TV Channel

Hari Om. We have prepared a little story from Līlā Amṛt, and we hope you like it. Devpurījī’s First Miracle Devpurījī usually did not publicly display his special abilities, but once he was forced to do so. Mount Abu was a British post; there was a British military station placed there. The chief officer there truly hated Hindus. One evening, he was strolling by Lake Naki and, exactly at the time of prayer, he passed the Hindu temple. From the temple, he could hear the spiritual songs, drums, and bells: Oṁ tryambakaṁ yajāmahe sugandhiṁ puṣṭivardhanam, urvārukam iva bandhanān mṛtyormukṣīya māmṛtāt. Oṁ tryambakaṁ yajāmahe sugandhiṁ puṣṭivardhanam, urvārukam iva bandhanān mṛtyormukṣīya māmṛtāt. The British officer deeply hated Hindu ceremonies. That is why he came to the temple and started barking at the priest: "Stop immediately making such unbearable noise!" Then he started making jokes about the priest: "Your God must be either deaf or asleep that you have to make such a terrible noise. Don’t you mind disturbing the peace of the entire area? Remember that this spectacle will come to an end at once. If I see anyone playing the drums without my personal approval, that one shall be arrested, even if it is your God himself." To prove that he meant what he said, he took into custody a few of the sādhus. The scared people did not know what to do. It was the end of all tradition. "The British people have weapons. How could we face them? How could we face them?" The sādhus started to fast and pray for the arrested people. When the British officer came to know about that, he decided to poison the arrested people. Śrī Devpurījī was living in the dense forest at Mount Abu, and he was looking after the cows. Only rarely did someone realize that he was present there. However, the omniscient consciousness of the saint was reached by the prayers of the faithful, and the gruesome intention of the British officer was revealed to him. The all-embracing awareness of this saint got to know about the terrible intention of the British officer. So he decided to show his true form, the Śiva principle. He inhaled deeply and sang the mantra Oṁ. At that time, four white tigers came to him, walked around him in order to show their respect, and then waited with their heads bent to hear his order. "You will be looking after the cows instead of me," Śrī Devpurījī said, "instead of the journey to the British officer’s house." He went to the British officer’s house. He waited in front of the door and then shouted loudly, "Come out, Englishman!" "Who is so cheeky and dares to do this?" The Englishman came angrily out of the house. Devpurījī laughed merrily. "I came to drink the poison. Where is it?" laughed Śrī Devpurījī. The officer was shocked. He had not told anyone at all about his intention to poison the arrested people. How could this sādhu know about that? "No, are you not going to serve me? What are you waiting for?" Śrī Devpurījī continued laughing. "So, you won’t offer me anything? What are you waiting for?" The officer told his servant to bring a bottle of poison. "This orange guy must be the head of this rebellion group. Just hang on, you will stop being cheeky in a minute." Śrī Devpurījī emptied the bottle of the poison. Without being sick, he said, "Další, prosím. Next, please." The stiff officer had another bottle brought. "A další." The shocked officer let another bottle be brought. "And next one," the saint drank one bottle after the other. They were laying on the ground, and then Śrī Devpurījī, one of them, bit the glass and swallowed it. The officer was just standing there speechlessly and could not believe his eyes. When all the seven bottles were gone, the saint laid down and withdrew his breath to the Brahma Randhra, so that his pulse became imperceptible. "He is dead," the officer said. "I started to believe that these Indian sādhus cannot be saved. They can really make miracles, but they can’t do anything at all. It’s just nonsense. He’s dead." And he called his servant to carry away the dead body. Śrī Devpurījī sat up. "I am not dead," Śrī Devpurījī said. "I’m completely alive. I just want to have a little rest." Then he took the form of Lord Śiva himself. He was walking over the lake as if he was walking on the ground. In the middle of the lake he asked, "He stands before you, Shiva. Don’t you want to ask God to fulfill a wish? See, there is Lord Śiva standing in front of you, and if you acknowledge this divine form worshipped by Hindus, you can express your request." In the middle of the lake, he found the right mantra. "Spas mi, Mahādev! Spas mi, Mahādev!... Riskyu mi, Mahādev! Riskyu mi, Mahādev!..." He repeated the mantra five times, and then Śrī Devpurījī said, "The God himself gave you the right words, and the right mantra saved you. You will come not only from this lake, but also from the ocean of suffering." Due to Devpurījī’s mercy, the British officer saw the truth. All the luxury of the Western world he found now as emptiness: the technology, weapons, lots of food, money, and