His Great Appreciation for Small Acts of Love

Everybody else's tiresome gone with that signature smile
by Sundar Gopal das

One year near Christmas and New Year’s Day, I observed everyone exchanging cards and gifts, so I thought I would make one card for Guru Maharaj (Srila B.B. Tirtha Goswami Maharaja) and decorate it with birds. He opened the card, and I had written something inside.

In shyness, I told him, “You don’t have to read what I have written.”

I felt happy that he spent time looking at the birds that I drew, and he was touching them with his sweet hand and then kept that card on his table. After three or four months, I got an opportunity to serve him inside his room, and to my great surprise, I saw that this card was still there!

This reminded me of how I had once heard a devotee describing one incident in which a mataji had been standing quietly next to Gurudeva while clenching onto a one rupee coin. There were many wealthy devotees around also, but they were offering big stacks of rupee notes and opulent gifts.

She felt shy to offer such a small thing to Gurudeva, but He saw inside her heart and extended his hand to grab the coin from mataji.

I also felt that he did not see my gift as insignificant, so he still kept my card on his table.

I felt in my heart, “Guru Maharaj, I am your smallest son, and you have kept my card on your table.”

4 Comments

  1. A Guru is so dear, so very dear. We have experienced love for our children, our pets, our friends but love for one’s Guru is something above and beyond all that. It is much more. It encapsulates all types of love.

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