As Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.....”

Which type of people do we want to be? We are searching. We want to attain His Grace. We want to attain His Love, but we are so much stuck in our mind. We want to attain Him, yet how many among us will really surrender everything to Him? How many among us will surrender ourselves completely to Him, will say “Lord, here I am. Take me.”? We say yes, we want to do God’s will, isn’t it?  On the spiritual path we always want to do God’s Will. Yet in our ego self, we want to do our will also a little bit, but we say “It’s the Will of God.” As long as it makes us happy, as long as “I am happy” that’s it, it’s the Will of God, but when it’s not turning towards “What makes me happy”, it’s wrong. What do we do then? We start criticising, we start judging. Does God’s will have judgment into it? Whatever the Divine does is  always for the people. Whatever a Master does is always for raising the spirituality in the disciple.As I said in the beginning, you have to want Him. Then He will come to you. When you say “I want to realise God”, it’s not just superficial, you know? You have to really mean it. When you say “Really, I want Him,” there will be such Love inside of you, such great peace and calmness inside of you, that you will feel Him. Whatever He gives you, if you surrender into Him, if you are surrendered and you really trust that He, His will be done, then you have to remove your desire. You have to remove what makes you happy, but what makes Him happy, that’s the most important thing. Tat is called complete surrender. Such was the life of Madhava Puri. Madhava Puri was a 17th century Saint, who lived in Vrindavan. He used to go begging for his food, but it came to a point that the Love for God was so strong inside of him, that he stopped begging. He said “Whatever God gives me, I will eat.” For days and days he would go without food. On one occasion, he was around Govardhan, the holy mountain, which Krishna lifted with His little finger; he was there for four days. He didn’t eat anything, he sat there. One day, after four days of not eating, a boy, a small boy came to him with a pot of milk and gave him this milk and said “Madhava, drink this.” He looked at the boy and said “Who are you?” The boy,smiling, looked at him and said “Well, I heard some women talking about you not having eaten, so I brought you this milk. I provide for the one who doesn’t beg for anything. I provide for the one who is surrendered to the Lord.” Madhava Puri took the milk and he asked again the boy “Who are you?” He said “Don’t worry about who I am. You drink the milk. I will come later on to get the pot.” Madhava Puri drank the milk. It was like nectar. It was like milk he had never drunk before in his life. He was wondering who this boy was, and inside of him he said “Milk can’t taste like nectar. Milk can’t taste so sweet like that.”  As he was thinking and waiting for the boy to come back to get the pot, he had a dream. In the dream he saw Sri Krishna standing – the same face as the boy. He said “Madhava you didn’t recognise me. It was me who came to you. As I told you, I feed the one who doesn’t beg and who is surrendered to the Lord.” In the dream Krishna said to him “I’m guiding you to a well. Go there, deep inside this well, I am lying for some years. Take me out and do my service.”Early in the morning when he woke up, he was so much in Divine ecstasy. He was feeling so much great joy inside of him, he went around and started calling everybody “Come, let’s go to the well and remove Krishna.” Just as directed in the dream, he went and really they found the well. They removed the beautiful statue of Krishna out from the well and then he took Him out and made a nice temple for Him.They started doing lots of prayers and service to the Vigraha, to the Deity. One day Krishna came again in his dream and said “Madhava Puri, you know I was so long in this well, my body has so much heat from the sun. I need to get sandalwood paste from Puri (which is about 2,500 km up north from Vrindavan). I need to get this sandalwood paste so that I can cool down.”Without thinking, Madhava Puri rushed, left everything, gave the duty to one of his disciples to look after the Krishna. He rushed quickly on the way to Puri, walking. Without thinking  how he would go, without asking for the direction, anything. He just let himself be guided.At that time India was ruled by different kings. Each time you passed a kingdom, you would have to pay something to enter the kingdom, then they would let you in and go on. He didn’t even bother about it. His trust in the Lord was so great that he just walked. On the way, there was a famous temple of Gopinath. As he was passing by, he remembered