luxury. "But where is inner peace? Where is inner contentment? Where is harmony among people? If you can fulfill a wish for me, please give me peace in the soul." Merciful Śiva always fulfills the wishes of bhaktas. The officer immediately released the imprisoned sādhus. He apologized and gave them all generous gifts. He even came for the joyful celebration at the banks of Lake Naki. How good was that? To the children? Some have gone. That was fantastic. Very, very good. Maybe you remember one song that was on the videos some time ago, the ashram videos. It is going round still. This one that went, that’s them: every girl is a form of the Devī, of the Goddess, and every boy is a form [of God]. And how much do we learn from them? How much do we get from them? So to all the children here this week, from all of us, thank you. For always being smiling, always being happy, always running, and to the one who always rings the bell. It’s really great to have them around and have their energy here. How lucky are they to be here, and how lucky are we to have them here? Earlier this year in Jadan, our children had a competition, an art competition. And part of that competition was, they were making what’s called rangolī, which you may know: these are the patterns on the floor where they make pictures and colors and shapes. All just done. They first draw it on the floor, and then they fill in the spaces with different things. But I remember when they were making it at that time, one thing really struck me about it. They did it just by the really traditional way of doing it, which was not to go to the shop and buy different colored powders and then do it, which is what is normally done nowadays. But in the tradition, they would just use whatever was around the house. So some children had brought in a little bit of dahl of different colors. They were using the broken bricks from the construction—the broken bricks and the broken pieces of cement, because one was red and one was white. There were leaves, there were seeds from the trees. Anything which they could find around it was all going to make these different colors and to make these patterns. And I remember being so struck by the fact that they were beautiful, but more beautiful was just how simple it all was. And that whole concept of making something beautiful just out of what you have, rather than thinking you have to get something else to make it. And some of them were huge. They were making these great big signs on the floor saying "Hari Om" and "Welcome" and everything. And you can imagine, there were children running everywhere and collecting things, and it was great fun. But it’s simple. And I just wanted to remind everyone again, our practice is also simple. You’ve all been here now for one week or two weeks, practicing here or practicing in the Anuṣṭhāna. This is a very special time of year where you get to practice intensely. But it’s not over now when you go home. And it doesn’t require making some special, extra special place, or having only, "I can’t meditate unless I have that agarbatī," or, "I can’t meditate because the candle is no longer there." It can be anywhere, anytime. In our practice, we just take what’s there around us, what’s there in front of us, and make something of that. Make that Raṅgolī. There’s really no excuse not to practice. Because if you have the right awareness, anything that you’re doing is a practice. In the last days, as many will know—some will be lucky enough not to know because they had no connection with the world—but the Olympics have been on, as Tiago Porigi was saying yesterday of his student who won a gold medal. But I really look to those people and find great inspiration in what they’re doing. Because, I mean, the intensity with which they pursue that goal which they have—if we could put just a little bit of that into our practice, imagine what would happen. Okay, the goal is different, but those athletes focus their whole focus for four years, or eight years, or however long it is. They’ve prepared for this moment; it’s all about that preparation. You know, if we’re seriously Swāmījī’s disciples, if we’re really practicing, we eat what is good for our practice, we watch what is good for our practice, we go out to what is good for our practice. If we really want to progress, it has to change from being that our practice balances all of the disturbing things that happen during our day, and it needs to change to our day today being a preparation for our practice. I’ve heard some people say all year they prepare for this time when they can come here and do the Anuṣṭhāna. And they look forward to this time. How fantastic. I remember once one old disciple telling me in Jadan that before they come to the Anuṣṭhāna, two months before, they stop eating sugar, just because it makes it easier for them to sit. These are not things that mean turning one’s life over completely. It’s just a little bit of a change in how you look at things. That’s the essence of what was in the Upanishad: try, if you can, to