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Satguru Deva Kī Jai. Om Bholē Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. Śrī Śrī Deva Puruṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai. Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Mādhvānanda Purījī Mahārāj Kī Jai. Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purījī. Just before prayer today, Swāmījī was talking about how Mahāprabhujī takes care of him when he travels through Europe. I wanted to share two small stories from Gurujī about how Mahāprabhujī looks after him in airports. The first one, Gurujī once told us in Jadān, long before my time. You may know from reading the Līlāmṛt that Gurujī had a very good relationship with the police and railway officers while travelling around India. I must say it’s still the same today. When you visit a police station or the railway, they can be quite welcoming, especially to sannyāsīs. They sometimes really take care and show a lot of respect. When Gurujī travelled, he would always stop to meet the station master or whoever was in charge, as you can read in the Līlāmṛt stories. He told us about one time when he was travelling to Europe—I don’t know when exactly, but it must have been very early on. Maheśvarānandajī said, “Kuru Devā, kī jaya, Bhagavān, kī jaya.” This afternoon, Yogeshjī mentioned that there is some rain again in Jadān, and water is flowing into the talāb from both sides. Not a lot, but some. So it happened that I was picking a story about rain. In Strīlakṣmī, Swāmījī said we should read some parts from the Līlāmṛta. So I will read. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. Satguru Deva Kī Jai. One monsoon season, Mahāprabhujī was staying at the Thākur’s residence in Barikathu, and I was there to serve him. There was a drought that year; the fields were drying up, and the drinking water was running out. Bhaktas came from Katras to ask for Mahāprabhujī’s help. They cried, “Merciful One, there are always clouds in the sky, but no rain ever comes. Please, can you do something?” Mahāprabhujī’s reply was, “Go and have a fire ceremony at the watering place in your village, and then you will get rain.” He meant the traditional Vedic sacrificial fire, yajña. It is believed that by chanting Vedic mantras and making certain ritual offerings, the atmosphere can be changed by a concentration of power through the fire. The mantras have power in themselves, but the strong will of the participants is equally important. With Mahāprabhujī, the fire was once again only a symbol for the villagers’ benefit; it was his power that brought the rain. God rarely acts directly, but rather indirectly, like this. Mahāprabhujī sent me along with one paṇḍit to the market to buy the necessary materials for the fire, and he ordered me to start right away. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll take care of everything.” We walked from the market to Katras, about a mile away, and began the ceremony. No sooner had we begun than the clouds began to disappear, which didn’t look very promising. After a while, Mahāprabhujī arrived with some devotees, and we welcomed him under a completely clear sky. With his own hand, he put the first offering of ghee into the fire and said, “It will rain before long. Bring prasāda and distribute it to everyone.” As we did so, clouds began gathering in the east. Soon the whole sky was covered, and the rain began. Within an hour, the talāb was full, and the fields greedily drank up the blessed water that fell so generously from heaven. The farmers praised Mahāprabhujī, saying, “O Lord, Thou art the protector of all living entities.” Dear readers, how unbelievable such miracles seem. Even today, when I think of that rain, my heart contracts. And whenever I’m in that area, I see merciful Mahāprabhujī as clearly as though he were standing beside me. You know, it sometimes sounds like science fiction when such things happen. But I actually picked that story because we have twice seen something similar happen in Jadan. The first time, Yogeshjī will remember very well, was when they were just placing the last stones on the bottom of the talāb. Swāmījī was asking, “Yes, when will it be ready?” That day, the last stones were to be put in place. Swāmījī said, “Very good. Tomorrow there should be an opening ceremony, and you should arrange a function with all the children from school. They should all go onto the floor of the talāb and then have a pūjā.” Of course, there were some complications, some complications, yes. As I remember, the last stone was put about five minutes before the pūjā in the morning. But the pūjā was starting, and so on. All the children from school were there. It was quite beautiful and a lot of fun, and everyone who had worked on the talāb also came. It was a very nice function. But the weather at that time gave no chance of rain. There were not even any signs of the monsoon coming. The skies were clear, and it wasn’t yet that feeling. Then, in the middle of the pūjā, Swāmījī called and said, “Once the pūjā is finished, all of the children should sit for five minutes and call out, ‘Meao, Meao.’” Meao means “rain, come.” Come rain, come rain. We finished the pūjā, and then told the children that Swāmījī wanted them to say “Meow.” When the pūjā ended, we told them that Swāmījī would like to hear the meao for five minutes. They didn’t just say “meow” for five minutes; they screamed “meow” for five