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In Eternity's Sunrise
A man in spotless white tunic and long white skirt strides buoyantly up the street. He has been in America for nearly ten years. The father of two young sons, he and his family live in a small apartment. He takes a brisk walk every morning, rides the subway, perspires in the summer and wears extra layers of clothing in the winter! He lives in what some consider to be the most hectic and competitive city in the world. Amidst blaring horns and neon lights, in a land of both poverty and plenty, he leads the life of a householder, not so unlike any of us. And yet there is a difference.
The difference lies in his attitude.
He greets each dawn with joy, with respect. "Life itself is a miracle," he says. "Just to wake up after having been submerged in sleep is a wonder. Each moment is a precious golden coin. We cannot buy it back by any means. It is waiting to be enriched by our inner investment." Gurudev is present to the potency of here and now. He has sifted out the best from his past. Now he is drawing continually from the inexhaustible wellspring of his energy to celebrate life in the present, and to shape, with an artist's touch, his future.
"No future is born without the mother of the present," Gurudev explains, "and the present moment remains in your hands. So who is the force determining your course? It is you!" To him, living here and now is neither an existential nor a haphazard experience. It is "using here-now as a platform on which to stand firmly and see the wholeness of eternity in even a fraction of a moment."
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When Gurudev returned to America in March of 1972, his energy was brimming, but he knew how to conserve and channel it, and to just be. "The future does not come in big flood," he observes, "but only in small drops of moments." It is precisely because of this non-dogmatic approach that receptive hearts with interest and quest were drawn to him and
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