It is a fact that we live for only a very short time. What should we achieve in this short time? In this life we should not forget what it really is that we should achieve. In order to reach the essential goal, what do we need? We need devotion and patience. The more patience a person has the better. Keeping you all waiting for so long has also been a test of your patience! Truly, I didn’t want to test you like this. I was late leaving Birmingham and when I arrived [in Leicester] devotees took up a lot of my time. It was 7 p.m. when I arrived but it took a long time for me to get here to this place because I had to meet so many devotees first. I didn’t stay long in any one place, but the visits included some to really ill patients.
Through the grace of God you should all develop to a higher level. Great beings are destined to be born on Earth in order to establish righteousness in this world. It is for the sake of this that saints, sages and avatars are born – to re-establish devotion, to immerse the world in devotion – because nowadays the world is caught up in adharma, unrighteousness, and more and more people are not living in a right way.
To re-establish this devotion and dharma, people who have attained enlightenment through the power of God, and those who are close to God, are born in this world again and again.
While they are living in this world we don’t understand them but when they are no longer here we begin to think about them. Therefore, there are many great beings with powers who have been born and will be born in this world, yet normally they do not reveal themselves. (…) We have to be mature ourselves in order to be capable of understanding their greatness. Don’t miss the chance to be with them. Try to get close to them and then they will also come closer to you. If you distance yourself from them they will just remain where they are.
If, in this life, you are not going to understand or see what it is that you are being called to realize, then when are you going to see it? Are you going to live for 100 years before finally seeing what is important for you to realize in this world? The government of this country may permit you to live for eighty years but I don’t know whether or not your life will permit it! Therefore, recognize the fact that this life is very short. In that short amount of time you should become aware of what it is that is so important for you to realize and to gain.
In this lifetime, let us try to understand these great saints and the righteous paths they have taught. If you had been born in the time of Lord Krishna, would you have gone to see him? I doubt you would have bothered to go see Lord Krishna, because at that time you wouldn’t have understood who he was. He was only understood after he showed his universal form to Arjuna and after he passed away from this world. During his lifetime very few devotees were aware that he was an avatar and that he was God, but today he is known to just about everyone. Similarly, during Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s lifetime very few people realized his greatness. When Jesus Christ was teaching his dharma what did the people do? They made plans to arrest and imprison him. Instead of listening to his dharma they crucified him. Who tried to crucify Jesus Christ? Who was responsible for his death? If you look into it you will see it was those who feared that he would change the dharma being taught at that time and change the kind of faith which people had in God. People believed in God before Jesus came but they believed in a different way. Thinking that he would disrupt that way of believing, they crucified Christ out of self-interest. There is much competition, jealousy and ego amongst devotional people and people of religion – there was then and there is now. This is the reason Christ was crucified. If he would have lived for some more years he would have been able to spread his dharma more widely. Similarly, you may not be aware of how many obstacles [a current-day avatar] faces in order to spread their message of dharma.
Jai Prema Shanti!
