He Understands What is Inside Our Minds and Hearts

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After about 8 or 9 times in India, I was celebrating in Kartik with Srila Gurudev.  I was very lucky because for some reason his sevaks made arrangements for me to closely access him. He was always very sweet and made me comfortable around him. Every devotee attending Kartik whether from Russia, Europe, or anywhere said they had a similar feeling of personal closeness to him.  It's amazing that although he has so many disciples and associates,  he remembered everyone's name and where they are from. This is very amazing.

Also, my personal feeling was that Gurudev always understands my mind and heart; I could tell Gurudev had the ability to see more than what we can see with our eyes. In 2011, I came to Kolkata and told Gurudev that we plan to move from the US to Poland for a while. Gurudev shook his head and said, "It's going to take time." Later on, we saw that it took more than 8 months. Gurudev had that vision for the future.

Another time in Kolkata, I asked Gurudev to go to Mayapur. He gave us blessings and touched our heads. We went for one week. A few days after coming back, I asked for permission to go to Puri. He did not say no but his mood was not the same as when we were going to Mayapur. Anyway, he said OK, go. We went to Puri and I drank juice on the street and got sick. I went to the hospital and thought I will die, but I got injections and felt better and returned to Kolkata. I'm sure Gurudev saw that I will get sick but on the other side, he didn’t want to stop me from going there due to my strong desire to go to the dham.

Another fantastic quality of Gurudev was that he always prepared himself to give lectures. He dedicated time before the lecture, more than an hour. He went through his notes and books before the lecture. That is also an example that we should always prepare before preaching. We should not just sit down and preach. We should make some notes. Gurudev would always give a timed lecture, very concise with a lot of details, but never went away from the topic. He gave examples and stories on the topic but started and ended on the same topic and gave conclusions—perfect lectures.

—Sanjay Das (Boston)
spoken on April 15, 2020
video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNPfhtMGkQw


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