David Dobson (a student of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) opened the doors of The Elkins Estate to Radhanath Swami and David Newman (Durga Das) on Saturday evening.

Durga Das and his band of talented musicians, playing a diverse array of instruments, inundated the packed room with meditative mantra music.

Humility was an underlying theme throughout Radhanath Swami’s presentation. He described how real humility is to be proud of being connected to beautiful miracles that we see all around us – which is actually only a spark of God’s splendor. He gave an example. When he was walking in a giant redwood forest in Northern California earlier this year, he noticed trees at various stages of development. He said the amazing thing is that these large trees were once packed inside small seeds. Then he and his friend were surrounded by police cars from the federal level all the way down to the park security. Some park goers were attacked and assaulted by ‘monks’ – claimed victims. “You’re the only 2 monks we see around here,” said the police. To make it worse, they thought the stains of tomato sauce on Radhanath Swami’s robes to be blood. The police interrogated them for 1 hour. Finally a victim was asked, “are these the 2 men who attacked you?” After a while he replied, “No”. As the policemen were leaving, their leader said, “Swami, you can put this in your next book!”

“Love is everlasting forgiveness,” said Anandamayi Ma. Radhanath swami said, “I meditated for days and weeks on this one sentence. If we actually access love in our heart and we see the essence, purity, and inherent good within everyone – we can forgive them. We may not like the disease, but we love the diseased. Whatever evil or negativity is in a person’s character is only on the level of the ego, the mind, and the body. But the actual person is perfect and divine. We have to learn to forgive ourselves. Yes we have made so many mistakes. We have to take responsibility to correct them, otherwise we become more and more implicated, but at the same time there is nothing to get depressed about. We should understand the beauty, the divinity, the light of who we really are – nothing can change that. Things like our activities and the influences of others can cover that. But if we’re simply sincere, then a power beyond our own will uncover that. In the Bhagavad-gita Krsna says if one just takes shelter of the Lord, He will protect whatever we have and compensate whatever we lack. It is not a matter of our intellect or our health – it’s a matter of our sincerity. That attracts the divine power of grace.”

A living embodiment of humility was Ganashyam Baba. “Unless you know him its hard to really understand. My editor said, ‘that anyone who reads this book is going to totally fall in love with Ganashyam because his personality is irresistible. There is another lady who thinks just like me, who is my best friend and a top editor. I would like to show her the manuscript with your permission because this manuscript is changing my life so much I don’t know how subjective I am anymore.’ So her best friend read it and commented that she really liked the book but can’t stand the section about Ganashyam and it should be taken out. ‘This person is messed up – full of self-effacement and low self esteem.’ My editor and I replied that we thought he was a saint. ‘Then for the benefit of the reader you have to explain what real humility is from a spiritual perspective.’” In this way Radhanath Swami beautifully concluded his talk by restating the definition of real humility.

Radhanath Swami, Durga Das, and all the musicians up front combined their devotion and talent to transport the audience to the spiritual platform through a rousing kirtan. This marked the end of Radhanath Swami’s tour. He has been on the road since July 30 – 90 public programs, 23 private programs, 31 interviews, and countless meetings.