always think, "Is this something that will help me with my practice?" We sing bhajan after bhajan about the fact that this life is an opportunity, this human life, to realize something, to take the mantra and then put it into practice. But it’s not just something that you can do in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening. One has to start to prepare that the whole day is a part of that; it nurtures that practice. It sounds big and intimidating sometimes. But it’s not, I don’t think it is. It’s just small, small attitude changes. And really, when you look at those athletes, everything they eat, everything they do, everything they train, from the time they wake up until they go to sleep, is focused on that one practice, which is their training. It’s an incredible tapasyā in a way. And you can sometimes look and think, "My God, that’s just too much." But to take some of that intensity and to put it into our lives, that would be something really special. Because we have the blessing from our paramparā. And all of those seeds and everything are there, ready to sprout, to blossom. But as in that story yesterday from Mahāprabhujī, you have to put the water on that garden. Practicing and practicing. Can you sing "Bhai Tumma Jagore"? Chāyā Munindā Avidyā Chāyā Rahī Tumajanamajanamadukapāya Bhāī Tumajagore Tumajanamajanamadukapāya Bhāī Tumajagore Satguru śaraṇasī dhana pyāre. Ja bhagavāna divāna citta. Śrī Divnānand Bhagavān kī je Shri Mādhavānandajī Gurudeva kī jaya. In April, Swāmījī was in Bangalore for a conference. And it was quite a big event. It was like an expo for Ayurveda, naturopathy, and yoga. It was an international event, and it was really huge. There was, I think, on one day, 40,000 to 50,000 people coming. And they were talking about health and yoga, and how yoga can improve health. And there’s something unique about Bangalore. Well, it’s not unique, it happens in quite a few cities around India. The traffic is terrible, absolutely terrible. And I remember when we were there, someone saying, "Oh yeah," I said, "How long will it take for us to get to the expo today?" I think it was two or three kilometers, the distance. And this fellow said, "Oh, today is really good because it’s Sunday, it’s Sunday, it’ll only take you 45 minutes." And I thought, from where I come from, if you tell someone that it’ll take 45 minutes to go two kilometers, they’ll think you’re completely crazy. I mean, they’ll think you’re Pāli. You know, for him it was good, because on Monday, I think it takes about two hours. There’s a certain time in Bangalore where, between 10 and 1 o’clock, you actually just don’t bother. No taxi driver wants to take you because there’s such a traffic jam that they don’t earn any money. They just sit there and you don’t go anywhere, so there’s no fare. But it started me thinking. We were sitting there on the stage, and there were lots of things going on. I was thinking, yeah, you can get stuck also in that same thing of saying it’s really good on, because it’s Sunday. You know, we can look at somebody around us and think, "Oh, I’m doing really good because I’m more happy than that person, or I’m more stable than that person, or I’m more healthy than that person." Just because it was Sunday and it only took 45 minutes, I still wouldn’t call that good traffic. And it’s the same: just because you compare yourself to someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve reached a potential or that it’s good. I’d say for all of us, there’s room to improve in our health, in our vitality, in our sādhanā. And it reminded me just to keep practicing, keep practicing, keep trying to go to the next step. There’s so far to go. In the last days here, we’ve been talking often with people about Gurujī and their experiences with Gurujī. And one impression is very much in my mind. It’s just that Gurujī was just somehow sitting there waiting to give, and it was a question if anybody could take it. You know, I somehow have this image of Swāmījī sitting there and waiting for someone to give, so that he can pour something into their glass—his knowledge and his love. And somehow we come with a glass or something in the hand like this. And I can imagine he must be thinking, "So small? They’ve got a tanker out the back full of this stuff, and it comes with a little glass." You know, Swamījī is just there waiting to give. It’s up to us how much we practice and how much we prepare ourselves to be able to take it. And as the bhajan says, that chance comes after how many lives, and will come again after how many lives. And as Gurujī says, wake up, wake up, take the chance. Trī deep naryam bhagwān kī che. Well, that was just what Gurujī just said; I can say maybe a little bit more concretely. Because I remember the situation very well. It was maybe 1990, I guess, maybe 1992, around that. Ninety-two. Okay. Ninety-two. Such an old disciple. He’s even older than his master. It was a situation also, I think it was a Kriyānuṣṭhāna seminar with Swamijī. And it was a really touching situation, that’s