Maharaj was eager to speak with groups in America before returning to India. We arranged several meetings for him in the Washington, D.C. area. One was a private meeting with the chief arms negotiator for the U.S. government, with Ralph Singh translating. According to Ralph, he was quite impressed with Maharaj and his message. Another meeting was in the home of Suzanne MacKenzie and Andrew Euston, who was at that time a senior official in Housing and Urban Development in the U.S. government. Those who came to meet Maharaj there were visionary architects and urban planners, most of them members of a society for urban renewal. Among them was Jim Schulman, who after hearing Maharaj concluded, “Gobind Sadan is the prime example of sustainability.”

With Andrew Euston of HUD

We also called a varied group of people to meet Maharaj in a Holiday Inn conference room. Maharaj spoke to them first about his development work at Shiv Sadan:

At first the people in those poor areas said, “There is no God, for God is not feeding us.” We began feeding them and said, “God is feeding you.” There were two effects: They were fed, and they began believing in God.

God is love. How can you sell love? One can only see God’s Love when there are no demands attached to it. Perhaps what the priests are saying has nothing to do with God’s orders. It is possible that people who come to pray with clear hearts are following God more than those who are supposed to be praying for them.

We should look at each other as one humanity and serve everyone. Instead, we look at what kind of social position or job people have. What does that matter to God?

A woman named Vicky asked, “How can we know what God’s order for us is?”

Maharaj replied,

If you have hurt someone’s feelings or become angry, you must understand that this has not been directed by the Voice of God. But when that Voice says, “I am going to be nice to someone whether anyone else likes them or not,” that is the Voice of God.

God is sitting within you and will guide you. God has given you a thermometer. How can you not hear that Voice? When you love God, your mind will always be filled with those thoughts that will lead you in the right direction. When we try to make decisions ourselves, we push God away. Let us live in this world like a child and always think of God. Doubt will not remain if we make ourselves children of God. God will guide us in very positive ways.

Another person asked, “How much time should we meditate?”

Maharaj explained,

What is meditation? Always attuning your mind to God. Thanking God at all times, always being aware that God is with you. Meditation is keeping God always with you. Thank God for sleep, for the workings of your body. That is the best meditation.

If we devote even a little bit of love to God, God will fill us with tremendous power and faith. It is not that we say we are doing something. We think and say that God is doing it. We will get rid of our ego, our pride. We will forget that any of our actions are involved.

I am speaking about knowing that God is with you and talking to God as you are working. It is not ritual prayer. If we actually feel God with us and see that Light of God everywhere, all strife will disappear and we will all be brothers and sisters. It is an inner thing.

How can we explain the love of God? Those in love are silent, continually working and serving with an internal feeling that God is with them. But it is very difficult to understand that God is with us.

A man named Hank requested, “It is very hard in industrial society. Is there a method for living in this non-natural setting?”

Maharaj answered,

If you are in love with someone, no matter where you are the thought of that beloved will be with you. When even a little of that love of God comes in you, no matter how depraved or corrupt the people around you, that love will bubble up within you. But you have to spend a little time. We are willing to make tremendous sacrifices to develop love for a person, but there are no sacrifices in love for God. The feeling that we get is beyond words. Just take your thoughts in that direction a little. God will bless you. A childlike love is all that is required. God will be very happy.

It is always my prayer for everyone that we find that love of God. We spend all our time thinking about it, but we don’t act. We don’t reach out our hand of flesh.

Another person asked, “How do you make decisions?”

Maharaj said,

We look to God. We take God’s orders, standing in prayer before God. The answer comes and we act on it. There are no committees.

For people who really love God, the closer they come to God, the more humble they are. God’s house is so open, so vast.