Durga Ji's Satsang at the Hans Jayanti Festival Orlando, Florida
on the Evening of 7 November 1975

Jai Satchitanand, dear premies.

You know, every program just gets more incredible than the last. In Germany, it was so, so fantastic. We drove up, and we could feel it so much. It was like, "This is it; this is just so beautiful." Then we went to Australia, and it was a completely different experience. Everything was very beautiful, but it was very mellow.

And now that we're here, at Hans Jayanti, this program is just … it's incredible. We were coming up, and it was so beautiful. It's very hard for me to contain it in my heart. It feels like I'm gonna explode. This family that Maharaj Ji is manifesting is just so incredible. It's so beautiful.

Really, this is such a family. I am just starting to understand what a family this is. When a man and a woman get married and they have a child, it's so much joy when they have that baby. it's their own child, their own love. They grow, and learn to love each other so deeply. And we're watching this family, Guru Maharaj Ji's family, grow, and grow, and grow. With each new member, we grow stronger and bigger. And then we come together to see each other and it's so incredible to see this. I wish you could be here right now and just look at how beautiful it is. I know it's just as incredible or more so looking at Guru Maharaj Ji when you haven't seen him for so long. There's nothing more beautiful. But also it's just such an incredible feeling and a beautiful sight to see all of his children gathered together, working together, and manifesting this Knowledge.

We came last night and checked out the whole set-up here, the whole stage. It looked really beautiful, but it had been raining, and I thought, "Forget it. They just can't finish it." There was wet paint everywhere, and nothing was really ready. I could see the premies were working so hard, but it was less than twenty-four hours until we were going to be starting the program. And yet, I knew that it would happen. Because it always does. Maharaj Ji puts us to that point where we feel like, "Forget it. I can't do it anymore. It's up to you, Guru Maharaj Ji." And then you have to just let it happen.

We have to really work together. That's the beautiful part, you know. There's so many people in this world, and so many people have so many different jobs, different careers, and different things. People work for money to get their food, to buy their clothing, to get shelter. That's the reason why people are working. And maybe there's not that much harmony with these people who are working, but when premies get together and pull their energy together to make a festival like this, it's just so incredible and so beautiful, because we really feel that energy that's being manifested; we feel that something really beautiful is happening.

It's so beautiful to be able to do service for Guru Maharaj Ji in whatever capacity that we have to fill. We could go out and do any job. We could do anything. But where are we going? You know? We're going around in a circle. Although we're accomplishing action, although we're doing something, it's like, "Where is it taking us?" But when we do service, real selfless service, then all our actions are dedication to Guru Maharaj Ji. Ji.

When we start really realizing this Knowledge, that's all we want to do - dedicate every action we do to Guru Maharaj Ji. Then that's all we can do, because that's our greatest pleasure. Not that we always do it. But when we don't, we realize, "Where am I? I'm really out there. I'm really spacing out," or something like this. But again, he lets us come back to that place and be at the place where we can dedicate.

This festival is in honor of Shri Guru Maharaj Ji, Guru Maharaj Ji's Guru Maharaj Ji. I have no idea what that means, but I know it's so incredible, because our Guru Maharaj Ji is our everything. He is our everything. But Guru Maharaj Ji's father, it's like he is his father and his Guru Maharaj Ji.

We all have fathers, and maybe some of us didn't know our fathers very well, or maybe some of us were very close to our fathers; maybe some of our fathers didn't love us, or maybe our fathers loved us very much. It's different for each premie. And maybe our fathers really tried to teach us something. But whatever they tried to teach us was a concept that they had. Maybe they thought it was the best thing for us, that we should do this a certain way. They were passing on their knowledge. But it was only knowledge of the world, only knowledge that really would take us nowhere.

But Shri Maharaj Ji had the perfect Knowledge. And he passed this to his son, Sant Ji. It's like Maharaj Ji was saying last night in the mahatma conference that he had with the mahatmas here. He said that when Shri Maharaj Ji called the four brothers into the room and revealed Knowledge, he asked, "What would you do if I gave you a seed?" And Maharaj Ji said, "I wouldn't waste it, and I wouldn't just throw it away."

Guru Maharaj Ji took that seed so seriously and meditated on that Knowledge so seriously, until he perfected it. And he's showing us that it's not something impossible; that this Knowledge is not something that's just an endless goal, something that is out there and we can never really attain. He's saying, "Listen. I did it, and you can do it too. It just takes practice."

If you have a bow and arrow, an archery set, and you have a target, the first time you shoot it, it may not even hit the target. But the more you practice, the more you practice, and the more we practice, it gets more centered - until we really can take that arrow and shoot it right in the center. Anything in this world, anything that we do - water skiing, snow skiing, any kind of thing in this world - it just takes practice. The more we practice, the better we get at it, until we really become perfect in it.

That's where Guru Maharaj Ji is now. He's perfected Knowledge. And he's just come here to say, "Listen. I have something for you, and you can also perfect it."