minutes. I think it was a little more than five minutes—they were enjoying it so much. Then, as they were all doing it together, we somehow broke up the function, and as they were walking back up the talāb to school, just like in that story, it started. The clouds began to come. After finishing, the clouds came out of nowhere, and by the next morning, overnight, there had been such a rain that there was one or two meters of water, Yogesh. One or two meters of water were already in the talāb. It was completely outside any logic compared to the weather. Of course, the children came to school the next day and immediately went to the talāb to see what had happened. They were all standing there saying, “Look at what we did.” It was the talking point of the whole day at school. “Yesterday we sang that, and now we have filled the talāb.” The whole day they talked about how yesterday they prayed and filled the talāb. But as Gurujī said there, the Master does the action through some other medium, and you often don’t even suspect how it is being done. So the kids were very happy with themselves. A few years later, some of you may recall this time. There was also a period when the talāb was quite empty, and time was passing late into the season. There wasn’t much sign of it filling from normal weather. After prayer, Swāmījī suddenly said, “Everybody who’s here should stay in the Bhakti Sāgā and do eleven mālās for the rain.” From what happened the next day, about nine mālās must have been required for the talāb, because eleven made it so that the whole āśram was covered in water. There was no longer any road between the Om Āśram and the rest of the āśram. There was no way to go to school, no way to get to the hospital. Everything was underwater. Actually, all that remained was the Bhakti Sāgara and the area where everyone was living, and the rest was a lake. Again, that was a very similar atmosphere to the story in the Līlāmṛt. It had been cloudy and always seeming like it would rain, and then that day it had seemed to be clearing, and the chance was going to be lost. But some other forces got involved. When Swāmījī and I were talking today during that webcast about how he went to London and how everything somehow happened, it’s just the trust, that relationship that Swāmījī has with Gurujī and with Mahāprabhujī, that allows it to happen, whereas for us it doesn’t. Okay, we’ll never do things on the same level as Swāmījī does. But I’m sure when you think within yourself, there have been times when Swāmījī has asked you to do something. I’m from Australia, so I often think about things related to surfing. There was one surfer about fifteen years ago—he wasn’t standing up; he was lying on the board. In his type of surfing, he was the best there had ever been. He would do things that everybody else thought were completely stupid. He would go to places where the waves were breaking in such a way that nobody else would go, and then he would ride there and succeed. I remember once seeing an interview with him. The interviewer asked, “You do things that nobody else even dreams of doing, yet they work. What are you thinking when you decide to do that?” He replied, “Well, I have just one philosophy: you’ll never know if you never go.” That was his philosophy. He added, “Most of the time, when I let go and just decide to do it, I end up getting through because the wave is about to break on my head, but I make it through.” The same applies when Swāmījī asks us to do something that is clearly beyond our normal borders or beyond our thinking about our potential or capability. We may have the same feeling about our sādhanā: that we can’t do that, we can’t go that far inside, we can’t let go of something. Well, you’ll never know if you never go. You’ll never try. I don’t really think Swāmījī ever says anything without a reason or without meaning. And to get that blessing, like Swāmījī receives from Mahāprabhujī, it requires complete trust from his side. Gurujī says, “Go to Europe,” and he goes to Europe. You see, also in the Līlāmṛt, Gurujī prays to Mahāprabhujī when he is in Gujarat that he might be able to speak Gujarati. In the morning, Mahāprabhujī tells him in a dream, “Yes, in the morning you’ll be able to speak Gujarati.” And he does. That’s trust, that’s faith, that’s bhakti. Okay, those things may not happen on the same level to us, but when Swāmījī asks you to do something—like now, he has given you this sādhanā to do—he hasn’t given it to us because he thinks we can’t really do it; he gives it anyway. Everyone here has come because of some very special link with Swāmījī. Swāmījī knows that and sees it, and Mahāprabhujī sees it, but perhaps we just don’t realize how special it is. It is not by random chance that you become a disciple of Swāmījī. And when he asks us to go forward, to try something different, if we have trust in him, it will happen. