These are the colours required for Navarathri Saris: there must be three red for durga, three yellow for Luxmi, ad three white for Saraswathi. All this smoke is from the synthetic clothes we wear. If we had cotton saris we wouldn't have this problem. We shouldn’t be wearing unnatural fabrics.
By tenth day of Navarathri we should be pure in thought. The reason for the flag is for us. We are saying that from this moment we going to conquer and destroy our negative aspects. On the tenth day we’re supposed to take the flag down, but here we don't because I know you will all go back to being negative. You should come here every day, pure in thought, for the nine days.
We have destruction in our lives. God created natural disasters. Humans in South Africa have created a natural disaster. We are not thinking of God the way we should be. If every muscle, every nadi, vibrated in God, we would never have to worry. My doctor told me that I'm a walking time-bomb and gave me a long shopping list of medication. I'm ready to go when the Mother wants to take me, be it in five years or in fifteen. No, not twenty-two years. That's too long. We can call God whatever we want. Shiva means ‘light from here to there’. Gayathri means ‘light from the sun’. If you don't have love and devotion for God in your rituals, you are wasting your time and your camphor.
One day a worker decided to move his desk from his office to the passage. His associates thought he was losing it. Then he moved his desk to just outside the restroom. And, finally, he moved his desk to the restroom by the toilets. Eventually, someone had the courage to ask him why he had done that. His answer was that the loo was the only place where people actually knew what they are doing. Like that, you must know what you are doing when you pray.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches that we must have evenness of mind. We must come to the ashram in that state. We can offer even a twig with devotion and God will accept it. Are we prepared to give a twig? No. What will other people say? There are two words that Brother Haridas used to use: Atma Sudideni - purity of the soul, the atma, the self. Do not want what others have. Be happy with what you have. We do this navarathri pooja so that, by the tenth day we will all have one single thought: ‘I love God and God alone, unconditionally and universally’.
