gone." It sounds very much like that image Vivekānandjī gives: when the dam breaks and the water starts to flow, everything is washed down the stream. Ardha jī vandamera safā-lubhanāya. Today my life has become successful. Today it has become meaningful. It is a different type of life once that connection is there. The more open one can be, the more it seems your whole life sings with it. Each simple action and each simple interaction becomes more beautiful. Kum, kum, keśere, gare, nipou. This describes a village practice: they put cow dung in front of the house, making the floors with it and then decorating them. I have an office in the school where I sit during the day. In front of it, the ground is not yet cemented. On the weekend, yesterday being Sunday, two ladies who work at the school, cleaning and taking care of the rooms, made designs with gobar (cow dung) in quite a large area in front of the door. They painted it with white and red colors, with designs and borders of flowers. It is so beautiful. A little away from the door, they painted two feet going towards it, meaning everyone is welcome to enter, and that God should also come inside. It is such an old and ancient tradition, so beautiful and simple. Today, all the staff came, and it was a school day. Different teachers were coming and saying, "Oh, in our community we also paint like this, and I will do something here, and someone else will do something there." So it started to become a whole artwork on the floor. Some said, "I want to do this part in front of the door." Another replied, "Anyhow, in two weeks they have to do this again, so you can do it then, because everything will be covered and you will do it anew." When they use cow dung, they also apply it because it is purifying; it gives cleanliness and a beautiful feel to the house. So in the bhajan, when you think about that in the context of yourself, it is that inner purification which prepares that place. That is our practice, our sādhanā. It is making the area purified for the Guru to enter. That is what creates a clean space for the Guru to come inside. The next line says: Bahuta śṛṅgāra kariba, jahāṅ guruvara rākhiba. "A lot of embellishment will be done in the place where we will plant the Master." That is the place where the guru should come and sit. So it is constant sādhanā, again and again. We grind within ourselves, we make ourselves shine by purifying ourselves through constantly practicing prāṇāyāma, our meditation, our mālā, so that place comes where he can sit. By constant sādhanā, by constant repetition of mantras and prāṇāyāma, we lighten up our inner place so much that then the master has somewhere to sit. Karu ārati sevā pūjā nijaghara śama bāḍhāya. So just in our own simple place, in our own simple house, we are there doing sevā and we are doing ārati. We are doing the prayer and the pūjā to the guru when he comes. When we have that practice of Mānasik Pūjā (mental worship), then there is a chance to do it when the guru comes to sit in our heart. If we have mental pūjā, internal pūjā, then we have the possibility to do it in the place where the Master sits. Mānasa pūjā means the mental pūjā done internally. Just like a few evenings ago we talked about Śiva Mānasa Pūjā, the pūjā for Lord Śiva done only on the mental level. We wash the Master’s feet regularly. Purifying ourselves with it, from that we get the fruits of all the pilgrimage places. When we go to a pilgrimage place, it is also to open us, to open our heart. For what? So the guru can see that the place is open for our spiritual relation, so that we can start to have that ignite from within. When we can come to the Guru’s feet and understand that, and take the nectar which is there, naturally all the benefit of those places also comes with it, because we are open. If we are able to understand this and realize it, if we have the opportunity to do this pūjā, then of course it will give us the same wealth as if we visited all the places of the path. We will open our heart, and the Master will have a place to go. It is our direct path to God, better than walking around the area by ourselves. Saba mora la-iba, tomāra caraṇe samarpiba. "Take everything I have to offer; please accept my offering," he is saying to his guru. And then, Kali Kali Harasaya—when he has the chance for that, then he feels like he starts to shake with joy. For me, like what Mādhāv Prasādjī said, that is the joy which Gurujī had, filled with tears and joy all at the same time, when he got to reconnect with my Prabhupāda, hearing the stories. And how was his heart with Mahāprabhujī? Mahāprabhujī came and showed Gurujī his true nature. And then Gurujī says that today is a great day, such a great day. Because the Guru came and he awakened that understanding within him, lit the light within him. When we practice, when we do our sādhanā, when we do our sevā, when we do karma yoga, when we sing bhajans—all of this is preparation for us to prepare our inner place, so that one day the master will enter there. Once I had a beautiful group of ladies coming to yoga classes in Jaipur. I don’t know how it happened, but there weren’t any yoga classes, and then suddenly about ten ladies came. They were all housewives, in their forties or mid-forties. Some were a little older, some a little younger, but it ended up being about twenty-five of them. Every morning they would come for class, except on Sundays. We had one day off.