Faith and Devotion

Weekly Knowledge #61 Los Angeles, California
07 Aug 1996 USA


Faith is the subject of head. Devotion is the subject of heart. And meditation is of both and connects both.

A mature intellect is devoted. A mature heart is full of knowledge. And meditation matures your intellect as well as your heart.

Mr. John Pb: But people with good intellect seem to have less faith.

Guruji: They have more faith in the matter. Head puts the faith in the matter more and heart puts the faith in the abstract more.

It's next to impossible that one can be in total lack of faith or total lack of devotion. It's only a question of balance.



NEWS FLASH

Guruji arrived at the Washington airport and drove to three Satsangs and had dinner, then dinner, then dinner. Next day Bhanu shopped from 10 am to 5 pm.

Bhanu says, "Don't write that!"

Dr. Ganesh Prabhu, one of the leading cardiovascular surgeons, formerly of Johns Hopkins Hospital, asked if he could sit and meditate alone with Guruji without anyone else around. The deal was struck. Dr. Prabhu used a holter monitor on Guruji to measure the heart function while he was meditating. Afterwards Guruji departed for Los Angeles.

Dr. Prabhu called Guruji at about 8:00 that evening with the information that the heart rate recorded went from 10 per minute to 2 and stopped completely twice. He was even more excited and amazed that the machine kept recording a heartbeat for nearly 10 hours after being disconnected from Guruji. He asked, "What happened? What happened?" His joy knew no limits. Never before in his career had he seen anything like this. He said he would frame the read-out.

Guruji arrived in Los Angeles for the long-awaited Summer Celebration. Sixty people were on seva teams with Ann McFadden at the helm. Nine swamis who were our guests began an intensive sightseeing campaign, dragging Wally and John through Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Sea World starting at 8:00 in the morning. Often you could hear the swamis saying, "Where is Honey?" (Wally's motor home.)

There was a grand Satsang in San Diego with the Swamis. Then as Guruji arrived in L.A. there was a memorable Prayer Conference evening at the famous Agape Center. Everyone spoke about unity. Then Guruji stood up and shocked the audience by saying, "Unity is impossible." He continued by explaining that in order for there to be unity, there has to be two. Yet there is only One in the whole universe.

Next day Guruji gave a beautiful talk at the Unity Church in Tustin. "All of your life becomes a meditation," he said. "Whether you look at the trees or the flowers or talk with people, you are in meditation." He encouraged people to stay with their daily meditation practice. After the talk we all looked up and saw a big puffy heart in the clear blue sky. That evening there was an electrifying Satsang with many birthdays at the Doubletree Hotel with 350 course participants.