My Meeting with Swami Divyananda Maharaj Ji, Jul 2024
- Akshaj Shil
A member of the Youth Choir
Monday, July 22, 2024
This summer, my father and I went to India. My Mamai (maternal uncle) took me to Kashipur (Kolkata) at 10:30 AM on July 22, 2024. When we entered the room Swami Ji was in and a crowd was listening to his lecture. I greeted him by touching his feet and he gave some candies as Prasadam. He also talked with me a lot. He asked me what grade I’m in, where I live, how old I was, which school I went to, and a few more questions. He’s a very wise and intelligent person with a lot of knowledge. I was very impressed meeting him.
He taught me how to multiply two numbers ending with five. You multiply the first digits of both numbers, and you round the first digit of the second number to the next number. That product goes first in order. The product that comes next is the one that is multiplied by both the second digits. Example: 45 x 45
45 rounded to 50; First digit: 5
4 x 5 = 20 5 x 5 = 25
45 x 45 = 2025
He also taught me what meditation is. Meditation is when you constantly think about something.
Then he told me a story: Once upon a time there was a king, who didn’t have a child. He decided to adopt an honest young man who would be wise enough to serve the kingdom. The king gave every young man in town a seed, and told those young men whoever could grow the best plant would be adopted by him. The following year, everyone in town came with beautiful plants, except one man. The king crowned the honest man without a plant. Everyone went into a state of deep confusion, because he didn't have a plant, and the king said whoever could nurture a plant the best would be crowned prince. The king said that he had boiled the seeds, so the seeds were useless. The other dishonest men got seeds of the same type and planted those seeds. This is a story of honesty.
Swami ji was focused on me the whole time I was there. Before my maternal uncle and I left, Maharaj Ji gave me some Batasha Sweets to eat later.
I met him again at Agartala Ramkrishna Mission in Agartala, on the evening of July 24, 2024. It was impressive when he recalled my name and where I was from. When I said “hi” to him, he told me, “Akshaj, you are from Connecticut, right?”. My maternal grandfather, my father and I went to see him. He gave me some candy as Prasadam. We couldn’t talk for long, but his wisdom impressed us.