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• Personal Growth

November 2016

By Life Positive

People think I am 98, but I am eight!” chimed Dada JP Vaswani, the ever smiling head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, evoking roaring laughter from a crowd of hundreds. His very quality of lighting up a gathering with his incandescent smile, and drawing a chuckle from even the most serious faces has made millions across the globe his followers.  Hundreds of them gathered in Delhi’s Kamani auditorium to listen to him that evening.

In a talk peppered with lovely little anecdotes driving home crucial life lessons, Dada propounded, in his child-like enthusiasm, on the importance of finding God within and surrendering to Him. “As a young kid of eight, I didn’t have many desires save one – to own a Conklin fountain pen. One day, a friend of my father’s visited us, and presented me with two packages to choose from. One was wrapped in a beautiful shiny green paper and the other one in a plain brown paper that no one would give a second look. I held both of them in my hands and suddenly a voice within nudged me to choose the brown package. I jumped with joy after unwrapping it as it unveiled a brand new Conklin fountain pen!” Dada said gleefully. He explained that every experience – whether wrapped in joy or sorrow – is a gift from life and helps one become a better person, if one accepts it as it is.

This was the crux of Dada’s talk, titled Discover Yourself which was jointly organised by Life Positive‘s President Shri D R Kaarthikeyan’s  Foundation for Peace, Harmony and Good Governance (FGG) and Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Delhi. More than 700 people gathered to have a glimpse of their favourite master.

Renowned Kathak exponent Padmashree Shovana Narayan moderated an interactive session with Dada where the latter answered each and every question in his straightforword and quintessentially humorous style. “Have a daily appointment with God for at least 15 minutes,” he iterated every now and then. “Surrender all your actions at His feet, free yourself from ‘I am the doer’ thought and become His medium.”

Dada’s words, acting like a lasso, gently pulled back the wayward mind from its wanderings to focus on the truth – that the way to find one’s true self starts with spending time with the self.