why I remember it still so vividly now. It was a situation when Swamiji said exactly that personally, what Jasraj now said, most probably. Swamiji said, as I remember, "I am so full." I am overflowing, full. Full of the mercy of my Holy Gurujī, of the wisdom of my Prabhujī. Gurujīho, Moudrosti Mahāprabhujīho. I’m like a pot overflowing, full. And I want to give. But where is the disciple? Who wants? I have the seeds in my hand, and I’m throwing them. But where is the field in which they can grow? It was in an attitude like Swamiji is begging us, "Please, take something." It was so strong, and it was exactly what Jasrat Pudicī said just now. And that definitely didn’t change in the last 20 years. It just depends on us how much we can take. The other point about which I wanted to speak a little bit is this Mauna experiment which we had. We had it now in two weeks, a little bit different form and different result. And in the first week, I didn’t want to speak in the end about that, because there was nothing to speak. It was just a flop, but now, this week, I had a different impression. I had the feeling that quite a lot of us really tried and were quite serious with it. So I observed, especially that side where the kitchen is, behind the kitchen, not only on those Mauna tables, but basically in the whole area, was more or less all the time Mauna. And the funny thing was, these signs which I had made with the word "Mauna," they were through the rain completely faded out. It was like the signs also go in Mauna. They don’t talk anymore. But still, everyone understood the message. There was a situation a few days ago where I was searching for a person, and I asked a few disciples whom I met where I could find her. And a little bit later, that person came to me and somehow complained, "Because of you, now three people have broken their mauna, because you asked for me." And I felt so bad, but I was happy because it shows that really there are many who take it seriously. So I just wanted to encourage maybe a few of you, if you would like, to say a little bit about how it was this week with the Mauna, what it meant for you. And if it was good or bad, and what you would have, maybe suggestions for next time to do it better. Because we are still in the experimental phase. I had, for example, the feeling that this mauna in the night after satsaṅg didn’t really work so much. Because then everyone is so full from the satsaṅg and would like to talk a little bit about that. So maybe a few minutes, if some of you would like to say how it was for them and if they have suggestions to change something. Ariel, Gajananjī, I have been thinking all day that I would like to thank you. Gajananjī, I have a whole day in my mind also that I would like to thank you. It’s been many years since I’ve been trying to keep Mauna. It’s really not easy because always somebody comes to ask something. And I remember that once Swamiji left the seminar because we didn’t keep mauna and fasting. I was so sorry for that. Because it’s not so difficult, it’s beautiful when one can be with him or herself, and it meets also with the master, a Jādana story. Not this one, that one in India a long, long time ago when I was first in Jadan. My job was in the kitchen to make chapatis. And there were a lot of chapatis. Because there were about, I think, forty or fifty people, and everyone was eating a lot, so this was a crash course. Crash course, and there was one other karma yogī who was helping, and he was quite new there in Jadon. I was also new, but he, somehow on his way through India, had fallen into the ashram, and he... He had an amazing capacity to ask questions. Infinite. And we were sitting there together, making chapatis day after day, and question after question after... question. And eventually, after some days, the topic came up with Mauna. A hundred questions about Mauna, you know, what is it, what’s it like, what do you do, you just close your mouth? And I must say, out of some slight desperation, I said, "Why don’t we try it?" I saw this window of opportunity. "No way. You must be joking. Just for five minutes?" I really said that, just for five minutes. I was thinking that would be a lot, you know. It’s all relevant, like Bangalore traffic. And after some thought, he said, "OK, we’ll try." We started with the five minutes. I swear, by the fourth minute, he was going like this. But just as it was about to come to five minutes, I said, "Let’s try five minutes more," and he really made it to ten minutes. After ten minutes, explosion. I swear, he then talked the next hour about the experience of that ten minutes and about how wonderful it was to keep Mauna. But day after day, it was getting longer and longer. And as I remember, by the end, we actually managed to go through the whole chapati-making session in Mauna. So, practice makes perfect. Śrīdīb nāreṁ bhagvānā kījē, Śrīdīb nāreṁ bhagvānā kījē, Śrīmadhya vananda jī gurudeva kījē. Cheta cheta bhajīvā jāni, āvasara jāve, rūsa ma jāve. Cheta cheta bhajīvā jāni, rūsa ma jāve.