Making the audience aspire deeply for divine love, Pujya Gurudev painted the picture of an inspired devotee and his noble interaction with the world while explaining the verses of chapter 12. Moving into the exalted wisdom of the 13th chapter, He guided how to recognize “That dressed in matter is Thou.” It was a comprehensive spiritual experience of sublime devotion and precise Knowledge. To a fascinated audience, Pujya Gurudev reminded: ”Jnana Yajnas can be considered successful not because some discourses have been organized, not because those discourses have been printed in paper-books with printers’ ink. Unless the listeners get those ideas printed in the slates of their hearts with the white ink of purity, none of them can thereafter live, even for a moment, contrary to those eternal ideas of true living. Then and then only can the Yajna be considered as truly successful.”

In Admiration 
Smt. Rani Bhan shares the transformation Gurudev’s talks had on her:
Swamiji’s lectures did for me what a teacher does for a willing pupil when he is faced with a problem. These lectures drew out from within me my basic urge to know and focused it on the central principle of existence. A good teacher opens up the flood-gates within one’s own Self, and through this opening, understanding gushes through, brightening up existence and ennobling life’s meaningless routines.

In her welcome address, Srimathi Rani Bhan, the Secretary of the yajna, said, “Shri Swamiji is no individual personality but an emblem of India’s determination to awake. He is to all of us the symbol of the Hindu Revival. He is to us the voice of the rishis of yore.” Pujya Gurudev became the voice of Sage Angirasa  who answers an eminently successful householder, Sounaka’s    transcendental question about the Highest Knowledge. As Pujya Gurudev unraveled most systematically the contents of the most sublime Mundakopanishad, the audience were fascinated. His incredible clarity of expression made the sincere seekers attempt to bring the Ungraspable, Attributeless Eternal Self within intellectual focus. His eloquence and experience made all contemplate on lofty topics such as Creation, Consciousness, and Brahman. 

A most compassionate Teacher who spared no efforts to bring the subtlest Truth within the realm of sadhana, Pujya Gurudev worked tirelessly with selfless love. In the three successive yajnas held at Delhi, He also held morning classes  in Vivekachoodamani and Tattvabodha. To work 20 hours everyday exuding dynamism and love was Pujya Gurudev’s divine forte.

In Admiration 

Smt. Lakshmi Pande, whose faith faced challenges amidst life’s circumstances, narrates the profound influence of Gita Jnana Yajnas in her life, describing the transformative journey that extended to her entire family.
“The shaking faith in the justice and kindness of God was completely revived. I learnt to interpret everything in terms of a larger and wider scheme of things which nobody can interfere or meddle with, and which has its own meaning and purpose. The Gita Yajnas has a similarly surprising influence over my husband who has transformed from an extreme atheist into a deeply religious man of saner values of life.”

Even her seven-year-old son Amitabh would attentively listen to Pujya Gurudev, expressing how the Yajna impacted him.

“When I saw Swamiji and heard his lecture, I thought I will be just like him. When I did meditation, I felt clean and saw light around him. I was drawn towards him. I felt like giving up all things as cinemas, dramas, parties for his lectures.

The  22nd Jnana Yajna was inaugurated by Diwan Anand Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, Punjab University. In His address before the Jnana Yajna began, the Vice-Chancellor wondered: “Our Rishis of old were the first to develop a coherent theory about the relationship of space, time, matter, and events. One is struck with wonder at the remarkable similarity between their concepts and those of higher physics today. According to our Rishis as in Modern Physics, matter and energy are identical.” Pujya Gurudev, with His systematic exposition of Vedantic concepts, sharpened the students’ perceptions of the world of matter; He encouraged them to enquire and participate in the grand Upanishadic style of recognizing the energizing Principle behind all the sense organs, mind, and intellect. In the daring journey to find “the mind of the mind” and the source of Everything, Pujya Gurudev took the bright young minds on a higher plane of learning.

In Admiration 

Shri Amba Dutt Pande, once an atheist transformed into a believer by Gurudev’s discourses on the Bhagavad Gita, expresses the impact of Gurudev and Gita on him:
“Everyday the richness, the depth and the meaning of the Divine message condensed in the Gita came to us as a revelation, enriching our minds and giving us a new interpretation of life and its purpose. The Gita Jnana Yajna made us realize how in the Gita all the seemingly diverse teachings have become reconciled and fitted into one pattern as the Truth is all embracing. This has been our common experience.”

