Guru Pournami 2011, Swami's Birthday

Hari om. Everybody's so worried that I'm fifty-eight. They want to hold me up and carry me around. Actually, this is only remembrance of my date of birth. So today, with my master in mind, I say to all of you thank you very much. But what is a birthday? It's a cake with a candle on it and everybody says 'happy birthday' and everybody curses you with 'I wish you many more years'. Really, it's my desire whether or not I want to live the many more years. You should be saying to me 'enjoy this day', and I'll say the same to you. To all those people who came with those good messages, thank you very much.

We have thirteen full-moons in a year, not twelve. The blue moon is the thirteenth full-moon. Out of the thirteen full-moons, God has found one in the month of July and dedicated it to all gurus. The nakshaktra (constellation), the position of the yug, and the dasi, determine the character of this moon. So they've found that everything about the July pournami is in line, is in order. So they said, 'This is the one we dedicate to the guru'. Next month is Agasthiar pournami. August comes from Agasthiar. Then January pournami is dedicated to Ganesha. January comes from the Greek god Janes, with an 'e', but if you take the 'J' out and put a 'G' there you get Ganes. The Greek god Janes had two heads to see what comes in and what goes out. January is the first month of the year, the remover of all obstacles like Ganesha. Buddha's enlightenment was on the 8th of April, so April pournami is Buddha pournami. November pournami is called Akhanda Sasti. At this time Mahavishnu was testing Lord Shiva, and Lord Shiva said that nothing could move him. So Mahavishnu tested him by changing himself to a woman, Mohini, and danced in front of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva thought he was a woman and just by energising through his third eye, Skanda was born. Skanda is Lord Muruga - Puranic story. That is the lunar month of November. But the most powerful pournami is today, all over the world.

God created this day and everything around us. Not a dewdrop or blade of grass can move without Him thinking it. Remember, whatever you do, think of God in it. That is the only way you will be able to experience this great uniqueness, unity, togetherness and love for God. There's no other way you can love God. Don't think that God is a part-time lover. God is not a part-time lover. God is a full-time lover. Just as when you have girlfriend or boyfriend, every five minutes you are messaging, 'I miss you, I love you,' you can only remember God in the same way if you love Him with the same intensity. I'm in love with my guru, madly in love with my guru. I only think 'guru, guru, guru,' - that's the only thing that resonates my being. As Dean always says, 'Whatever is possible in his life is through the grace of God and Guru'.

While I was driving today someone said on the radio, 'Get connected to DSTV, only R599'. You can connect to God - and it's free! Enjoy God. I can't tell you more than that on this day. You are not enjoying God. Your faces are miserable. God. You have all this tension and misery because you don't have God as part of your life. You have God once a month on pournami. After that you forget the Peedam unless you have a problem. Have God twenty-four-seven. God is ever-present, ever-willing. No man is like that, no human being is like that and, in that beatitude of loving God, knowing God, and having oneness with God, you'll not experience God in any other way. You're not going to sit in front of a murthi and say 'Come Kali, come. Come kali'. Kali won't come because you don't have the dedication, devotion and unity. It must really be intense. This superficial thing doesn't work. In the Gayathri Peedam we have no Christians, no Hindus, no Moslems, we have the divine children of Gayathri, of God. All of you all live in that divinity, that beatitude of Gayathri alone. Find a guru and hold onto him for dear life. I know you all came for my birthday. But find your guru and hold onto him for dear life.

One thing I must tell you about gurus: at the lowest ebb they'll kick you and pretend they don't care. Your weakness is what is determined then. So some of you might be thinking, 'I've got questions, I'm going through hell. Guru, you know everything, why don't you know that?' My job is to put on the bait and catch the fish. And when I put the bait on, if you are interested in sardines and I'm using different bait, that's your problem. Even in their worst situations people go to Suncoast Casino with their last ten rand, and say 'Om Mahalakshami,' and put their money. God is not a gambler. Some people even come and ask me for the lotto numbers. Do you think I'm stupid? If I knew the lotto numbers I'd take them myself!

Somebody said to me they're not coming back to the temple because Every time they come here Ashok takes the mic and asks for money and it's not right. I said, 'What do you think? God is paying my lights account?' Two weeks later he lost fifty thousand rand at Suncoast and He wouldn't even give us fifty rand! Don't play games with God. And if you have an appointment with God, don't come at eleven o'clock for a three o'clock appointment. Keep your appointment with God. Just now when I was doing the pushpum, my master said to me, 'We don't know how to bless you for the energy you've created in the ashram - it's so unique'. I said: 'You blessed me with the downpour tonight'.

Just Remember God

Hari Om.

Some of you might be wondering why I'm such an idiot to sit in the middle of a fire. I'm trying to heal myself so I don't have triple bypass surgery next week .My gurus said it's possible that I can heal myself. This is the third one like this that we've done and I really feel today that I'm cured and that I won't need major surgery, minor surgery maybe, but not major. And tomorrow I might feel even better. But right now I feel on top of the world. I feel lots of positive energy and I feel healed. So, to all of you, I say thank you for even being here. Your energies also make a difference to my healing.

Sorry we had to start so late but some things we have to do. And this is one thing that we had to do. And the same time while I was there I was also healing some of you – conditions that you have now and that may arise in the future. For example, there's one child here today, a teenager, who will be involved in a major accident, so that healing was also done today. All that is part of our job. I have a big job but you have a small job and your job is to make yourself present here. That's all, and that for some of you is even such a difficult task. We have so many situations to not join in pooja.

The last time we did this we had a chakra in the hawan and afterwards one of the twins removed the chakra and there was a perfect image in the chakra of me sitting in the centre of the ring. So we don't just have to believe in God. For us that is impossible - to believe in God. But we just ask for one unit. You are made of many units. We are just asking that you remember God, one unit. And once you have that one unit, the beatitude, love and togetherness that you experience with God is never impossible.

We are involved with many things in life, some of them not spiritual at all. You go to a doctor and he tells you to abort your baby. That's not spiritual at all. God has His purpose and knows why he's given you such a baby. God knows that. Doctors don't, but we do it because we think it is the right thing to do. Everything you do in spirituality is right, but everything you do on the material plane may not be right. On the material plane if you want to go to Stanger you need to use a motor vehicle. In that process you are destroying things in the atmosphere. But in reality you don't need a motor vehicle to go to Stanger. In that process you are destroying nothing, but are strengthening your spiritual abilities.

Today the temperature in the fire was way past sixty degrees Celsius. You believe that God will encapsule you, and you keep the brain cool. Once your brain is cooled nothing else can happen to you. You might get one or two burns but that's just on your body. It'll get burnt later anyway. So again, thank you very much for being here to help me heal, to help yourself heal.

Om.