Each one of us has so many experiences. I have completely different experiences than you have, and you have different experiences than anyone else. Even though sometimes they seem really similar, for each one of us it's really, really different. But each experience, now that we have this Knowledge, is really something precious. Before Knowledge, whatever would come our way, it was like we were really asleep and just not really understanding. But now, everything that happens in this lifetime is really Guru Maharaj Ji pointing us back, centering us in. Everything that happens to us now, premies, we can't just sluff anymore. We can't just say, "Well, it's nothing." We have to really be awake. That experience whatever it may be, we can really see Guru Maharaj Ji in it, bringing us, calling us back.

Guru Maharaj Ji is always, always within us. This Knowledge is always within us. It's our very life source. And so it's not like Knowledge leaves us. We leave; our concentration leaves. So to become perfect in this Knowledge, we have to really practice it. That means really meditating - meditating in the morning, trying to be in meditation through the day, and trying to dedicate our every action to Guru Maharaj Ji.

It sounds very easy, but in practical experience it sometimes is very difficult. But slowly, slowly we're really growing. Maybe there are brand-new premies here, and we're all experiencing on different levels, but I know when I first received Knowledge I didn't really have any idea what Knowledge was. But I knew that if we just keep trying, it becomes clearer and clearer.

Anything, once it's understood, becomes simple. Once we start understanding more and more of what's happening, of what we're really here for, what this life is all about, it becomes simpler and simpler and simpler until it's just the most simple thing - that our Guru Maharaj Ji is here, and we are his devotees. We've been waiting so long for him to come, and he's come. Shri Maharaj Ji started that vine of love, and now Guru Maharaj Ji has taken that seed and really, really planted it within our hearts.

All I can say is that Guru Maharaj Ji is the perfect example for us to follow. I know all of us really know that, but we have to really, really try to see Maharaj Ji as our perfect example. Because he took that seed that his father, his spiritual

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SO MANY BEAUTIFUL LOVERS

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father and his earthly father, gave to him, he really took it so deeply in his heart, and he just didn't waste it. We waste it so much; we space out so much. But that doesn't mean that we're hopeless. That means that we just need to get a little more together and need to practice and try harder. This festival is just such a beautiful opportunity for all of us to really get together, to work together, and really manifest that love that Maharaj Ji's shown us, and experience it. That's the whole key - just experiencing it. We can talk about it and talk about it and talk about it, but it doesn't do anybody any good if no one experiences it.

If I experience something beautiful, what good does that do you? If you experience something beautiful, that's not really helping me - unless you can give me satsang about it and then I can experience something. That's really what sat- sang is - sharing something that each one of us has experienced with our brothers and sisters. Because we're all Maharaj Ji's children.

It's so incredible to be here, and I'm just so glad that each one of you made it and are here. This is the best place in this whole wide world to be right now. There's nowhere better in the whole world than right here, right now. We're actually very, very fortunate to be here, and I'm sure you know that.

The world has so many dreams of what they want to be, or what you want to do, going here and going there. I know when I got out of college I thought, "Well, I think I'll just accomplish my dream and see the world." That's all I wanted to do, because I thought that was going to really bring me peace, really bring me happiness. My search was just to see the most beautiful places in the world.

So I started flying for an airline, and i thought, "That'll do it." I would go here, and I would go there; I'd go all these really beautiful places. I was really attracted to tropical places. I thought, "That's it," - the beach, the palm trees, the sunsets, and the whole thing.

Each place I'd go, it was just really beautiful. But it was like, "Is this it? There's gotta be more. There's just gotta be more." Then I'd go, "It must be here," and I'd go there. I was running to all these different places trying to find that perfect place, trying to find that place where I was going to go, "Wow. This is it. This is where I'm going to live; this is where I'm going to be." But I never found it. Finally, I thought, "It just can't … i've seen too many beautiful places, and it's just not there."

By Guru Maharaj Ji's grace, we don't have to do that anymore. We know that that perfect place is within us, and we don't have to run all over this world trying to find it. It's right here within us all the time, right now. No matter where we go, we can tune into this vibration that is our life source.

And now we need to tell the rest of the world, "If you're suffering and if you're miserable …" - maybe some people don't see themselves right now as suffering or miserable, but at some point in their life it's going to be like, "This isn't why I'm here. I can't find it." So we have to be really clear and ready to say, "Listen. I can help you, I think. I can show you something. I can lead you to someone who can help you." If we're not even clear enough to do that, if we're so crazy ourselves, who's going to listen to us? So we have to get really clear.

Maharaj Ji's said so many times that we're his hands. He's one man. Because that's the way he chose to come, in one body. And yet he chose to have so many beautiful lovers, so many beautiful premies to do his work for him. We have to be really clear, so that when we go out to this world, we'll be ready to help people. If we're not strong, then forget it. If we're on the ground and so weak that we can't stand up ourselves, and somebody else is on the ground, how are we going to help pick them up? So we have to be very strong so that we can pick people up and take them to Guru Maharaj Ji.

He's ready. He's just waiting for us to get ready. And by his grace, that'll happen very soon.

All through every day, I feel like, "Oh, gee, I wish I could share this experience right now with the premies. This is just so incredible." Or I see Maharaj Ji in such a way that I want to capture that moment forever, because I want to share it. But now's that chance, and when it really comes, I don't have anything to say. Sometimes it really gets me. But I just want to say that it's wonderful being here, seeing all of you, and being together again as a family. Thank you premies. Jai Satchitanand.