The royal welcome indicated how much the Madurai audience was elated about the 31-day Gita Jnana Yajna on chapters 12 and 13. “This is my place, the land of Shiva!” Pujya Gurudev remarked with great love for the legendary Meenakshi-Sundareshwara temple in Madurai. The place was apt for Pujya Gurudev to bring out the profound yoga of devotion in Gita chapter 12. As He explained the attributes of a true devotee, the audience could visualize how a limited ego  dissolves in complete identification with the Supreme. In His words, the audience heard the echoes of Saiva Siddhanta, the bhakti-focused literature composed by Tamil saints. He then skillfully spotlighted the essence of Chapter 13 – the way to first distinguish the Kshetra, the inert field of matter and instruments of knowledge, from the enlivening spark of life, the Kshetrajna or Knower. Pujya Gurudev stole the hearts of the large audience in Madurai, personifying an environment of Knowledge sweetened with supreme Love.

In Admiration 

The lasting impression of how Pujya Gurudev conducted himself during the talks made an indelible mark on Shri P Chandrasekhar. He wrote: “The punctuality of the Master definitely teaches one that, in religious life, one should be punctual and methodical. The Adhyaksha is so neat and attractive that it removes any misconception that Masters can be shabby and that it has religious sanction. There is military discipline in the Yajna Shala and no interference with it is tolerated.”

His rational and clear explanations of the declarations of Ishavasya Upanishad every evening for 21 days caught the attention of both these opposing factions and converted many of the skeptics. Pujya Gurudev enthralled the listeners especially with His out-of-the-world meditation sessions every night, during the last half hour of each session. While the supplemental Sadhana such as Akhanda Keertana and the Havana energized the seekers, there were obstacles that arose. Especially on the first three days of August, the Dravida Kazhagam had announced about breaking Sri Rama’s pictures which prompted a statewide curfew. However, Pujya Gurudev’s Upanishad yajna proceeded unhindered. Later, during the procession after their sacred bath, when loud slogans disrupted their keertana, the devotees persisted with their singing to overcome the disturbance. The ardent seekers could stand strong not with negativity but with the firm conviction about the greater goal of life.

In Admiration 

Shri Yagnaswami from Tanjore reflects on the insights acquired through the teachings of Gurudev. “I learnt that Bhakti, Jnana and Karma are not distinct limbs of separate Yogas. Bhakti, pure and simple, is the outcome of Jnana. In the first the heart comes into play, in the second Intellect or Jnana enlightens it; the combination of these two is Supreme Love or Prem. My Grhasthaashrama experiences, with all its complications do not now affect me: I remain unattached. Even under extreme provocation, I remain calm and unperturbed due to Guru-Krpa.

Rewa was caught up in Pujya Gurudev’s contagious passion for Vedanta that on July 5, 1956, a day before the yajna concluded, Sri. K. K. Sharma, the Chief Secretary to the Vindhya Pradesh Government, admired: “He has made Vedanta as precise as science, as beautiful as poetry, and as enchanting as romance.” Mrs. Sheila Sharma who had devotedly translated into Hindi a few books of Pujya Gurudev’s including the Kenopanishad wrote in Tyagi about a special happening; on the 19th day of the Yajna until Pujya Gurudev returned from the sacred bath (Avabhrta Snanam) at Panna, the gathered audience had waited for Him in sublime silence for over an hour! The 18 days of Kenopanishad, the three days of Maha Mrtyunjaya Homa, the sacred bath and the prayers offered to both Krishna and Khuda at the Pran-nath temple in Panna, the joyful procession of Mahamantra chanting, and the engulfing silence of meditation after the  sacred Ganga waters was sprinkled on the audience – Pujya Gurudev had taken Rewa into spiritual ecstasy.

In Admiration 

Mrs. Susheela Sharma from Rewa recounts Pujya Gurudev’s mysterious ability to connect with people and draw them in, guiding their focus towards profound self-inquiry. “He distributed Vedanta in such a sugar-coated form, that it became acceptable to all who has even for once strayed into the canopy under which he carried on his free distribution. They were all left smacking their lips when it was over. The taste left was so pleasing that they all hung around for more and more of it. He moved with crowds, and he had time for one and all. Each one felt that he was only his, while he was all the time everybody’s and therefore, nobody’s.”