TRAVELLING GURU

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33671, 22 October 1974, Page 18

TRAVELLING GURU

It is the habit of Swami Guru Davanand Maharaj to travel around the world booking his expenses to his society in Mexico and Brazil. In the course of his travels he gives the occasional lecture on mantra yoga, usually after advertising at some length in local newspapers. This week his lecture is to be in the Town Hall, and his society will bear his expenses. He is the founder of his society—the International Divine Realisation Society. In the meantime he will stay at the People’s Palace, not because the prices are lower there than at other hotels and motels, but because no liquor is allowed on the premises. If a non-drinking atmosphere could only be purchased at a higher fee, even one of the most expensive, he would not hesitate to stay there, although it would be ; immaterial to him whether he slept in luxury or on a -park bench, he said in Christchurch yesterday. The guru—his name means i “always teacher”; Devanand Maharaj are his fore and surnames—will spend 11 weeks in New Zealand speaking to people who want to develop spiritually. No-one was spiritually developed who wanted to know the extent of his formal education, how he fancied his I activities, where his society’s i funds came from, or the kind I of places at which he stayed on his travels, he said. It revealed a certain lack

of spiritual maturity to inquire after his age, how much sleep he had each night, and the significance of his beads. People were spiritually developed who were sympathetic to mantra yoga. Mantra yoga made people more aware of themselves and raised intelligence levels, ; he said. New Zealanders needed their intelligence levels raised because they lived according to rules and regu-

lations. They also refused meals to customers after closing time, and made the stranger feel that he had to look after himself. In India he would not have to look after himself on tour. People would pick him up and ask him to their homes. New Zealanders had a lot to learn, and it would take a long time, but they were not any the less nice because of their spiritual immaturity. They had just failed to complete their education.