Today Gurudeva talks about the visit of a group of devotees of Amritanandamayi, Ammachi, to Kauai Aadheenam yesterday. He recounts his answer to one of their questions, "Do you have to be a Hindu to have a Hindu guru?" Gurudeva explains the advantages that occur when a devotee adopts the religion of his guru.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam; February 17th.

Yesterday and the day-before, we had a beautiful retreat. We usually don't have guests during our retreat but we made an exception for Ammachi. Amritanandamayi Ma sent fifteen beautiful souls here to Kauai Aadheenam to worship Siva and to have a satsang with me, Gurudeva.

The question came up, which is very interesting, about being a Hindu. "Do you have to be a Hindu to be with a Hindu Guru?" I gave a very interesting answer. It just popped into my head. You can be in a room with your Guru by looking through a glass window. Then, your sadhana is to keep that window clean so you can always have the darshan of your Guru. Of course, the Guru has a public addresses and speakers right out there. But if you really love your Guru, you'll be of the same religion as your Guru is. You'll want to do that. Then, you go through the door and you are no longer on the outside looking in, but you are on the inside with your Guru.

I mentioned to them, "If you really love Ammachi, you'll want to be of the same religion she is and that means commitment. Are you a group of New Age people, who are dedicated to not being committed to anything, totally committed to not being committed?"

They sat up and took notice.

"If you really love Ammachi, really love her, and have really taken her for your Guru, you don't want to be outside looking through a window, and polishing that window as your only sadhana just to make a slight connection. You want to be inside. Once you make the commitment to the Sanatana Dharma, fully and completely, and that becomes your religion as it is her religion, then you'll know all the nuances, all the hidden meanings behind the words."

Compare it to a wife who is of a different religion before she gets married, than her husband. If she really loves her husband, I mean really loves her husband, she'll want to be his religion. She won't make religion a contention between them. However, if she has married for money, for his money, or for social position, or if it is an arranged marriage and the compatibility is really bad, she won't want to become fully his religion. Their souls won't have met, their bodies maybe. Their emotions will tangle over religious issues. Then they say, "Well, we will let the children make up their mind when they grow up, whatever religion they want to be."

Oh, we have seen that happen so much. But if they really love their children, and if they really love each other, they will be of a one religion. The wife won't be on the outside polishing the window, or letting it get dirty and be between them. She will want to be on the inside with her husband and her family.

They caught that idea very nicely. It went right into their mind. So I thought I would share this with everyone in cyberspace. I thought you would like to hear this. So, we will be back again tomorrow. We don't know what today brings, but it is a good astrological time right now for the next thirty days and we are expecting a lot of wonderful things to happen.

Aum Namah Sivaya!