Press Report
New Year’s Eve Programme
31 st December, 2004

Our very souls which had been stunned and bruised by the horror, sorrow and destruction caused by the earth-quake and the Tsunami, required a soothing balm through the sweet and heart-rendering kirtan and bhajans at the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, where hundreds gathered to herald the New Year.

As our hearts were going out to the hundreds of thousands trying to cope with their grief, everyone was quite subdued. Prayers and loving thoughts were being sent out by all. Dada J.P.Vaswani charged us all with hope and joy for the New Year which had been started appropriately with peace in our hearts and the Lord’s name on our lips.

We have been given two-hands – one with which to hold on to the hem of the Lord’s clothes and the other to do our work with. This is the true art of living. According to Dada, Cancer is not the most dreaded disease, but rather that of “forgetfulness”. A tsunami can destroy our lives in the blink of an eye, so every moment should be focused on our goal – that of becoming one with the Divine. Have our footsteps been constantly on this path during the outgoing year?

Sadhu Vaswani in the 1940’s had said that the best New Year gift would be a book with 366 blank pages, the first page to be filled with our goal or inspiration to be achieved during the year.

Thus filled with confidence hope and joy, we were asked to wish – not just “Happy New Year” but “Happy New You”. This ‘Newness’ can be achieved through silence, whence we can still our restless and roaming minds and in this silence become one with our Lord. “S” is the beginning of spiritual life and the ‘S’ is found in silence.