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Swamiji composed a bhajan. We know he is capable of creating ten bhajans a day simply through speech—he does not sit down to write, but brings forth a bhajan in the course of his daily activity. For us, his lectures offer a complete explanation of our path, addressing from countless angles the leanings of each heart. Since every seeker comes with a different approach, Swamiji supports every one of us day by day. The refrain of the bhajan that Swamiji wrote is: Dayālu Hamānam Āpakālīna—You are the merciful one who gave us Your name. Swamiji placed great weight upon the name: the Name of God is God Himself. When you hold the Name of God in your mantra, God is present within you, and the more you repeat the mantra, the more present He becomes. Therefore, repeating Your name awakens bhakti in me. Why? Because love—God—is actually bhakti: pure bhakti, selfless bhakti. It contains everything; it is entirely selfless bhakti. And so I am dyed in the color of love within. The more I repeat Your name—Swamiji tells us, this is his own experience in repeating God’s name. By singing the bhajan, we can connect with this truth and manifest it in ourselves. The first verse says, in effect: “Up to now, I have never forgotten You, my Lord, and I truly hope that I shall never forget You. Yet”—Swamiji adds—“if, somehow, I should forget You for a moment, please, do not forget me.” This is bhakti. Day by day the fire of love burns within me. How is one to cross the ocean of the world, of Saṃsāra? Saṃsāra is a stage in our life that we must overcome, pass through, understand, release, and transcend. How can I cross the ocean of this Saṃsāra, this life of change, this changeable world that brings disappointment and the ups and downs of emotion? Swamiji replies: the name of the Sadguru is a ship—a very great ship that provides the means to cross the ocean of Saṃsāra, the ocean of Māyā, and offers everyone, every human being, every Insān, the chance to board and be carried across. This is the approach. “Videśa, videśa, bahuta ahaṃkāra phiriyā, viśva brahmāṇḍa bhī kīnā? Apane jaise dātā aura nahīṃ dekhā.” I wandered through country after country, both within India and far beyond. All the countries I saw, the whole world I saw, the whole of Saṃsāra I saw, and I travelled. I moved through the whole Viśva, extending even to other realms. But one like You I never saw. Apane jaise dātā—a giver like You—nowhere else did I see. You gave me everything; You gave me Mokṣa. “Āpakā nāma sama aura nahīṃ dūjā, bahuta sādhanā hama kīnā.” Your name, Your word, is supreme. I performed a great deal of sādhanā, a great deal indeed. And I realised: “Upāya sabhī heri jātā.” All these worldly means are simply useless—unreal. That is my experience. In my sādhanā I saw that this world is something we must see as unreal and so come to the Reality, the Unchangeable. The great Lord whom we worship is Bhagavān Dīpa, the Light of the Universe, Nārāyaṇa. You are Viṣṇu Himself; You are the Avatāra, the manifestation of God, Hari, come to this world. “Mahāvardhan sadā yahī māṅguṅ”—this is my great wish before You, my Lord. Please fulfil this wish that I am about to utter: grant darśana to the bhaktas. Here it is clear that Swamiji knows the value of darśana, for he gained it through his severe tapasyā, his intense sādhanā life after life; yet he wishes it for all his bhaktas. “Śrī Maheśvarānanda kahe: ‘Tere caraṇoṃ, tanamana arpaṇa kīnā.’” I, Śrī Maheśvarānandajī, declare: at Your holy feet I have surrendered all—my body, my mind, my whole self. Through this I realise. Dev Puruṣa kī jaya, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Śrī Swāmī Maheśvarānandajī Gurudeva kī jaya. Oṃ Śrī Bhagavān, Dev Puruṣa Mahādeva kī jaya. Oṃ bale Śrī Dīpa Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī jaya, Sadguru Deva kī jaya, Guru Nānaka Sā kī jaya. Swamiji asked us this evening to offer some small commentary on certain bhajans—two very old bhajans of India, one by Mīrābāī and the other by Guru Nānaka, both well known to us. Many of these saints used images from nature to express the intense longing for darśana of their Iṣṭa Devatā and the accompanying feelings of remorse, sadness, or frustration. Mīrābāī explains that it is like a lotus without water; she feels she is drying up. Similarly, Guru Nānaka describes how pointless life is without mantra, without the Guru Mantra. Just as pointless, he says, as a bird without a wing, an elephant without a tusk or teeth, a sun without a mother, a well without water, or the earth without rain. With such beautiful imagery and metaphor they portray this condition. It is hard to imagine—this is a very high level; these were great saints. To bring it down to earth for the common person, for the sādhaka, for people like you and me who are striving: if we miss our sādhanā in the morning, we miss the chance to have a golden day. By doing this practice in the Brahma Muhūrta, we lift ourselves up and become more able to rise above emotions and situations. Bolā Śrī Dīpa Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī jaya, Śrī Siddha Vaiśvāra Mahādeva kī jaya, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Sādhu Guru Swāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān kī jaya, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Swāmī Maheśvarānandajī Yogīrāja kī jaya, Satya Sanātana Dharma kī jaya, Āja kī ānanda kī jaya.