He is Closer to Us Than Our Own Breathing

I was actually hiding today because I really do not like this day as it is always painful for me—after four years I feel a blockage inside to speak because this departure of Gurudev was the biggest and most difficult thing I have experienced in this spiritual life.  It feels so hard, so I was trying to hide today—but then I said, “no," go on the screen and just share and be present with the devotees. It is beautiful and I received a lot to hear all of you remembering Guru Mahārāj. I don't know what to really say about him.

Right now I just have a very fine and tender connection with Guru Mahārāj, it is not about the big, mystic, miraculous things that he has done—it is something softer, it is his continuous presence that is always with me whatever I am doing.  Two days ago I was thinking he really saved me when I was thinking about the difference in my life between before I met him and now—this is like darkness and light. 

Just by surrendering to him, so many things changed slowly. This surrendering is the main point of everything and whenever I listen to some hari-kathā of Guru Mahārāj it always comes back to this point that he was saying everything is important for spiritual practice but in the end what you need to have is surrender—to fully surrender and to give yourself one-hundred percent to Guru Mahārāj and he will guide you.  It is so nice because even today every one of us has experienced that.  

Whenever I go in front of the altar, I have some questions for Guru Mahārāj and he answers that. One day I was asking him, "Gurudev, what shall I do now?" Then when I woke up in the morning I listened inside to the feeling to read the eleventh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. I was really quite surprised because it was the same as when Gurudev would sit in front of me and give me this advice. So this is again showing how close he is. Today I have no inspiration to speak of many mystical things about him but this tender soft relationship with him, this closeness, that he is always there with us. It is not only the doing, but it is also the being, and from that being the surrender to him comes; this connection with him is going deeper and deeper on another level.  

Together with the scriptures and practical knowledge and experience, I am speaking about the inner letting go. Today I remember the time when he was passing away—it went like a film through my mind.  Everything that happened there was so extremely special that it was beyond what we can experience as ordinary. Maybe it is just this little thing I want to share, the mood of tenderness that I have with him right now.  

A lot of devotees really had a big fear, actually nearly panicked that he will go at that time in Kolkata Maṭh; it was clear that he will leave his body.  So, what has Gurudev done?  He started to give the inspiration to start with kīrtan. So the devotees who were there continuously for eight nights and days were singing kīrtans for Guru Mahārāj and they kept on going and going and going and the more they were doing kīrtan the more ecstatic it became.  Some of the devotees there were not sleeping anymore; they would just keep on going, going, and going, and the side effect of that was that the devotees started to get a little bit tired. They were not tired of the spiritual emotions, but the practical matters there related to the energy of the physical body were getting depleted and the result was the panic was going more and more down.

The last moment before Guru Mahārāj left was so sweet. Everybody was sitting to have prasādam and this evening one devotee got the inspiration from Guru Mahārāj to go to buy some ice cream for everybody, which is unusual. Everyone started to completely relax because they were eating ice cream and when the last devotee was finished taking his prasādam, exactly at that moment when everybody was so relaxed, so peaceful— at that moment we heard from upstairs that Guru Mahārāj's pulse is going down and everyone knew that the moment that he will go.  So we were all running upstairs and even though we were trying to prepare ourselves all these days, nobody was prepared for this moment. 

And you cannot believe what we saw in the devotees when they said he has left. They were screaming and they were falling down everywhere on the balcony. I have never experienced something like this and it was like for a moment everybody stopped life for one second.  This was only one little part of that moment when he departed.  It is his disappearance day today and it was hard for us that he left, that he is physically no longer present there joking with us and giving us his very deep and profound instructions.  When I was there for three months in the Kolkata Maṭh every single day he gave me just one phrase and this instruction went in so deep and touched me like an arrow, indicating the next step for me or whatever.  

So, I want to go back to the ice cream and to the softness and sweetness and closeness of Guru Mahārāj. It is again hard for me today to accept that physically he is no more and that he is hearing me. Maybe one day I will accept it. But his tenderness, his sweetness, and his guidance are absolutely the same; there is no difference. And if anyone is thinking Gurudev is not with me or I cannot feel him, I had not had enough conversations with him to have his connection,  or I do not have the inner connection with him, it is only your mind that is telling you that. Gurudev is closer to us than our breathing.  Think about this; he is closer to us than our breathing— it is just that sometimes maybe we don't feel it, but he is taking care of all of us. The more we surrender, the more he can guide us.  So I wish that everybody can get some ice cream today just to remember his caring mood, that even until the last moment he was taking so much care of us and helping us to survive this moment by comforting us and to let him go physically in that moment.  

So, today I am a little bit shy in my heart maybe because I am in this tender mood so I hope I could remember Guru Mahārāj nicely and give some inspiration for you.  He is always with us, closer than our breathing.

—Ananga Manjari Dasi, Switzerland

Source of transcription: GOKUL meeting, 5.5.21