After the earthquake in Assisi, Italy in 1998, tourism dropped off for some time. Many small companies went bankrupt. The Ananda group there’s twenty miles outdoors of city on a rural highway. A small restaurant, serving largely espresso and sweets, opened on that highway simply after the earthquake occurred.

“When so many companies are closing,” Swamiji mentioned, “It took braveness to go forward and open anyway. I’d like to assist the proprietor make a hit of his enterprise.” At any time when Swamiji drove to city he made a degree of stopping at that restaurant for a espresso and one thing to eat, greeting the proprietor like an outdated good friend.

Swamiji had recorded lots of his songs in Italian and he introduced a kind of CDs for the proprietor to listen to. “Maybe your prospects would take pleasure in it should you performed music like this,” Swamiji mentioned.

As soon as when Swamiji went in, the proprietor had recent strawberries and ice cream because the specialty of the day. Swamiji’s enthusiasm for the dish appeared to spice up the proprietor’s spirits. Usually Swamiji and his group had been the one prospects within the restaurant.

The proprietor performed Swamiji’s CD each time he got here in, however it’s uncertain that he performed it at another time. “His thoughts is simply too stressed to hearken to my music,” Swamiji mentioned later.   A good friend accompanied Swamiji to the restaurant as soon as and afterwards remarked, “It’s apparent that the proprietor likes you, however I believe he doesn’t fairly know what to make of you. He seems to be at you in such a puzzled manner, as if he had been making an attempt to determine you out.”

Swamiji laughed and mentioned, “Years in the past, a younger man at Ananda Village traveled with me on a lecture tour. He was a pleasant man, however advanced, with many crosscurrents of ego. Each morning at breakfast he would stare at me in simply the way in which you describe. Lastly, after every week, he mentioned in exasperation, ‘I simply can’t determine you out!’

“I informed him, ‘To determine somebody out means to grasp his motives. You possibly can’t determine me out as a result of the one motive I’ve is to serve God.”‘

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Accessible from Crystal Readability Publishers