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Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jaya. This story originates from a village named Gendrī. The specific house from which this story comes—perhaps some of you have visited it with Swāmījī. If you have been with Swāmījī to Bolā Guḍā, he may have stopped at a village just before there. One walks inside the village about 100 or 200 meters, and there is a house where Mahāprabhujī’s bed is kept, and they perform pūjā to that bed every day. This story comes from that house. If you have been there, Swāmījī, when going, usually asks the people in the group to go and have darśan of that place. It has a separate room just in front of the house on the right-hand side. The story is that Mahāprabhujī was going to Bolā Guḍā for the first time. As he was coming from Kathu, there were quite a lot of people waiting to greet him, and they wanted to have a parade as he entered the village. I had a great opportunity to sing that bhajan, and the rhymes in this song very much remind me of the villages around that area where Gendrī is. The first approach to Gurudeva with the idea was Rājapuru Hit Śrī Sultān Singh Jī of Gendrī. He came with Śrī Śaṅkar Lāl Jī and others to invite Mahāprabhujī to his village. Mahāprabhujī’s loving heart did not refuse. With the help of Śrī Sultān Siṅghjī, all the villages worked together to make their village beautiful in anticipation of the blessed arrival. All the houses were freshly whitewashed, and the walls were hand-painted with colorful flowers, elephants, birds, and symbols from tales and myths. They planned a great feast and welcomed Mahāprabhujī by spreading carpets all along his path of entry into the village. Day by day, the people received Mahāprabhujī’s golden teachings, taking them as sacred swans swallow pearls. Śrī Sultān Siṅgh Jī and his wife, Śrīmatī Rādhā Devī, were humbly devoted to Gurudeva. They lived a pure spiritual life and practiced Bhakti Yoga, the way of devotion. Almost the whole village was initiated at that time by Mahāprabhujī. He bestowed his rich treasure of mantras and blessings upon them. One day, in Śrī Sultān Siṅghjī’s home, Mahāprabhujī held out a holy book to Śrīmatī Rādhā Devī. “Daughter, take this book and read to me from it.” Rādhā Devī Jī folded her hands and said very softly, “Master, I regret very much to say that I have no schooling and can neither read nor write. The letters in this book are a great mystery to me.” Gurudeva replied, “Open the book. When you see the letters, the knowledge will be given to you, and you will be able to both read and write.” Pure and innocent Rādhā Devājī, with her whole concentration and belief fixed on Mahāprabhujī… and we must not neglect our homage to the receiver as well, for the process requires two. If there are only givers and no receivers, the divine flow would stop. The bed on which the master sat that day, the book, the whole room—all have been preserved as they were more than 40 years ago. Now, of course, it will be much more than 40 years ago, but when Gurujī wrote this, he wrote that it had been kept for 40 years. It is a long time now, but when Gurujī wrote it, it was 40 years. This is to commemorate the miraculous gift of literacy given to Śrīmatī Rādhā Devī. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jaya, Satguru Dev Kī Jaya. Again, I don’t know why certain stories just pop out. I don’t know how it happens that certain stories come out like this. But the reaction of Rādhā Devī in that story, and also Gurujī’s comment on that, is very similar to that in the Upaniṣad. For those who were not here last week, we were talking about the Kaṭha Upaniṣad. In that story, where the young boy Naciketas comes to Yama, Yama is constantly praising the boy. How does someone find such a good student? Someone who is able to receive the knowledge. And here is Rādhā Devījī. I guess in front of quite a lot of people, Mahāprabhujī is giving her a book. Of course, he is giving her the blessing, but she is also brave enough to open that book and start to read. There were a lot of people there. Mahāprabhujī gave the book. Of course, he also gave the blessing, but she still had the courage to take the book, open it, and start reading it. I think you know that when you step into Swāmījī’s world, when you come as a disciple to Swāmījī, he’s going to ask you to do some things that perhaps you don’t think you can do. Or he’s going to ask you to do things that you’ve never done before. But he’s also going to be there to help you so that you can do them. One has to actually go with that, to trust there. There is such a trust that is involved. If you think with your own experience, in your own relation with Swāmījī, or you’ve seen somebody else—Swāmījī has given them some duty to do or told them something to do—and you’ve thought, “But they don’t know how to do that.” But what is blocking us? Our mind is blocking us. Why shouldn’t we be able to do it? More importantly, Swāmījī has given every one of us a mantra and every one of us a sādhanā. Whether we like it or not, he didn’t give it to us just for the sake of it. He gave it to us because he thought that we could do something with it. Which obviously means that in every one of us is some potential to go somewhere with that mantra. For me, the real message in that story is: Swāmījī is giving you that one line, that one seed there to understand. But as long as you’re repeating it without believing that you can understand it, that it will awaken within you… Yes, that’s a blessing. Yes, she was with Mahāprabhujī, and he gave her the blessing. But Swāmījī has also given every one of us a blessing. Whether he’s given us one or a thousand or a million… But as long as we don’t open them, and believe that they’re there for us, they’re meant for us, and that we deserve them… If we do not believe that they are really for us and that they are here to help us, then we come to this loss. I remember once Swāmījī came to that house. There’s a certain gate in the village where you’re not allowed to go with a vehicle past that point. From there, they were doing this system—you may know—where they put the cloth always in front where Swāmījī is walking. All the way from the gate to the house, there are three long pieces of cloth, usually. If you’re lucky, it’s three; if not, there’s two. These cloths are quite long, very long. Once Swāmījī is finished walking on one of them, then they quickly roll it up and run to the front to put it in front of the other ones. I’ve discovered there’s a slight problem with the system. That obviously is designed so there will be this clean way for Swāmījī to walk. The problem is that often it goes through very thin streets, and there’s always lots and lots of people around, and there’s no way to put the cloth from the back to the front, so it inevitably goes above your head. So, although you don’t get any dust on your shoes, it just seems to be raining dirt at certain stages in the process. But it’s done with love.