Hey hey and namaste!

As always, I sincerely appreciate this satsang for allowing me to continue to write these essays. If there is ever any specific topic someone wishes me to write about, please write to Baba’s Feed Project and let us know. I’d LOVE to talk about what you want to hear, rather than what I think I ought to speak on. And it’s all through Him. All from the Grace of the Guru.

When I was in second grade, our teacher was teaching cursive. She used to have us practice the letter writing in the air. Through the air we would trace the cursive a, then b, etc. until we arrived at z. Then, we would take our hand, as a make shift eraser, and erase the chalkboard of air in front us: readying it for more practice. When we were finished erasing the air, she would hand out cookies. A boy named Kyle sat next to me. One day she gave him two cookies. TWO! We got one. Everyone got one. Except for Kyle. He got two. Two small cookies. And I got one. One small cookie.

In a second grade classroom.

In an elementary school.

In a small town in Pennsylvania.

Nearly three decades ago.

And I carried that weight, that resentment, that frustration, and the desire for a different outcome, with me until I did a fourth and fifth step with my sponsor in 2017. For decades that was a cornerstone of my mental being. Whether I realized it or not, future decisions were reoriented based on that stored, perceived belief.

If you fill a glass up with milk, to the top, then take those metal ice cube things, and drop them in: what happens to the milk? It spills outside of the glass, while the metal ice cube stays inside. If we do it with enough ice cubes, eventually most of the milk will have spilled out.

We are the glass and resentments, these attachments to things of the past, are the ice cubes. We can only hold so much love, so much compassion, so much happiness. When we allow ourselves to become filled with resentment, frustration, and anxiety, we slowly allow that milk to spill out. We waste that product. And, our product is Love.

Love comes in a plethora of forms: such as compassion. Compassion can, often times, come out as simply as letting someone be comfortable with who they are. We often, in the West, think of compassion as celebrity X providing $X, xxx amount to a charity. Or the basketball player helping gang violence. Yes, those are compassionate actions, but it doesn’t have to be as lavish as that. Holding the door in the rain, smiling at the person when they look at you, telling someone you have a splendid day- these are all forms of compassion. Beautiful, sincere, LOVING compassion. If we all practiced these, more frequently, in our daily lives, think of the marvelous place this Earth could be. People spreading Love, talking to each other with respect and kindness. That place is possible. It is obtainable. God is either everything or God is nothing. If God is everything, and God is Love: shouldn’t we treat everything as such?

My tenth grade science teacher used to say “No matter how nice it feels to be important, it’s always more important to be nice.”

I again thank you all, and my Guru: Neem Karoli Baba Maharajji. Without Him, I am nothing. He is my All. Jai Gurudev.

~Ganga Das

Ganga Das is an American Sadhu and sanyasi: having taken formal vows of renunciation in 2022. He is currently based out of a Hindu Buddha Mandir near Baltimore, MD.