having heard that in this temple their offering was so great that they would offer twelve pots of buttermilk to Krishna every day, and the buttermilk tastes like, really, like Amrit, like nectar. So he sat down there in the temple and he looked how they were doing their service to the Deity, and he said to himself “I will also do the same.”As he was looking how they did the offering to the Deity, he wanted to taste the buttermilk. Inside of him he had this great desire, but he didn’t dare to go and ask the priest “Give me some.” He was so scared that at night, when the priest had closed the temple, Krishna came in the dream of the priest and said to the priest “My dear priest, there is one of my devotees, one of my disciples, outside in the market. He is singing. I have a credit towards him. You have to take one pot of buttermilk. Go and give it to him. This is his.” The priest did according to what Krishna had told him in the dream. He woke up, took a shower and then took the buttermilk, and as the Lord had said that Madhava Puri was in the market place, he reached there and he saw Madhava Puri singing in ecstasy. He called to Madhava Puri “The Lord has sent this buttermilk for you. Here, take it.”When he heard that this was sent from the temple, from Sri Krishna Himself, he just drank it all. He was so happy that he started to eat even the pot afterwards. When he could not eat more of the pot, because the pot was  made of earth, he kept some. He said later on he would eat it. Of course news don’t stay in one place. They start spreading. So before the news spread, he left the place going towards Puri. As he reached Puri, of course, the news had already reached there. Nobody knew who the person was. The moment he entered the temple of Jagannath, the moment he was in front of the Deity, the Jagannath, he started dancing in Divine ecstasy. So much was his Love for God that there was no consciousness of the outside. The people knew it was Madhava Puri about whom they had heard the story. Of course, news travels faster than one walks, you know.For four months he stayed in Puri, and the devotees, the people there, enjoyed his presence very much. After four months, Krishna said to him in a dream “You forgot about me. I sent you to Puri to get me sandalwood paste.  Bring it to me. I am still waiting for you.” So after four months he went, he got his sandalwood. Big, big, lots of sandalwood he took on his back.He started walking back. Again, he passed by the temple of Gopinath. He stayed there for a few days and at night the Lord appeared in his dream and said to him “My sweet Madhava Puri, you have fulflled everything that I have asked you without even thinking. You have shown the greatest Love, the devotion you have inside of you. I am so pleased with it. You don’t need to bring the sandalwood to Vrindavan. Give it in the temple of Gopinath. I am, myself, there. Tell the priest to make it into powder and apply it on me.”This story shows how much one can surrender, if one wants to. Especially when we say we want to do God’s Will, we have really to do His Will, not our will. To know how the Will of God is, this will be the question, you know? When you pray there is always a feeling that awakens. If you are praying sincerely, and you are sincerely chanting the Name of God, there is this great longing and the great peace and calm that awakens. When this awakens inside of you, there is also the inner voice that will start awakening. When you hear this inner voice, it is even greater than what you have in the mind, because even if you want to do what your mind wants you to do, this one will be greater. You will know that. Your heart will pull you towards that voice.When you chant the Name of God, it’s not just mere chanting when you recite the sweet Name. It’s not just chanting it like that, but what it creates inside of you, what it awakens inside of you, because you see, it is said that the Name of God, and God, are one. There is no difference between the Name of God and God. So when you chant the Name, He is next to you.It is said that when you chant, first your Guru has to be in your mind. From the Master, the Lord will show Himself. So always, when you chant, always place the Master first. In that way, it will be like what Sri Krishna said in the Gita, “If you want to attain me, surrender yourself to your Guru and you will attain me.” To sing the name of the Guru is so easy. There are so many names. Everybody feels close with certain names, but in this age, as it is said, the sweet name of Sri Hari is the most important one. Chant always, and as you chant, let your mind be focused on the Divine. Don’t just do it mechanically, but do it and feel that the Lord is with you, and is standing next to you.