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. Satguru Deva Kī Jai. Just to support Swāmī Jasrāc Pūrījī’s discourse about the rain, sometimes things work the other way. From the construction point of view, rain is not very welcome, especially when we are about to cast a slab—RCC slab, concrete slab, Stahlbeton plate. You see, it’s a lot of work. When you make the walls, you start to prepare support for the slab, then you make the reinforcement, the steel reinforcement. Our RCC designer, Kṛiyāśāṭ, is very strict, so everything must be perfect; all levels must be exact, and everything must be packed. Sometimes it takes two or three months to prepare such a construction before we can start pouring concrete. And sometimes the concreting process itself takes two days or more. So the last thing we want is rain, because if it starts to rain, everything can be destroyed. So we were offering prayer: “Mahāprabhujī, please don’t send us rain now.” But for about two years, whenever we had concreting, it was always raining. Always. Whether in January, February, October, March, or April, it was always raining. You can imagine the engineer sitting on the slab, furious with all the gods, gurus, and everything, because it was always raining at the wrong time. When you have two hundred workers and everyone is wet, and the rain is blowing horizontally with cold winds, freezing cold, and you are wet, then bhakti is a serious test. Sometimes we had a river; we made a staircase once, and it was a river of rain going down. Once we were doing a casting in the White House many years back—White House, casting, yes, White House. (Sorry, we don’t understand.) Before that, our dear gurubhāī Govind Purī came to me. He was doing concreting while I was in Europe, like now. He said, “You know, everything was packed with clouds. When you were in Europe and we had some concreting, I went to Gurujī and said, ‘Gurujī, please arrange that it will not rain. Speak with Mahāprabhujī.’ And Gurujī said, ‘OK,’ and it did not rain. It started to rain only after we had finished everything. I remember this very well.” So, again, concreting was underway, and clouds were gathering. I went to Gurujī. Why not follow good advice? I said, “Gurujī, please arrange with Mahāprabhujī. You have a good connection to him. Ask Mahāprabhujī to hold the rain until we finish concreting.” Gurujī said, “Mahāprabhujī will take care.” So I came back very relieved. We started concreting, and heavy rain began to pour down. My, I was shouting there on the slab, “To Govinda you made it work, and to me you are not making it work? What kind of guru are you? That’s not right.” Then the rain stopped. So rain is very welcome, but not always—usually. Regarding the second thing, how we trust, I have a very nice example. We were once invited to a hotel for lunch in Jaipur. About thirty foreigners and Swāmījī were offered a very nice meal. Sabjī means vegetable, and there were purīs. Sabjī purī, and we were eating, and we were good eaters. We all liked purīs because they are so nice—soft, sweet, and tasty. There was a man from Slovenia, a big Vashista, two by two meters, who ate ten purīs. Usually we eat four or five, and I was beside him, and I also ate ten purīs. So we had a small competition, and Kṛṣṇa Nānjī was there too. He also ate ten purīs, and then we went on to fifteen. I was starting to give up slowly; I was quite full. Then Swāmījī observed that competition and said, “Krishnan, can you eat 108 purīs?” Krishnan replied, “Why not, Swāmījī?” So he started. Not only purīs but with full vegetables—108 purīs together with vegetables, everything. We were all sitting there looking, not believing it was possible. When the disciple has trust in his master, he can do anything. Many years back, Swāmījī was baking kukuruc in Kitech Hazen. There was a fire, and Swāmījī said, “Yes, take the kukuruṭ from the fire.” And there were some people who were just taking it out without burning their hands. So when we have that trust in the Master, everything is possible. And when we don’t, then the rain comes at the wrong time. Thank you very much. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. I couldn’t remember one more time. How many did you eat, Kṛṣṇānandjī? Really, 108? I can remember one more concrete story. Maybe Yogeshjī won’t remember it, or he will when I tell it. In Jaipur, when we were making the roof of the hall, a similar situation occurred. Mahāprabhujī supplied rain. It happened just when it was nearly finished. I remember it was pouring rain, really heavy. Yogeshjī came to myself and Premānandjī and said, “If it rains like this five minutes more, then this level will be completely destroyed.” And it stopped, just about two minutes later. Nothing was destroyed at all, but somehow it had come right to the border. To the very border. You know, so often when Swāmījī tells us to do something, it reminds me of a little child who still hasn’t taken their first steps. They’re standing there holding on, not prepared to do it by themselves. And then one moment they get that push. For us, we get it from Swāmījī. For one young boy I know, someone held a chocolate in front of him, and suddenly his hands went from clutching to reaching out, and he started walking. You know, Swāmījī does that so often. There’s something you’re holding onto, thinking, “No, I can’t do that, I can’t do that,” and then you find out, oh, I’m doing it. I remember when Avatārpuri was learning to ride a bike—parents may have had this same experience. Eventually, I got quite sick of running behind him. I just stopped and stood there, and after about twenty meters, he said, “Oh, maybe you can let go now.” And I said, “I’m nowhere near you.” When he realized that, he went, “Boop.” But you know that feeling? Swāmījī somehow does that all the time. He puts you in a situation, gets something to happen, and you suddenly realize, “Hey, I’m doing something I never realized I could do.” It’s just that we have to be open to let him do his work.